9 Best Articles in 2021
HackerNoon
Spotify’s Discover Weekly: How machine learning finds your new music
HackerNoon
9 min read · 886 saves · From 2017 · The science behind personalized music recommendations
The Pudding
How Bad Is Your Spotify?
The Pudding
763 saves · 2020-12-22 · Our sophisticated A.I. judges your awful taste in music.
OpenAI
Jukebox
OpenAI
8 min read · 464 saves · 2020-04-30 · We’re introducing Jukebox, a neural net that generates music, including rudimentary singing, as raw audio in a variety of genres and artist styles. We’re releasing the model weights and code, along…
Quartz
The magic that makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists so damn good
Quartz
9 min read · 439 saves · From 2017 · Thirty songs that feel like a gift from a music-loving friend, but were cooked up by an algorithm.
Spotify Engineering
Spotify engineering culture (part 1)
Spotify Engineering
~13 min read · 383 saves · From 2015 · Here's part 1 of short animated video describing our engineering culture (here's part 2). This is a journey in progress, not a journey completed, and there's a lot of variation from squad to squad. So the stuff in the video isn't all true for all squads all the time, but it appears to be mostly true…
The New York Times
The Day the Music Burned
The New York Times
327 saves · 2019-06-11 · It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business — and almost nobody knew. This is the story of the 2008 Universal fire.
medium.com
Design Doesn’t Scale.
medium.com
8 min read · 288 saves · From 2016 · Design Doesn’t Scale is a statement that has bothered me for the last four-years.
NPR
How The Brain Teases Apart A Song's Words And Music
NPR
2 min read · 223 saves · 2020-02-28 · Brain scans show that when people listen to songs, an area in the left hemisphere decodes speech-like sounds while one on the right processes musical information.
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Variety
Inside the Dirty Business of Hit Songwriting
Variety
~11 min read · 88 saves · Apr 7th · Sixty-four years ago, as Elvis Presley’s career reached its supernova stage, the 21-year-old singer’s team hit on a strategy that enabled him to profit from songwriting without actually writing son…
Guardian music
Paul Simon sells song catalogue to Sony for undisclosed sum
Guardian music
1 min read · 35 saves · Apr 1st · Singer-songwriter joins Bob Dylan, Neil Young and more by cashing in on their intellectual property
The New Yorker
Genre Is Disappearing. What Comes Next?
The New Yorker
10 min read · 33 saves · Mar 9th · As record stores close and streaming algorithms dominate, the identities that music fandom supplies are in flux.
The New York Times
Streaming Saved Music. Artists Hate It.
The New York Times
5 min read · 31 saves · Mar 22nd · Many musicians aren’t sharing in streaming riches. Can digital music economics change to benefit everyone?
99 Percent Invisible
The Real Book
99 Percent Invisible
9 min read · 30 saves · Apr 7th · Since the mid-1970s, almost every jazz musician has owned a copy of the same book. It has a peach-colored cover, a chunky, 1970s-style logo, and a black plastic binding. It’s delightfully homemade…
NPR
Heavy Rotation: 16 Songs Public Radio Can't Stop Playing
NPR
7 min read · 29 saves · Apr 1st · NPR member stations share a mix of the most popular songs on their airwaves this month, including music from CHAI, Joe Chambers, serpentwithfeet and more.
VICE
With NFTs, Musicians See a Way to Finally Take Control
VICE
5 min read · 27 saves · Mar 12th · NFTs are tearing the art and tech worlds apart, but some musicians are exploring their potential as an alternative to labels and streaming services.
Guardian music
And the brand played on: Bob Dylan at 80
Guardian music
~16 min read · 26 saves · Mar 28th · With a slew of books to mark the songwriter’s birthday due, we look at the industry that has grown up around the man who forced academia to take pop seriously
Guardian music
Tori Amos: the pop star who taught me how to be a woman on my terms
Guardian music
3 min read · 23 saves · Mar 23rd · The outspoken piano powerhouse behind hits such as Cornflake Girl spoke frankly about religion, desire and gender
Longreads
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Lost Album, Human Highway
Longreads
~18 min read · 21 saves · Mar 30th · How CSNY fumbled a chance to record their best album.
