Spotify's Discover Weekly Playlist Has the Hickups

Just when it made its way into the hearts and minds of millions, Spotify's much-talked-about Discover Weekly playlist, that big-data-curated weekly personal playlist tayloring to all your music discovery needs, has got the hick ups. As of 12pm today (local time in the Netherlands), Spotify users have yet to receive their weekly fix, causing dismay in (home) offices and, by extension, on twitter as well.

Spotify have commented via their Customer Service twitter account (@SpotifyCares):

Still seeing last week’s Discover Weekly? We’re just fine-tuning it for you. Check out Fresh Finds while you wait: http://t.co/UOHKY6KtDH

— SpotifyCares (@SpotifyCares) 21 september 2015

Fine-tuning obviously equals some kind of technical defect. So either the server has decided to give up on loading 70 million playlists more or less simultaneously, or the algorithm is showing signs of fatigue. After all, despite the copious amounts of new music being uploaded to Spotify every week, it's hard to keep surprising your clientele with fresh music week after week.

Perhaps the playlists are too long for Spotify to keep check on. While I think 30 songs (or about 2,5 hours) is a good size for a playlist, it might be too much to ask from the Spotify vaults. Alternatively, the algorithm might be too specific or too complex (what with labels covertly buying priority placement on the Discover Weekly playlists and such).

Then again, with programming of this magnitude, one is bound to run into some defect sooner or later. If anything, today's events have shown how much people have grown to rely on Discover Weekly for their new music intake. If it wasn't apparent yet from Spotify's internal user statistics, then they've got their evidence now. Less than two months since the grand reveal, Discover Weekly has become an institution that's sorely missed when suddenly absent from its users' Monday morning.

In some office somewhere in  Spotify HQ, I imagine Spotify's Head of Content, Steve Savoca, smiling mischievously at all the ruckus today. Technical issues are temporary, but Discover Weekly might just last forever.

Nick Cave Studies (3): Studious Summer

The actual start of the academic year is nigh. Over the past eight weeks, I've read two novels by Cave, listened to his music and watched movies he either wrote or soundtracked (or both). When I wasn't doing that, I was reading and listening to his influences: Faulkner, Nabokov, Hank Williams, Elvis, Johnny Cash et cetera. 

Furthermore, I've been digging deep into OOR's archives to uncover a plethora of Cave (and Cave related) articles and interviews. OOR is the eldest of music magazines in the Netherlands, with a reputation similar to that of NME or Rolling Stone. Over the past 35 years Nick Cave became one of their spearhead artists, spending pages on him with every release (album, compilation, movie, bowel movements).

A page from the OOR Archives (1984)

What I haven't done, is put anything resembling coherent ideas on paper. Everything is cooped up inside my brain waiting (impatiently, I might add) to be thrusted upon the page like splashes of paint on a Herman Brood canvas. I've got notebooks, napkins, and airline sick bags full of doodles, squiggly lines and general braindump.

It's a mess. I need some proper reflection. I need my thesis-supervisor! Thank God school's in session in two weeks. While it might sound like I've gone astray a bit and found myself stuck in the academic marshes, my situation isn't as bad as it might sound. I have at this point a number of fairly clearly defined themes for my thesis.

My thesis will consider one or more of the following subjects: "Spaces of Creation", an investigation in the way that Cave recreates his personal environment in his songs and novels; "Nick Cave's Mythical Beasts (and Where to Find Them)", an investigation of Cave's interest in icons, both religious and secular, and the way he fashions himself as an artist-icon; "Familiar Cave Antics", which might become an estimation of family values as both the honest and satirical center of Cave's literature. Not too sure yet about this one, considering Cave's recent family tragedy. But it's something which runs throughout his work, and thus fairly interesting.

In short, excited to REALLY get underway with this thing. Now if you'll excuse me, Lolita is waiting.

Discover Weekly, what to expect?

As we all know, the road to discovery can be a bumpy one. Sometimes the results can be unexpected. We all know Columbus didn't exactly find what he was looking for, but Native Americans became Indians nonetheless. Music discovery can have the same mouth watering effect to certain nerds that Spanish doubloons have on deep sea divers. 

Let me get to the point. 

This week, Spotify rolled out their new personalised playlist Discover Weekly: 30 yet unheard tracks from the Spotify vaults, selected based on your listening behaviour and those of users with similar taste in music. 

The mechanics behind it are purely systematic: a comparative analysis of tracks and styles  of a single user compared to 70 million others, picking up on similarities and the probability of a ‘match’ between a user and a track. 

On the one hand it’s a huge leap forward, crowd-sourcing nuggets on such a scale is genius. On the other hand, there is no chance of accountability, of a narrative behind the selection. Something which make DJ sets and curated playlists such a joy to discover and/or revisit. 

