\n
\nAbstract | Music-streaming services have disrupted the music industry\u2019s established commodity formats and place-bound consumer experiences, producing seemingly limitless and algorithmically driven modes of listening. These music services target a global audience, as evident in Soundcloud\u2019s promise to enable audiences to \u201chear the world\u2019s sound.\u201d This article maps out the deployment of local regions as tags and metadata in music-streaming services, arguing that there is a reconfiguration of locality evident, what I dub the indexi-local. This portmanteau\u2014coordinating the terms index and local\u2014grasps at the effort to design a participatory platform experience vis-\u00e0-vis local regions. This article undertakes a close reading of the interfaces of two music-streaming services: Bandcamp and Soundcloud. First, metadata is shown to play a significant role in the design and operations of digital music platforms, not only organizing the circulation of data but also generating listening recommendations. Second, the circulation of local regions as metadata within these two services\u2019 interfaces is then highlighted in the tagging activities of platform users. While the circulation of local regions as metadata imbricates with broader efforts to create a more participatory and place-bound streaming experience, it also flattens local differences into a gray media aesthetic of hashtags and geotagged text.<\/div>\n
\nR\u00e9sum\u00e9 | Les services de diffusion de musique ont perturb\u00e9 les formats de produits \u00e9tablis par l’industrie de la musique et les exp\u00e9riences de consommation li\u00e9es aux lieux, produisant des modes d’\u00e9coute apparemment illimit\u00e9s et bas\u00e9s sur des algorithmes. Ces services de musique ciblent un public mondial, comme le prouve la promesse de Soundcloud de permettre au public \u00ab\u00a0d\u2019\u00e9couter les sons du monde\u00a0\u00bb. Cet article d\u00e9crit le d\u00e9ploiement des r\u00e9gions en tant qu\u2019\u00e9tiquettes et m\u00e9tadonn\u00e9es dans les services de diffusion de musique, en faisant valoir qu’il y a une reconfiguration de localit\u00e9 \u00e9vidente, que je surnomme l’indexi-local. Cette expression, qui combine les termes index et local, capte l’effort de concevoir une exp\u00e9rience de plate-forme participative vis-\u00e0-vis des r\u00e9gions. Cet article effectue une lecture approfondie des interfaces de deux services de diffusion de musique\u00a0: Bandcamp et Soundcloud. Tout d’abord, les m\u00e9tadonn\u00e9es sont pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es comme jouant un r\u00f4le important dans la conception et l’exploitation des plates-formes de musique num\u00e9riques, non seulement en organisant la circulation des donn\u00e9es, mais aussi en g\u00e9n\u00e9rant des recommandations d’\u00e9coute. Deuxi\u00e8mement, la circulation des r\u00e9gions comme m\u00e9tadonn\u00e9es dans les interfaces de ces deux services est alors mise en \u00e9vidence dans les activit\u00e9s de marquage des utilisateurs de plateformes. Alors que la circulation des r\u00e9gions en tant que m\u00e9tadonn\u00e9es se superpose avec des efforts plus larges pour cr\u00e9er une exp\u00e9rience de diffusion plus participative et li\u00e9e au lieu, elle r\u00e9duit \u00e9galement les diff\u00e9rences locales \u00e0 une esth\u00e9tique morne de m\u00e9dias de hashtags et de balises g\u00e9ographiques.<\/div>
\n
Michael Audette-Longo | Carleton University<\/p>\n
\u201cHear the World\u2019s Sounds\u201d:
\nLocality as Metadata in Two Music Platforms<\/h1>\n
I<\/span>n summer 2015, the music-streaming service Spotify released a \u201cmusical map\u201d of the world featuring playlists generated for cities around the world. As described on Spotify\u2019s Insights <\/em>blog:<\/p>\n This is music that people in each city listen to quite a bit, which people in other cities also do not listen to very much. So it is, exactly, the music that makes them different from people everywhere else\u2026Because this music represents music that over-indexes in these cities, it\u2019s a great way to pluck local favorites from around the world and add the ones you like to Your Music in Spotify. (Van Buskirk, \u201cMusical Map\u201d)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With the map, Spotify makes two promises to the listener. First, to facilitate a sort of musical tourism through the world via the music-streaming service; such an inclination is evident in the opening of the blog post:<\/p>\n In our connected world, people everywhere tend to enjoy the same top hits . . . but when most travelers visit another place, they don\u2019t seek out the same food they eat at home, even if they can find it. We travel to experience what makes a place