{"id":770,"date":"2023-08-25T11:39:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T11:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/?p=770"},"modified":"2023-08-25T11:39:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T11:39:52","slug":"edit-edit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/2023\/08\/25\/edit-edit\/","title":{"rendered":"Edit Edit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Initial Sketch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s album Renaissance<\/em> came out a couple weeks ago and I\u2019ve been listening to it for the past few days. The spectacular work deserves a whole volume of analysis but I want to focus on one particular aspect of Renaissance<\/em>: its string of rebirths and their implications for streamed media. Beyonc\u00e9 and Lizzo both re-released songs, HEATED<\/em> and GRRRLS<\/em> respectively, after audiences confronted them about the use of the word \u201csp*z,\u201d<\/a> an ableist slur outside of the US. Beyonc\u00e9 also re-released her track ENERGY<\/em> when confronted by Kelis<\/a> about an uncleared sample of her song Milkshake<\/em>. The conversation around these post-release edits has mostly circled around the tired bad-faith argument of \u201ccancel culture has gone too far,\u201d but I\u2019m much more interested in how the dominance of streaming services enables this slower gestation period for artists and implications for both artists and audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linework<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always loved the physical completeness of an album: the jewel case or record jacket, the art in the album booklet, and of course the songs: their order, the way they flow into one another and take you from one place to another. I stopped my streaming subscriptions because they diminished that experience from me: I missed the idea of building my record collection. I don\u2019t have access to Spotify\u2019s endless catalog and the albums I own are just a folder full of MP3 files, but they’re a reflection of who I am and that matters more to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the finished album that engages me as an artist as well. When I self-published Be Well!<\/a> <\/em>I wanted the songs to tell a story, to have a digital booklet that augmented the listening experience. I still have dreams of pressing a record of it someday, just to hold it in my hand. But still, I know this album of songs I wrote could be better, or different at least. I could re-record some parts, I\u2019d like to add another act to the story, change instrumentation, whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what\u2019s so interesting about Renaissance<\/em>‘s rebirth. Even after the physical editions hit shelves, the record wasn\u2019t done. Whether you think the original version of HEATED<\/em> was better or not is your own decision. The interesting thing is that because streamers don\u2019t buy the song, it stays mutable, more a public draft than a finished product. Conversely, this lack of finished-ness invites the audience\u2019s contribution: the Beyhive and Kelis were the ones who prompted changes in the album, they are as much authors of Renaissance<\/em> as Mrs. Knowles-Carter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streamed music is a completely different animal from the album you grab from a shelf, and there are endless possibilities for what this new kind of music could be: An album could be a Ship of Theseus<\/a>, where instruments, lyrics, and samples change one-by-one until the album is completely reborn. A song could represent a wave\/particle duality where the song is constantly shifting until you start to listen to it and it suddenly snaps into focus for a moment. Or an artist can build a song publicly alongside their audience, taking their input and even their own recordings into the process. Criticisms of \u201ccancel culture\u201d republishing seem almost disingenuous in asking streaming music to behave like its purchasable relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ink & Paint<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kelis took to Instagram to ask Beyonc\u00e9 to remove the Milkshake<\/em> sample from ENERGY,<\/em> she said \u201cI know what I own and what I don\u2019t own,\u201d in reference to incorrect claims that producer Pharrell Williams actually owned the right to license the song. In an era of interpolation, which Renaissance<\/em> plays with to great effect, ideas of ownership, \u201ccopying,\u201d and theft become incredibly complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streaming, too, has interesting implications for ownership. Services like Spotify license tracks from artists and record labels, who they pay from a static pot of money based on their percentage of total streams. Spotify doesn\u2019t own the music, but they dictate a huge part of the terms on which artists are paid today. Listeners don\u2019t own the tracks they listen to; their favorite album could disappear off the platform, or just never get added. My personal take is that, in order to realize the potential of streaming to create a more dynamic and interactive kind of music, we need platforms that don\u2019t exploit folks on either side of the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway here\u2019s a Junglepussy tweet I love:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JP @JUNGLEPUSSY<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A LOT ACTUALLY UGH EDIT EDIT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luna @la_luna_eclipse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s love got to do with making me come? @JUNGLEPUSSY<\/a>11:19 PM \u2219 Apr 6, 202249Likes7Retweets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Initial Sketch Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s album Renaissance came out a couple weeks ago and I\u2019ve been listening to it for the past few days. The spectacular work deserves a whole volume of analysis but I want to focus on one particular aspect of Renaissance: its string of rebirths and their implications for streamed media. Beyonc\u00e9 and Lizzo… Continue reading Edit Edit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digestable","tag-music","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771,"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions\/771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabriel.town\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}