For example, I regularly check out Perfects.nl’s A Perfect Chart, curated by DJ and eclectic music mainstay St. Paul. He's an acquaintance of mineThe overlap in music taste is quite big, and I know he’s still quite a bit more compulsive as far as music discovery is concerned. And, in line with Perfects.nl’s USP, there are liner notes. That is an added value that Discover Weekly can never have. 

Another dizzying question: How do we rate these playlists? And who or what is it we rate when we do that? I suppose it’s the natural born critic in me that feels the urge to examine this playlist, to judge its worth. 

Supposedly, a review would best be considered over a certain period: six months or a year or so. That’s quite a task: 30 tracks per weeks, times 52 weeks equals 1560 new tracks on a yearly basis. Most people don’t take in that much new music by a mile. So in my view Spotify is really targeting their core users, the nutters that are already knee deep in music compulsions. These people already have their Perfect Charts, New Music Fridays etc. It will be interesting to see whether Spotify’s new algoritm has the power to really take people by suprise and knock ‘em out with a hit unheard. 

As for my first week’s worth of Discover Weekly. I’m not a full-on Spotify user, Itunes and my turntable still being my foremost music players. As such, there were quite a few songs I already knew (Alabama Shakes, Tamikrest, tUnE-yArDs, Floating Points, D’Angelo, Axel Boman).

Some early reviews complained about old tracks being added to the mix. I don’t really consider this a bad thing. In fact, it turned me on to music I knew but haven’t heard in  while (Neu!, Swans, Underworld), and in at least one case (Scott Walker) I knew about the artist without ever having listened to them. 

Finally, this week’s playlist introduced Henri Texier to me, a French jazz bassist whose 1977 album Varech is an incredible piece of home recording. Very different, but very groovy. There are currently 0 copies of this album on sale on Discogs, so you might say this is as obscure a nugget as it gets. There are very few people who could have put me on to Texier’s work, and I’m happy to know it. 

Obviously, there were also lesser songs on this list. But it’s not every week I get to discover artists like Henry Texier or Scott Walker. In the end, the value in any recommendation is dictated by the extent to which it resonates with the person on the receiving end. The tingle I get when I hear something new and exciting - that’s the endgame. And this week’s playlist has not disappointed in that -very important- sense. 

In the next few weeks, I’ll try and give an update of my experiences with Discover Weekly. As said before, we should really see how DW functions over a longer period of time. After all, nobody needs another one hit wonder. 

Nick Cave Studies (2): Notes on an unfortunate accident

It's taken some  time to arrive at the point of writing another blogpost concerning my Nick Cave bachelor thesis research. The reason for this is rather bleak: Cave's 15-year old son has died in an accident. Reports indicate he fell of a cliff somewhere outside Brighton, where the Cave family has its residence.

A number of things went through my mind when I first heard of this unfortunate accident. First: Do I really want to pry into a grieving man's art, especially one who displays such morbid fascination in his work? Second: Does it really change anything about his work? Third, and I hate myself for saying this: How will this change Cave's attitude towards future endeavors? Will he change his tune? He might retire, even. Or will it spur him onto new artistic achievements.

It's tricky to think about all this. My fandom and my scholarly perceptions are getting their wires crossed. There's a difference between studying an active artist and a retired one. I sincerely hope he'll remain active. But that sentiment obviously shouldn't interfere with my objectivity.

Certainly, the death of Cave's son puts some of his work in a different light. Arthur Cave actually makes an appearance in 20.000 Days on Earth, the semi-fictional Cave documentary flick. Cave senior comes home to have pizza with his two sons in front of the TV. The stylized shot, taken from behind the TV screen, sees Cave and his two teenage boys bathing in white light, adding to Nick's Dracula-like appearance. His sons seem perfectly at ease. I don't even know which one is Arthur. The pizza is a huge American style pepperoni.

Cave likes synchronicity. The short scene shows a remarkable similarity with a short passage in Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro. The protagonist and title character, eats day-old pizza with his son, Bunny jr., in front of the TV, after their respective wife and mother is taken away. Suicide. Around this time, the perspective occasionally shifts from father to son. The way Cave depicts this father-son relationship and the love he has for the characters, you cannot help but think the author got his inspiration from a place close to home. The fact that the novel plays in Brighton only adds to the familiarity.

If that isn't spooky enough, I just finished watching the first season of a BBC series called Broadchurch. Poignantly, the series focuses on the murder investigation of an adolescent boy found on the beach of a fictitious town on the Jurassic Coast. That pretty much covers the entire southern coastal stretch west of Brighton. I've just started watching Twin Peaks (my first time, incredible isn't it?) and I'm just happy I don't know anyone in that particular area of the world.