different, and special, by sampling local specialties. Let\u2019s try the same approach with music, on a big map of the world. You can click any of nearly a thousand cities to hear a playlist of the music that is most distinctively<\/em> enjoyed there. (Van Buskirk, \u201cMusical Map\u201d my emphasis)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Second, and tied to this touristic application, Spotify also uses the data collected from its listening base to generate recommendations for other users of its streaming platform. Spotify\u2019s musical maps invite listeners to engage with this music-streaming service by stepping outside their genre interests and trying to listen, instead, with geographic locations guiding the way.<\/p>\n I begin with this example because it gestures to the central concern of this article: the circulation of local geographic regions as user-generated metadata within two digital music platforms, Bandcamp and Soundcloud. On the one hand, I pinpoint how the region-oriented tags produced by users facilitates the organization and retrieval of musical data uploaded to these music platforms; on the other, I suggest that a \u201clocal feel\u201d\u2014defined, following J. Berland, as the narrative production of local regions within commercial media sites (190-191)\u2014emerges in both platforms through the articulation of local regions to such metadata-specific functionalities as generating recommendations and facilitating frictionless platform navigation. To capture the articulation of locality to metadata I deploy the term indexi-local: a portmanteau <\/em>that collapses the terms index and local to describe the tendency in these two platforms to design a participatory platform experience based in users\u2019 tagging of local regions. To establish the indexi-local, I examine the tagging of local regions through a closer reading of Bandcamp and Soundcloud\u2019s interfaces.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n J.W. Morris and D. Powers define an interface as \u201call that greets a user when she\/he starts up a service, including design, features, content organization, navigational options, etc., as well as the affective pull this combined assemblage has on users\u201d (110). The interface is a key part of digital platforms that, moreover, works to \u201cshape how users see, hear, feel, and experience the functions of any given piece of software and the cultural content that passes through it\u201d (Morris, Selling Digital Music<\/em> 18). Interface design both guides and enframes everyday interactions with different software, platforms, and websites. To illustrate data\u2019s region-oriented emplacement, I include several screengrabs of these tagging practices. This work follows previous interface-oriented studies of digital media (see Bolter and Grusin; Manovich; Galloway). Drawing on M. Fuller and A. Goffey\u2019s work on \u201cgray media\u201d \u2013 which examines the functionality produced in such administrative sites of digital mediation as spreadsheets and databases \u2013 this article considers the indexi-local as a more functional articulation of local regions, stylized as hashtags and lists of geotagged text circulating through these two music platforms. I conclude by suggesting that the indexi-local signals the place and value of local music-making regions within the broader reconfigurations of commodity forms and audience experiences connected to the current \u201cnew music economy\u201d that hinges on social media platforms, user-generated content, and increasing participation from consumers in valorizing, promoting, and distributing music (see Galuzska; Morris, \u201cArtists as Entrepreneurs\u201d; Morris and Powers).<\/p>\n Bandcamp is a private, venture-capital funded music retail and streaming service created by Ethan Diamond and Shawn Grunberger in 2008 to provide unsigned and independent musicians and record labels a platform with which to sell albums (both digital and physical) and merchandise (Tozzi and Leiber; McIntyre). In an interview with Billboard<\/em>, co-founder Diamond explained his interest in starting Bandcamp as emerging from both his own fandom for independent music as well as dissatisfaction with the design and usability of then-popular services such as MySpace:<\/p>\n In the earliest days, it started because there was a band I really liked. This was 2008, when you have MySpace, Imeem, those sites. Very little choice if you wanted to go on your own. What you ended up with was somebody else’s logo, advertisements — someone else’s identity. If you wanted to do it on your own you had to hire a designer, an engineer. It seemed nuts. (qtd. in Flanagan)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The e-retailer went online in 2008 and offered musicians a customizable artist page free of in-page advertisements. Artist account-holders are responsible for a diverse range of activities, including uploading songs; providing and editing information relating to sound recording, artist biographies, etc.; preparing and uploading artist and album artwork; setting prices; processing, shipping, and receiving orders of physical albums and merchandise; and generating tags that categorize both albums and artist.