How I Found this Music
When I was looking at this assignment prompt, originally I had no clue how I was going to find something that I had never heard of. The “Every Noise at Once” (I’m just going to call it ENAO) website sounded like a good start though. As I started clicking around, nothing was really catching my ear until I clicked on deep uplifting trance. Interesting name for a genre, it raised a lot of questions in my head. Uplifting could mean a lot of things, like does it make you happy or give you courage. Maybe this is also part of why I chose this genre. Not only did I enjoy the sample I listened to on ENAO, but maybe I also wanted answers to my questions. Anyways, there is an arrow next to the genre you are listening to that will take you to a page with artists who make music in said genre. This is where I found tyDi, he was just the first one I clicked on in this page. So, kind of a quick decision, not much research being done, but honestly I think this is the best way to experience new music. Don’t do any research beforehand and let yourself be surprised by this new discovery you are making, immerse yourself in the artist’s story and really feel the music.
How I Actually Listened
After making my discovery on ENAO I used Spotify to actually listen to a full album. I chose tyDi’s most recent album, called COLLIDE. The album was released 6 years ago in 2018, which is kind of a long time ago, I wonder if we’ll get some new music from him soon. I also looked on YouTube for a music video of some kind from this album, but I couldn’t find anything. Now it’s time to actually talk about music.
My Emotions When Listening to COLLIDE
Interest
As someone who makes music and someone who has been surrounded by music my whole life, it has become very interesting to me to identify the different styles of artists and compare them to things I have heard before. However, tyDi’s style is especially interesting because he incorporates a plethora of sounds in his music. The intros and outros of almost every song on this album are like an orchestra with strings and horns, despite this being a genre with primarily electronic sounds. A song that does this very well is the second-to-last song on the album called “Fallen Angel”. Keep in mind, this is an EDM genre.
Okay, for some reason the video isn’t working as I’m writing this so I’ll just put the link here just in case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpXlqqZdqQc&list=PL1Xvy04fEdYz75hp_Cihd8rogXAR18U5m&index=11
Anyways, tyDi not only uses these orchestral sounds, but he also uses sounds you would usually find in an EDM genre. He uses a lot of bass sounds and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. I believe this is why I felt interested in tyDi’s music, because he uses a wide range of sounds that he can somehow fit into his music, and how not many artists can do this like tyDi does. So, the feature is the use of uncommon sounds and the technique would be tyDi’s unique writing/producing style.
Confusion
I’ll be honest, I kind of struggled to find another emotion to write about, but I eventually settled on confusion because I feel like it’s a little difficult to discern what this album is actually about. I feel like that goes for a lot of albums that fall under the EDM genre, especially songs and albums with no words. However, this album does have words, which is nice, because by the titles of the songs and the lyrics its pretty clear to tell that its talking about some sort of relationship falling apart. These lyrics are from the song called “You Don’t Love Me”.
I’m holding on
You’re letting go
You give me no choice
You’re needing space
I want your time
Can you see this is killing us?
Pretty straightforward right? My confusion comes from feeling like there is more to this story. Some of the songs like “Gold-Blooded” and “Alive” sound not as sad, but more like songs that build you up and give you confidence.
Again, the video isn’t working as I write this so I’ll leave the link just in case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlr32cOUTYQ&list=PL1Xvy04fEdYz75hp_Cihd8rogXAR18U5m&index=5
I just feel like there is more to this story that the album may just be leaving up to our own interpretations. This where my feeling of confusion comes from, interpreting the story in your own way and not knowing if you’re getting the story right or not. The feature would be using the album to tell a story, but the technique would be leaving the story unfinished, prompting the listener to try and finish the story based on their own interpretations.
How Can I Make Music Recommender Systems Better
Though Spotify’s recommender system is very good in my opinion, it is definitely not perfect. One of the biggest things that I think could be better is I feel like it could recommend smaller artists rather than artists we already know. I believe this change would both help the artist and the listener. The artist gets plays and exposure, while the listener gets new music that’s just as good or even better to what they usually listen to
When doing my research I directly used Spotify’s website. There’s a section called “understanding recommendations”, which is where I went to get information to write this section. This section states that it uses a combination of technology and humans to recommend music. Now, this is the only time I will say this but, I feel like only using technology to make recommendations would be better just to eliminate bias. Every single human being is biased in some way, yes, even you reader. My point is if there are humans involved in the recommender process then they are going to subconsciously make recommendations based on their own preferences and not yours. Every single time. So, in order to get the best and most personalized listening experience, we must turn to machines/AI. Which don’t have musical preferences, so it’s impossible for them to be biased.
Works Cited
Safety & Privacy Center. (n.d.). https://www.spotify.com/us/safetyandprivacy/understanding-recommendations
Fallen Angel (Ft. Coco Jones) Directed by tyDiTV (2020) YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpXlqqZdqQc&list=PL1Xvy04fEdYz75hp_Cihd8rogXAR18U5m&index=12
Gold-Blooded (Ft. Dyson) Directed by tyDiTV (2020) YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlr32cOUTYQ&list=PL1Xvy04fEdYz75hp_Cihd8rogXAR18U5m&index=6