Finally, I've had my own experience with these types of untimely deaths. A friend of mine died at 16 from a traffic accident. It's been 11 years, but it still regularly comes into focus as one of the most powerful moments in my teenage years. I remember people coming together to grieve. I remember helping to put together a cd with music for the funeral. It was a way for me to be useful, preventing me from twiddling my thumbs, getting restless. Many of those songs are inextricably tied to that memory. "Forever Young", "Old and Wise", and, an odd choice perhaps, "Dilemma" by Nelly & Kelly Rowland. It was a big hit back then, and one of my friend's favorites apparently.

Music was a big part of the grieving process. It consoled people, prompted emotions to burst out of their shell. For Nick Cave, I imagine, music is a way of conjuring death, of taming it. Cave's way of dealing with death has always been partially like a snake charmer, taunting him, making death dance to his tunes. At others, he mourns sincerely, but never without a touch of sardonic humor. In both ways, he has consoled people, bringing them together through performance and through headphones. Communal gatherings and quiet contemplation.

This is why I continue to research Nick Cave, to want to add to the body of research on his life and work. Cave is a consoler of the lonely, the mourning, the loving. Throughout his work he charms death like a snake, making death dance to his music. Perhaps his own work will not console him. But perhaps fans, researchers and followers can reciprocate some of this consolation by showing the many interesting and powerful aspects of Nick Cave's words and music. I will do so with the utmost respect for his person and circumstances. It will be a way of giving back to an inspiring figure, even if it will, without a doubt, go completely unnoticed.

Nick Cave Studies (1): Return to Writing

Dear all,

Maintaining productivity on a blog has proven to be one of the hardest, most impossible things I've ever tried to do (keeping a smooth shaven chin has proven equally impossible). As with all things internet, though, my blogs have stuck around and so have I. You can still read my off-the-cuff album reviews or stream-of-consciousness registrations of me wandering through Amsterdam or buying a guitar in Paris. Looking back, most of it is pure shenanigans. People seem to have enjoyed at least some of it. I even managed to get an audition for a successful Dutch band by writing how hard it was to play the bass parts of their former bass player... That was a pretty spectacular side effect of having a blog, I'd say. 

Since then, my music writing has dwindled a bit as a result of my return to University to study English Language and Culture here in Utrecht, my residence for the past 3,5 years. I've continued to write on and off for OOR in the meantime, but I've been exclusively spreading those via social media. In my academic writing, music has not been completely out of the picture either. On more than one occasion, I plagiarized the titles for my essays from song titles. Burning Down the House, The Song Remains the Same and Make Some Noise made their way to various title pages the past two years. I've written about US literature and music consumption, which was kind of a vindication for the fact that I never really learned to write proper essays when I was enrolled in Music Studies in Amsterdam. But I haven't managed to get back to blogging as a means of either artistic self expression or (academic) criticism these past years. 

...Until now. In the past months I've largely given up on social media, which has cleared up quite some time and energy for other things. Furthermore, I've found that I still have plenty of private thoughts and opinions that might be of some use to someone out here on the interwebs. As it stands, OOR is a great medium, but my palette is limited there to live reviews. I still enjoy writing one of those from time to time, but my hunger to develop different styles and forms of writing is pulling me in a different direction. So here I am, quite possibly talking to myself on a blog which exists in a social media vacuum. 

Still from "Nick Cave: 20.000 Days on Earth"

There is, however, a second motive to return to writing for this blog. I'm embarking on a quest to write a bachelor's thesis this summer. For the next 4 months, I will be immersed in the world of Nick Cave, studying him as a poet, a novelist and a screenwriter, as well as a persona in a self-created rock 'n roll myth. I'm considering publishing excerpts from my writing, as well as a host of the superfluous ideas which pop up in the course of my studies but have fuck all to do with my thesis. I reckon it will either be a complete High Fidelity nerd thing or a half-assed literary effort depending on what inspiration gets to me. In any case, it seems Distorted Reflections continues to be a fitting title for my personal blog. Come to think of it, might be a contender for the title of my thesis as well. All the more reason to get back to publishing some stuff on here. 

One final note, on 'return to writing' posts. I've done a bunch of these over the years, intending to start new series of articles, inspire new vigor in myself  or just to get some attention. It never fucking works, and I always feel stupid when I come across them years later. So much for good intentions... Bollocks! So why do any better this time? Well, with the attention seeking brought to a minimum as a result of my social media absence, I'm hoping I might start to write purely for my own benefit and enjoyment. Hopefully, it'll do me some good. 

