The past several years have seen a massive increase in social platforms of all kinds. While platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have had their time to shine, the current generation has found a new star in the form of arts-centred social media. From Perfectly Imperfect (wherein users can share and reply to blog-style and arts-related prompts, as well as see interviews on the lifestyle opinions of their favourite influencers), to the infamous Letterboxd (users share film reviews with friends). However, the arts-focused social apps that clear all others are those centred on music sharing, such as Airbuds (users can see and react to friends’ listening in real time), Spotistats and LastFM (in-depth statistics-based music social media), or even music streamers like Spotify (which now allows users to “friend” each other, see friends’ listening, and just this past month rolled out a chat function).
Among my peers and I, it’s become a common pastime to “stalk” each other on Spotify and Airbuds, both making fun of and learning from each others’ music. As fun as this is, and as much as I love getting inspiration from my friends’ music, I’ve found that the publicity of my listening often influences me against listening to certain things. In other words, listening statistics platforms can make users self-conscious, publicising an activity that is, with the recent rise in headphones-based listening, often personal and private. Spotify and Airbuds both have “ghost” listening options wherein listeners can choose not to share their listening; however, on Spotify, this dually deprives listeners of the ability to see what others are listening to. There’s always a catch, so I tend to keep my Spotify listening on — seeing what my friends are hearing is just too fun to pass up from a small insecurity.
More heavily statistics-based apps like Spotistats and LastFM work slightly differently, allowing users to see listening history for various periods of time (the week, month, year, or even their all-time listening history), creating almost a merit-based ranking. While this can be fun, it holds the potential of divisiveness, creating an imaginary hierarchy of “true” fans, those who are top listeners of their favourite artists. But it really never is that serious. Music is an art, and the point of art is its own consumption and appreciation, so the ranking systems of these apps seem, to me, to be quite moot. While fun, I personally don’t love statistics-centred music social media as much as those that work purely for seeing others’ listening histories (e.g., Airbuds).
Regardless of these nit-picky goods and bads, if I were forced to argue for or against listening statistics trackers, I’d be totally in their favour. As powerful as the feeling of being perceived is, more powerful is my love of sharing and consuming media. I find using these platforms to diversify my listening beyond what the streaming algorithm otherwise feeds me to be incredibly valuable. Further, ranking fan status does not matter unless you make the conscious choice to care about it. Put differently, choosing simply to enjoy stats platforms for solely entertainment purposes outweighs any potential negative. I love the unique perspective provided by these listening statistics, and I hope that my friends enjoy learning from my listening as much as I do learning from theirs. These social media platforms can be mutually beneficial and an excellent way to step out of your musical comfort zone.
So if you haven’t yet, go ahead and download Airbuds, or Google your monthly Receiptify (a website that puts your music statistics into a fun receipt format), and I guarantee you’ll love it and maybe even learn something about your own listening you didn’t know!
“musica” by On Edge PR is licensed under CC BY 2.0.