Glenn McDonald | |
|---|---|
 McDonald in 2015 | |
| Occupation | "Data alchemist" |
| Employer | Spotify (2013-2023) |
| Known for | Every Noise at Once |
| Website | furia |
Glenn McDonald is a former employee of Spotify who was responsible for grouping and naming genres at the company. Often described by media as a "data alchemist", he created the music discovery website Every Noise at Once, and is in part responsible for the naming of the hyperpop musical movement.
McDonald worked for a time at the music intelligence firm The Echo Nest. This company was acquired by Spotify in 2013, and the genre mapping data created by McDonald was built into various Spotify features, including its "Daily Mix" and "Fans also like" recommendation functions. He created the Every Noise at Once website that year. [1] Under Spotify, he continued to work as part of a team to categorize tracks from about one million artists into 6,291 named genres, including 56 kinds of reggae, 202 kinds of folk and 230 kinds of hip hop. [2] [3] He developed an algorithm for the company which evaluated music based on what he called "subjective psychoacoustic attributes", including "tempo," "duration," "color," "modernity," and "femininity." He then named what he called "emerging genres" himself, including the Spotify genre Escape Room, so named because of its sonic connection to trap music. [4] In 2018, McDonald input the genre name "hyperpop" into this metadata, which was later used to name Spotify's hyperpop playlist and thus the musical movement itself. [5]
On December 4, 2023, [2] McDonald was one of the 1,500 employees, or 17% of its workforce, laid off by Spotify. [6] [1] As a result, he lost access to the data needed to maintain and update his website's database, as well as the ability to fix any errors caused by possible changes on Spotify's end. [1] A spokesperson for Spotify stated that the current status of Every Noise was likely to remain for the foreseeable future. [2]
In 2024, McDonald's book You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song, about the increasing reliance of the music industry upon streaming, was published. In the book, he describes Spotify as "surveillance capitalism" that makes use of name, age, gender, location and existing tastes, but is limited in its knowledge. [3] Upon the release of the 2024 edition of Spotify Wrapped, he criticised its rollout, stating that "the goal of Wrapped, in particular, is brand virality," and that "there’s not much in the way this year of data storytelling." [7]
Chill-out is a loosely defined form of popular music characterized by slow tempos and relaxed moods. The definition of "chill-out music" has evolved throughout the decades, and generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening.
Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. As of September 2024, it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services, with over 640 million monthly active users comprising 252 million paying subscribers. Spotify is listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.
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Guendoline Rome Viray Gomez, better known by his stage name No Rome, is a London-based Filipino musician from San Francisco del Monte. He is best known for his 2021 single "Spinning", which featured Charli XCX and the 1975, and charted at No. 94 on the UK Singles Chart. Gomez also cowrote the 1975's "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime", which charted at No. 26.
For music from a year in the 2020s, go to 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24
Hyperpop is a loosely defined electronic music movement and microgenre that predominantly originated in the United Kingdom during the early 2010s. It is characterised by an exaggerated or maximalist take on popular music, and typically integrates pop and avant-garde sensibilities while drawing on elements commonly found in electronic, hip hop, and dance music.
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Every Noise at Once is a music discovery website created by former Spotify employee Glenn McDonald. It operates as a directory of musical genres, artists, and tracks listed by Spotify, in a scatter plot word map style. In December 2023, McDonald stopped updating the site with new data after he was laid off from Spotify.
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