<\/p>\n Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss created Soundcloud in 2007 with the aim of facilitating musical collaboration by music producers within digital settings. As co-founder Ljung explained in a 2009 interview with Wired<\/em>:<\/p>\n We both came from backgrounds connected to music . . . and it was just really, really annoying for us to collaborate with people on music\u2014I mean simple collaboration, just sending tracks to other people in a private setting, getting some feedback from them, and having a conversation about that piece of music. In the same way that we\u2019d be using Flickr for our photos, and Vimeo for our videos, we didn\u2019t have that kind of platform for our music. (qtd. in Van Buskirk)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Soundcloud ascribes distinct URLs to the audio files circulating within the platform, which can then be embedded in a variety of websites. This enables the easy sharing of tracks. Meanwhile, comments can be posted within the service\u2019s audio player, which is stylized as a visualization of the song\u2019s waveform (a visual facsimile of a song\u2019s volume and sound dynamics). Interested listeners provide feedback by clicking on a part of the song\u2019s waveform and posting their comments there. The visualization of waveform typical in Soundcloud\u2019s audio player can be seen in the below screengrab of the track \u201cPools of Iris\u201d associated with the account of the Ottawa-based independent electro-pop musician Pippa (https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/pippalouu).<\/p>\n Image 1 (https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/pippalouu).<\/u><\/p>\n Both Bandcamp and Soundcloud are audio platforms that, like social-media services Facebook and Twitter, emphasize social connectivity and operate through the user-generated content. Both services promise, moreover, social connectivity for users; Bandcamp promises both listeners and musicians a platform with which to \u201cdiscover amazing new music and directly support the artists who make it\u201d (www.bandcamp.com). Soundcloud, meanwhile, promises its subscribers a platform that will \u201chelp you connect with fans and grow your audience\u201d (www.soundcloud.com). Morris and Powers argue that streaming services advance, through discourse, interface design, and marketing, \u201cbranded musical experiences that target certain styles of musical discovery and use as they vie for consumers\u201d (109-110). The next section highlights how the promises of discovery, support, and connection advanced by both Bandcamp and Soundcloud intertwine with the region-oriented tagging practices of users.<\/p>\n The tagging practices circulating through and evident in both Bandcamp and Soundcloud work as user-generated metadata. A.G. Taylor and D.N. Joudrey define metadata as the \u201cdata about data\u201d that \u201cdescribes the attributes of information resources for the purposes of identification, discovery, selection, use, access, and management\u201d (89). Examples of musical metadata include song names, album titles, artist names, and genre. In these instances, metadata is the information that enables its search and retrieval within different digital platforms (Morris, \u201cMaking Music Behave\u201d 851-853). Metadata is particularly useful in digital settings it works to organize and categorize the data constantly (over-)accumulating (Boehm; Manovich 221-225). L. Gitelman observes, moreover, that metadata is embedded at both visible and invisible layers within digital media objects. Writing about DVD discs, she explains: \u201cAll of the information on a DVD menu that users watch are data; the information they do not watch are metadata. Some metadata become visible in menus and titles, but a lot more remain unseen\u201d (142). Tags operate as visible and user-generated metadata within these two platforms.