Let me go back to the beginning of Diario Pop. Radio 3's evening news program featured a new group almost every day. Or should you say brand new: they came with a demo under their arm or, at best, a brand new album. There was always an awkward moment in the subsequent interview. They asked how we should define their music, and most swore that it was unclassifiable and incomparable to anything. And you put on a poker face when it was clear that you were listening intently to the Ramones, Leño, Kraftwerk or The Police.
More information
Hey, that's not mean: maybe they really believed in his uniqueness. But the announcer, the journalist in general, felt obliged to describe them as a punk, techno, rock or funk band, to organize the program and to summarize their essential militancy. They did the same in magazines, fan magazines, stores or with the record companies themselves. In this way, the cheerful label helped them reach their potential audience. Once established, they could then evolve into a more personal expression, as was the case with Radio Futura or Gabinete Caligari.
I'm talking, of course, about times of scarcity and uncertainty in which music could promote a convergence towards a group identity. It wasn't categorized by vices: it aimed to facilitate connections. It was tribalism, but it helped both the listeners and the artists. Today, as you know, we rely on streaming companies to guide us through their algorithms. Work by machines but with contributions from people. Secrets operated in this area Glenn McDonald.
Glenn McDonald, a fucking legend! Spotify's data analyst is a master of musical taxonomy: he has identified more than 6,000 genres present on the platform. I must point out that not all of them are pop: they include hundreds of folkloric categories (yes, there is the Aragonese iota) and many others that we call, for lack of a better name, classical music or cultured music, including religious songs and various avant-garde songs. It's also important to note that McDonald places emphasis on geographical origin: there are two dozen varieties of ska, although it's difficult for me to imagine any significant differences between Chilean and Indonesian ska.
Contrary to what we might have imagined, McDonald had no intention of locking the listener into one or more genres. By identifying listening patterns on an (almost) global level, I have located new communities and used playlists to make it easier to open up to other sounds, without snobbish prejudices or a false sense of ownership. It guaranteed the proliferation of fresh hybrids through naming them, generally collecting names used by the musicians themselves or by pens looking for the next big thing. It ensured the survival of historical genres by merging or renaming them on the assumption that they were as fluid as our own listening habits.
A tiny fragment of Glenn McDonald's map of music genres.
Glenn McDonald's cards became so popular that they spawned clothing and other merchandise. He may have even given away too much information on his homepage everynoise.com. In early December, Spotify decided to cut costs by laying off 17% of its workforce, or around 1,600 workers; among them was Glenn McDonald. General amazement. The company missed out on a real musician who believed that Spotify could be a positive force in addition to providing a service. It's a (bad) sign of the times.
All the culture that goes with it awaits you here.
Subscribe to
Babelia
The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter
GET IT
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_