Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
I stumbled upon Spotify Teardown while browsing the shelves at Parsons Music Library and was immediately intrigued; I knew Spotify had a rocky history with independent artists, but this book opened my eyes to the potentially harmful influence and power of the streaming giant. The authors have a generally negative view of Spotify as an entity. While their argument is convincing, it would take a lot for me to give up the ease and accessibility that comes with having a Spotify account. Still, their argument is worth engaging with.
The authors are Swedish social scientists who took a rather controversial approach in their research – they set up a fake record label company in an attempt to peek behind the curtain and see the inner workings of Spotify. Spotify discovered the researchers’ plan and threatened to pull their funding given to them by the Swedish research council, only further fueling the disdain the researchers had for the streaming service. They argue the only way to understand the algorithm is by being on the inside, while Spotify says doing so is in clear violation of their terms of service.
Much of the book discusses the pseudo-record label and subsequent action taken by Spotify, but to me the most interesting reporting was within the discussion of Spotify itself. The authors write about how Spotify is largely represented as the ‘solution’ to illegal streaming, while in actuality its lack of regulation presents more problems for artists and consumers alike than illegal downloads ever did. It also discusses the privacy concerns connected to algorithmic data, data sharing, and data tracking, all of which Spotify engages with and relies on. The authors argue that as AI becomes commonplace within more and more facets of our lives, it becomes increasingly important to regulate its usage. In all, I found Spotify Teardown engaging and certainly learned a lot.
The Music Library has more resources available than physical items. We’re highlighting some of our digital resources, and including information about them as told by our student employees.
Here is what student manager Cole (class of 2021) had to say about this resource:
“Music Online’s Popular Music Library is exactly what it sounds like: an online repository of popular music from around the world, all tagged with the appropriate metadata to make the site an effective research tool. Something I appreciate about Music Online’s collection is the emphasis placed on international works. The site is filled with recordings of songs I have never been exposed to, across all genres and in various languages. Many of the works archived are not available for sale online, so the site can be a valuable resource if one is looking for an obscure, elusive track.
When I first opened Popular Music Library, I was immediately greeted by the album Babies Go Pink Floyd, one of the works featured on the rotating carousel of new arrivals.
I immediately clicked on it to find out what exactly I was seeing. Each album is displayed as a waveform, with vertical lines separating individual tracks. The music player is accompanied by a sidebar of details and the track listing, with each track accompanied by the appropriate metadata. After some listening and further digging on the site, I learned that Babies Go … is a series of albums, originally sold in the UK, that rework popular music acts into soothing lullabies. Some of my favorite editions include: Babies Go The Cure, Babies Go Led Zeppelin, Babies Go Shakira, and, of course, Babies Go Radiohead, the music player for which, in an apparent (and humorous) technical oversight, presents a flat line and reads, “Waveform temporarily unavailable.”
Though Babies Go … probably won’t be often used as research material, I like to imagine it as a testament to the diversity of material collected for your listening in the Popular Music Library.”
As your friendly neighborhood blog editor/Music Library Associate, I thought I would kick things off for this academic year with a post in honor of British composer Gustav Holst‘s 143rd birthday.
“Beni Mora” was inspired by a vacation trip Holst made to Algeria in 1908. In letters home to his wife, he called Algeria a mix of East and West where mosques and hijab wearing women were juxtaposed with advertisements for American cinematography (source: GustavHolst.info). He even went so far as to go bicycling in the Algerian portion of the Sahara desert — quite a vacation!
A photo of an Algerian street scene circa 1908
There was a fascination with “the orient” as a broad concept (literally broad stretching from North Africa to India to Japan) in Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which led to a bit of an artistic fad for “Orientalsm” across various artistic media with varying success.
I’m not sure how someone actually from Algeria would feel about this “cigar box” type portrayal from the early 20th century
The work premiered in 1912 and definitely reflects a mixture of East and West there is definitely a westernized sense of the “Oriental” evident, but not in a way that feels disrespectful of the culture that inspired it.
A snippet of a working manuscript in Holst’s handwriting.
“Beni Mora” consists of three movements – two dances and a finale subtitled “In the Street of Ouled Nails”.
The first dance starts off with a languid, almost cinematic feel — winds blowing across lonesome sand dunes are definitely evoked to my Western ear and builds to a louder, bigger feeling section that sounds to me like a lost outtake from the soundtrack to Lawrence Of Arabia (which of course was written much later!).
The second movement starts with an interesting syncopated percussion motif and makes use of orchestral tone color, having various melodic lines thread through different sections of the orchestra and groupings of instruments.
The third movement was directly inspired by a repetitive flute tune that Holst overhead during his Algerian travels. This 8 note flute melody becomes the hypnotic basis for this movement and is repeated many times while other harmonies, instruments and musical themes swirl in and amongst and around the repeating flute motif in a manner that suggests the changing scene as people come and go on their daily business on an Algerian street and also help keep the motif interesting. Some music critics have even referred to this movement as “proto” minimalist because of the 163 plus repetitions of that flute motif.
Frederick Arthur Bridgman (American, 1847-1928), “A Street Scene in Algeria”, oil on canvas
I first discovered “Beni Mora” in 2003 when I was living in Cheltenham while working at the Holst Birthplace Museum and fell in love with its blend of exoticism and romanticism that causes it to sound like a miniature film score. This feels like something that really would fit right in on a film soundtrack from a 1930s or 40s serial (or an Indiana Jones movie), which also appeals to me. I admire Holst’s curiosity about other cultures as evidenced in his incorporation of his Algerian vacation experience and musical style (as he perceived it) into this musical travelogue.
(Fun fact: Holst was also fascinated by the culture of the Indian subcontinent and wrote choral works and chamber operas exploring myths and legends of India, even going so far as to teach himself Sanskrit so he could read Hindu texts in their original language! Yay cultural curiosity!)
Of course, one should also listen to “The Planets” (it’s very famous and beloved for a reason), but I think “Beni Mora” provides a great way to delve further into the output of an early 20th century composer whose total output is well worth exploring! (Especially since the Music Library has a version that can be streamed — access is a wonderful thing!)
Statue honoring Gustav Holst in his hometown of Cheltenham, England