<\/p>\n Image 2 (https:\/\/yips613.bandcamp.com\/)<\/u><\/p>\n Considering the tagging activity in Bandcamp, genre and local region are the most typical tags deployed. There is no pre-set template for genre tags, so they range from more standard descriptors as \u201cindie,\u201d \u201cpunk,\u201d and \u201cfolk,\u201d to more idiosyncratic ones, such as \u201cOuija rock,\u201d which is utilized by the Ottawa-based punk rock band The Yips (https:\/\/yips613.bandcamp.com\/). The other popular tag is for geographic region, largely based in the cities or towns with which artists self-identify. For example, the Ottawa-based indie rock group The Yips deploy two tags for Ottawa: Ottawa with a lower-case O and upper-case O. (Image 2). There are also bands that tag for multiple cities, as with the punk group Best Fiends, which tags the cities Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa in its profile and album page (https:\/\/bruisedtongue.bandcamp.com\/album\/best-fiends<\/a>).<\/p>\n The tagging of geographic regions circulates throughout the artist pages of Bandcamp account holders, ranging from smaller-scaled groups with regional popularity like The Yips, to more internationally renowned groups like Fugazi, who also embed a tag for the city \u201cWashington DC\u201d (https:\/\/fugazi.bandcamp.com\/<\/a>) within their artist and album pages on Bandcamp. While these groups are aligned to the punk rock genre, a wide range of independent and unsigned musicians working in different genres utilize the platform and tag for geographic region as well, including the London-based electronic\/dubstep musician Burial (https:\/\/burial.bandcamp.com\/<\/a>); New York-based hip-hop artist KRS-One (https:\/\/krsone.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-world-is-mind<\/a>); and Durham, NC-based indie rock group The Mountain Goats (https:\/\/themountaingoats.bandcamp.com\/album\/goths-deluxe-version<\/a>).<\/p>\n Soundcloud also features an option for tagging. The platform provides users with the option to embed one hashtag in the audio player. Not only do musicians and record labels use the platform, but radio stations and podcast producers also embed sound files for playback and streaming within Soundcloud. The screengrab below of the Ottawa-based fuzz-pop band Baberaham Lincoln shows a hashtag for Ottawa:<\/p>\n Image 3 (https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/bruisedtongue\/baberaham-lincoln-stir)<\/u><\/p>\n The repeating reference to local regions in both platforms signals the historical and contemporary value of local music scenes in the formation and circulation of many of the music genres represented within both services, including electronic dance music (Reynolds); punk rock (O\u2019Connor); hip hop (Harrison); and indie rock (Shank; Kruse). Studies of music scenes tend to examine the local media sites, social and professional networks, and musical players that shape the emergence and circulation of certain music genres (Cohen; Shank; Crossley). A focus on music scenes can reveal the important role that such sites as live music venues, rehearsal spaces, recording studios, music stores, and local media (such as zines and campus radio) play in providing the \u201csoft infrastructure\u201d on which social relations, musical practices, and economic activity rests (O\u2019Connor). Working with Brian Eno\u2019s concept of \u201cscenius,\u201d S. Reynolds surmises that a focus on music scenes reveals the important role that social milieu plays in shaping the formation and circulation of music, which challenges myths of music creation based in autonomous genius (527). Whether banal infrastructure or revealing the musical influence of social relations, music scenes underpin the production of much of the music represented in both platforms.<\/p>\n Kruse has shown in her work on music scenes and indie rock that the value and meaning of indie rock is actively produced by scene participants through both their discursive articulations of and affective investments in music at the level of the local music scene. More precisely, she finds a recurring tendency for scene participants to construct both their personal biographies of music fandom and indie music\u2019s history through their own investment and involvement in their local music scene (Site and Sound <\/em>12-13). Research into the adoption of social media and e-retail platforms by musicians has highlighted their fit within the existent cultural, economic, and social activities of music scenes ( Kruse, \u201cLocal Identity\u201d; Sargent). Following Kruse\u2019s insight into the centrality of identifying and creating music via local regions in indie music scenes, in Bandcamp the tagging of local regions locates and identifies musical data uploaded by musicians and labels to this platform, indicating the social and geographic regions in which these users are situated. Moreover, the tendency for these local tags to cut across different genres not specific to indie rock suggests that locality\u2014that is, relating to a specific region vis-\u00e0-vis music and media (Bennett 63; Kruse, Site and Sound<\/em>)\u2014continues to be significant in the production, distribution, promotion, and organization of music uploaded to these platforms.