the big technological lump of music as data

paotsaq 21st February 2024 at 8:38pm

There are two ideas at play, here: first, the real possibility that, someday, the music disappears. In fact, an unpredicted server outage is likely and will surely make the services unavailable, albeit only temporarily; and there's another way of looking at the current situation: music as an endless mass of content, music as infinite sound, Mozart with Lady Gaga with Radiohead with Quim Barreiros — and then what the point of it all is?

Put into one engineered space, as it is being, a pasted-together lump sum of all musical achievement, it can easily disappear. When the power is turned off, or the batteries run out, or the terms of agreement change, or it just becomes one big musical mountain where millions of thoughts become just the one. Something is stored there, but it might be forgotten what it is, or what the point of it is.