The Ongoing History of New Music encore presentation: A guide to genres, part 2
[Summer repeat season. But trust me, brand new shows are already piling up for the fall. -AC]
I’m trying to imagine what it might be like to design an Amazon warehouse. A typical fulfillment centre covers at least a million square feet and features zillions of kilometres of shelving.
And given that Amazon is about speed–the company is always trying to cut the gap between the time you click “checkout” and when the package shows up at your door–they’re always looking for the most efficient ways to find whatever you ordered on those shelves and stuff it into a box.
The logistics of this are mind-boggling. Not only does Amazon have to categorize millions of items, but they have to be grouped in such a way that products in demand don’t create choke points for the robots that grab the stuff off the shelves.
Music is a lot like an Amazon warehouse, except worse. Not only do we have to categorize everything down to a very granular level, but we also have to make it possible for us to fortuitously stumble over something we might like.
This is where we get into the whole idea of genres. At last count, Spotify has organized its music universe into 2,424 different genres. There’s also a website called EveryNoiseAtOnce that lists about 2,000 different genres.
This is both terrifying and fascinating. And it deserves study.
Songs heard on this show:
- Art Brut, Formed a Band
- Stone Roses, She Bangs the Drums
- Oasis, Live Forever
- Mighty Lemon Drops, Happy Head
- Lana Del Rey, Blue Jeans
- Washed out, Feel It All Around
- Nine Inch Nails, The Hand That Feeds
- The Creepshow, Run for Your Life
- Bangles, Hero Takes a Fall
- Belle and Sebastian, The Boy with the Arab Strap
Playlistist Eric Wilhite has this for us.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:
- 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday at 7 pm
- Q107/Toronto – Sunday at 9 pm
- Live 88-5/Ottawa
- 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday at 8p pm
- Big Kingston – Saturday and Sunday at 11 pm
- The Wolf, Peterborough – Sunday at 8 pm
- FM96/London – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11
- Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday at 8 am
- Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
- The Zone/Victoria
- The Fox/Vancouver – Sunday at 11 pm
- WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown The show runs at 11 am Sunday. This, by the way, is a great option for American listeners who are prevented from listening to the show live because of geo-blocking,
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.
If you ever miss a show, you can always get the podcast edition available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your on-demand audio.