<\/p>\n Upon introducing tagging into Bandcamp, co-founder Diamond explained that tagging was a valuable addition to the operations of this platform because:<\/p>\n We think it [tagging] has the potential to build a community in the best possible sense of the word, where every individual contributes to its strength. It won\u2019t, of course, be built overnight. At the time of this writing, there are exactly zero tags in the system, but with your help . . . it shouldn\u2019t be long before the solitary goal of these new features is realized: make every artist on Bandcamp more successful, by making it easier for fans to find you. (Diamond)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Diamond\u2019s suggestion that community will emerge in Bandcamp through tagging enacted by different account holders resonates with H. Jenkins\u2019 research into the production of \u201ccollective intelligence\u201d within online settings. Following the lead of French philosopher of cyberspace Pierre L\u00e9vy, Jenkins distills collective intelligence into the following slogan: \u201cNone of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills\u201d (4). Jenkins identifies collective intelligence in the online sites and spaces in which media users and fans collaborate and produce culture, whether looking to \u201cspoiler groups\u201d that agglomerated around the reality television series Survivor <\/em>or the collaboratively produced online encyclopedia Wikipedia<\/em>. Diamond sees community emerging in the contributions made by users of the platform to categorize and describe the music they upload to the platform. However, while the music uploaded to the service fits within the broader reliance on the decentralized circulation of user-generated content evident in social media platforms, with tags we also see a more precise form of \u201ccollective intelligence\u201d emerging, whereby the terms mobilized to describe music not only work to categorize and describe the individual musical products uploaded by musicians and record labels but also the broader aggregate of music uploaded to the platform by different users.<\/p>\n Indeed, the tags generated by users of this platform become conventional terms to mobilize, thereby indicating a collectively produced form of information management by platform users. While Bandcamp\u2019s reliance on users to tag signals the collective intelligence of platform users contributing, it also places the burden of data management away from the platform\u2019s engineers and towards the individuals uploading data to this service. This does not exactly count as \u201cfree labour\u201d performed by users of this platform to make it work better (see Terranova; Srnicek), because the musicians and labels selling and promoting music with Bandcamp are not exactly unreimbursed; rather, it is a sort of informational work performed by platform users that makes the platform work better. We can see tagging as extra informational work performed by platform users that facilitates platform navigation, which is entangled with the already-existing creative labour performed by musicians and record labels to create, sell, and promote music (Stahl).<\/p>\n This section has highlighted a repeating tendency for local regions to emerge in the tags circulating through both Bandcamp and Soundcloud. These tags reflect the \u201ccollective intelligence\u201d of both platforms\u2019 user bases; emerge as extra informational labour performed by platform users; and gesture to the fit of these platforms within the scene-bound musical and entrepreneurial activities of record labels and musicians.<\/p>\n Fuller and A.. Goffey develop the term \u201cgray media\u201d to describe seemingly mundane and task-oriented media forms such as databases, spreadsheets, and writing\/editing software. These media technologies are gray because their seemingly seamless operations contribute to the myth of \u201cfrictionless\u201d communication that is prioritized in digital milieus:<\/p>\n The transparency of the facilitation of activity that is produced when devices, practices, protocols and procedures, gadgets and applications, mesh and synchronize simultaneously creates vast black-boxed or obscurely grayed-out zones. . . that permit the abstract social relations characteristic of \u201cfrictionless\u201d communication to take root. (4)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, these media are also gray because they closely intertwine with the various administrative practices to which they are deployed, thus becoming invisible. Or, as Fuller and Goffey explain, \u201cGrayness is a quality that is easily overlooked, and that is what gives it its great