Blog post #7 I Angel Zamora

In episode #5 – POWER of “Ways of Hearing”, Damon Krukowski states at the beginning of the episode, “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed- is whatever the powerful have decided if of no use at the moment”. He goes on to ask “But might it might not be a key to alternate approaches to art, to society-to power itself?” What I believe Damon Krukowski is trying to say is that the powerful companies that we have today like Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc have all the power to what you listen to based off algorithms. Those mainstream platforms have the power to what’s relevant and irrelevant based on the weekly listeners on that genre or song, which closes the opportunity to many options that you do not know of because they aren’t high in numbers according to the company. These companies decide what music genre or songs are old, no longer viable, and are not to be recommended to you which gives them control over what you listen to and closes opportunities to new genres of music that you may enjoy or songs you may enjoy listening to. It may recommend music to which society finds fit at the time. Nowadays you go to the top songs in the United States and it is just music that society is mainstreaming at the time, most of that music is just rap which is what the younger audience is listening to, there isn’t much variety and you don’t have control over this because it’s based on the companies interests and society’s interests. Damon Krukowski mentions that it is not like before when you could walk into a record store and you would enter a whole new world. He mentions that you would have to explore and would decide on which record you would like to listen to. You would be able to communicate with others in the store and hear their recommendations on what to listen to. This made people more social and would open many new genres and music possibilities for you to listen to. The generation we live in now is not the same as it was years ago when we had record stores. In my opinion either or is suitable based on the person and their interests. Now we can listen to all kinds of music with just a click of a button on our phones. Even though many of these companies have control over what is relevant and irrelevant I believe that having the option to listen to music on our phones with just the click of a button is not a bad thing. Technology will advance every year, and it can either be a good thing or a bad thing, but as technology advances things are easier to access just like music has. Music indicates between the powerful and the marginalized by the companies that are powerful deciding what is the right song for you based on an algorithm instead of going to a record store and choosing which song you may like based on recommendations of the people around you and your decisions.

1 thought on “Blog post #7 I Angel Zamora

  1. pabitra

    yes, i agree with you new technology has negative and positive things but technology advance things are easier to access just like music has.

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