BEWARE! REVIEW: Tududuh - Storm Murale

www.tududuh.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/tududuhlalala

Ronald Straetemans is an ambitious man. On his first studio album proper as Tududuh, Storm Murale, the Utrecht singer-producer attempts to reconcile his indiepop-infected past with his love for all things electronic, psychedelic and cinematic. His choice of collaborators for this undertaking (a producer with a knack for creating noizy soundscapes, a clasically trained singer-pianist and a French rapper) reflects an omnivorous approach to appropriating musical influences into an artistic identity that's bordering on schizophrenia.

Straetemans has set himself up for a precarious juggle of stylistic elements. Synth washes, electro-tinged beats, murky bass and filtered vocals constantly fight for their place in Tududuh's sonic spectrum. As a result the production of this album is quite dense, congested even. No easy listening to be found here. But with some attentive listening, the album reveals intruiging avenues and quite a few infectious melodies.

Consider "Motor Oil", the album's opening track. Despite the murky textures and electronic feel, the track emanates strong David Bowie vibes throughout. It's arty, but with a great awareness of pop music. "Echo of a Smile" is of the same variety, albeit with an undeniable 80s bassline and hedonist Gainsbourgian vocals. In these cases, the production seems to try and obscure the fact a good pop song is buried beneath the industrial rubble. "Not to Worry", on the other hand, is a fine example of how Straeteman's production and rapper Reazun's second guestspot lift the song to both epic and trippy proportions in ways that recall triphop's finest hour.

Like many ambitious producers, Straetemans still lacks the skill to turn his many flights of fancy into a coherent substance of consistent quality. It's something that will have to grow along the way. Do not misstake this for a mediocre record however. Storm Murale shows great promise. Even if this album does not fully satisfy from start to finish, it does leave you wondering in what directions Straetemans will steer his project next. Tududuh has the potential to keep listeners engaged over the course of several albums as they progress, digress and dig deeper into their own musical background and identity. It's a matter of sitting back and letting the narrative unfold itself.

>>>Watch the video for "Change Of Seasons", taken from Storm Murale, below<<<

Life After Digital Suicide?

So,

With the 3-week mark behind me my perspective on life after digital suicide is becoming more and more clear to me. And it's no walk in the park. The realisation has sunk in that digital suicide basically means doing ALL of your social interaction the hard, direct way. Also, it was just one of the circumstances reinforcing my social isolation. I'm still struggling to 'get real' and reach out to people in order to get more out of my social life. No one action is decisive in this process. It's a long, slow march to social enlightenment and no single step is more significant than the other.

Dealing with people solely on a face-to-face or via 'direct media' (eq. phone, e-mail) means you don't talk to people unless you have something to say specifically to them. Facebook and Twitter might give a lot of people a window to spill nonsense into the digital realm, for a lot of others (myself included) it meant sharing what is on one's mind in a quick and easy matter. And while I certainly don't want to be engulfed within this realm the way I was before, in my absence the merits of social media have also become more clear to me.

On another note, I may have underestimated the actual connection these social media have to real life. While I may have opted out of using social media, most musicians are forced to work with it because it is the only way to reach out to their audience across the globe. Being forced to reconsider what seemed like a done deal just a few weeks ago because of my work is very frustrating. If I'm to involve myself in this industry beyond this point, I will have to either draw the line (and probably get less jobs) or meet the terms of my employers when it comes to social media. The fact that it took less than a month for an employer to request my presence in the social media sphere as it was deemed 'essential to my assignment', is proof that I'm not overstating the issue here.

But shouldn't we have a choice? Isn't the decision to pursue a presence in social media a personal one? I feel very strongly that I don't want it to be something that is dictated to me in my life. It almost seems as if we are, unwittingly, conforming to a system that discriminates those who choose not to be part of it. Are we aware that behind this harmless blue-and-white logo there is something very totalitarian at play here? One that leeches on people's ego, ambition and greed?

On the other hand, it's kind of nice that after years of building up my social network I'm finally able to harvest some income from my hard labour. In the current economy one can't really be idealist about the way one makes his money. The point is that to my mind, I'm a better employee without the social media thing. That counts for something, right?

So what am I to do? Forced into reconsidering my priorities while still being hell-bent on completing this little suicide mission is giving me a headache. Meanwhile, there are so many things in life that are more important, more worthy of my time and headspace.

If only there was  a way of controlling social media without them controlling you... I've spoken to more than a few people about the possibilities of this, and everybody agrees there must be a way... they just don't know what it is. My own insights tell me that if you are able to maintain a strong frame in which to fit your own social media activities, with very clear goals you want to achieve and a very clear perspective on what is 'out of bounds', one's presence could be streamlined into something beneficial. It' very much like giving a rusty needle to a recovering heroin addict to play around with though...

My head hurts.