attraction, an unremarkableness that can be of inestimable value in background operations\u201d (11). Gray media are, in short, administrative and function-oriented media forms that are largely used as means to achieve specific ends. One may not necessarily think of them as distinct media forms unto themselves until they stop working (as for instance, when a Word Document crashes). Their work on gray media is suggestive in its accounting for the ubiquity of administrative media forms within the everyday lives of media users. Keeping in mind this special issue\u2019s focus on the visualization and emplacement of data, I argue that the indexi-local is a gray and platform-specific \u201clocal feel,\u201d to use Berland\u2019s term.<\/p>\n As seen in the screengrabs, there is a degree of aesthetic \u201cunremarkableness\u201d evident in these tags, which circulate in Bandcamp as hyperlinked text listed within the album and artist pages of account holders and hashtags. While the artist and album pages are customizable in both Bandcamp and Soundcloud\u2014with musical acts able to upload album art, select font colours, page colours, etc.\u2014both tags appear as simple text embedded in different regions of the webpage. In Bandcamp, tags are listed at the bottom of album pages; in Soundcloud, it is a hashtag embedded in the audio player. Moreover, Soundcloud users also have the option to identify geographic regions in the biographical information posted to the profile pages of Soundcloud users. Consider the stylization of local regions as profile information in the screengrab posted below of the Ottawa-based indie electro-folk group The Acorn (Image 4). In The Acorn\u2019s profile, the listing of location in profile information appears as simple text, stylized and formatted in the same colour and font as the musical act and members. Again, there is aesthetic unremarkableness, or indeed, a quality of grayness in subsuming local regions to biographical information listed in a profile.<\/p>\n Image 4 (<\/u>https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/theacorn<\/a>)<\/u><\/p>\n When one clicks through the region-oriented tags circulating within Bandcamp, two types of search results appear: other items that have been tagged with that tag by that musician, and other music that has been categorized with that tag. In the frictionless navigation of pages, local regions are articulated as metadata generating further listings of music to stream and purchase. For example, clicking through the \u201cOttawa\u201d tag within The Yips\u2019 Bandcamp page produces results for albums released by the group that have also been tagged with that tag; other albums and artists that have used that tag; and a list of \u201crelated tags\u201d with which listeners can further explore the service (Image 5). These results emerge across all instances of region-based tagging.<\/p>\n Image 5 (https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/tag\/ottawa?artist=1462450860).<\/u><\/p>\n Similarly, clicking through the hashtag embedded in Soundcloud\u2019s audio player produces a list of audio files featuring that tag, broken down in terms of popularity for individual audio files and playlists (Image 6).<\/p>\n Image 6 (https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/tags\/ottawa)<\/u><\/p>\n In both instances, tags create lists of further listening recommendations. J.D. Peters has argued that lists are both a symptom of and strategy to deal with \u201cinformation abundance\u201d in digital milieus (9); similarly, the list of results opened by this tag reflects the quantity of data uploaded to these platforms and provides platform users a means with which to navigate through the data contained in these platforms. In Media Ecologies <\/em>(2005), M. Fuller performs a formal analysis of lists, suggesting that lists accrue significance through the connections generated in-between any given item placed on a list. More precisely, he argues that lists possess a sort of \u201ccompositional\u201d logic, whereby each element in a list produces a broader \u201ccommunicative dynamic\u201d (15). The \u201ccommunicative dynamic\u201d emerging in these instances of tagging involves engineering data interconnections to generate recommendations.<\/p>\n Indeed, hashtags are an everyday part of social media websites such as Instagram and Twitter and they provide users with a means to render their social-media posts searchable, groupable, and part of larger social-media trends. In relation to social-media activism, hashtags articulate networked connections between posts, producing larger aggregates of protest messages as social-media postings (Scott). The use of hashtags fit, moreover, within the increasing tendency for users to perform \u201cinterpersonal search\u201d in social-media platforms. M. Zappavigna explains: \u201cThis cultural shift to interpersonal search has resulted in the emergence of searchable talk, that is, online discourse where the primary function appears to be affiliation via \u2018findability.\u2019 This kind of talk . . . incorporate[s] metadata into language so that online talk can be found\u201d (789). As the screengrab listing the results for the tracks and playlists categorized as #Ottawa (Image 6) depicts, there are a range of individuals using Soundcloud who hashtag local regions to align their tracks, podcasts, and\/or playlists with others. This facilitates the findability of these tracks via the tagging of local regions.<\/p>\n Writing about localness in Canadian commercial radio broadcasts, Berland unpacks and identifies how a \u201clocal feel\u201d is produced in Canadian commercial radio to \u201cappeal to\u201d both advertisers and listeners (189). Localness is not intrinsic to Canadian commercial radio; instead, the feel of locality is produced, more precisely, through such narrative means as: DJ banter identifying local events, locally focused news updates, and broadcasting commercials for local businesses (189-191). These elements re-code commercial radio as a local media production (though localness can also be established in the signal limits of terrestrial radio stations). Similarly, I would like to suggest that there is a \u201clocal feel\u201d being produced in these platforms through the deployment of region-specific tags.<\/p>\n Specifically, in Bandcamp and Soundcloud, these instances of user-generated metadata both describe musical data uploaded to these platforms and generate connections between musical data identified with that regional tag. This fits with Morris\u2019 argument that \u201cmetadata plug users into a vast repository of commodities on the internet, where the act of listening to a song triggers advice to purchase music by similar-sounding bands, related merchandise, or other linked media properties\u201d (\u201cMaking Music Behave\u201d 860). The indexi-local articulates and visualizes these connections between musical data circulating within this platform as lists and tagged text. The functionality of these instances of region-oriented metadata is reflected in the very aesthetics of tagging: a gray and platform-specific \u201clocal feel\u201d oriented towards enabling, on the one hand, the frictionless navigation and retrieval of musical data uploaded to these platforms, and on the other, recommendations for further listening, streaming, and purchasing options.<\/p>\n Scholars have identified a \u201cnew music economy\u201d that has disrupted music\u2019s established commodity forms and producer\/consumer relationships (see Galuzska; Morris, \u201cArtists as Entrepreneurs\u201d; Morris and Powers). This new music economy privileges \u201cfeatures like social connections and contributions (between fans and artists, fan-generated reviews and playlists, etc.) in lieu of sales of discrete objects\u201d (Morris and Powers 109). While Bandcamp still sells \u201cdiscrete objects,\u201d this article has emphasized how forms of user-generated contributions, social connection, and participation emerges in the collective and regionally oriented tagging practices circulating through both music platforms. The indexi-local, moreover, signals the place and value of local regions within these two music platforms to organize data, generate recommendations, and facilitate frictionless navigation. While further research is needed to identify the social, emotional, and professional needs that these practices of region-oriented tagging meet for users, it is evident that both local regions and these music platforms operate as mutually beneficial \u201cway-finding aids\u201d (Straw413). Indeed, the tagging of local regions enables users not only to sift through the density of musical activity transpiring in a local music-making region with that platform but also locate music within that platform via local regions. This focus on metadata reveals a platform-specific \u201clocal feel,\u201d produced by re-articulating local music-making regions to metadata-specific functionalities of categorization, connection, and retrieval. While one can potentially, as Soundcloud promises users, \u201chear the world\u2019s sound\u201d (www.soundcloud.com) in and through these music platforms, this world of musical data is navigated, organized, and emplaced through the aggregation of user-generated and region-oriented tags generated by users of these two music platforms.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n Audette-Longo, Michael.\u00a0Shine A Light: Surveying Locality, Independence, and Digitization in Ottawa\u2019s Independent Rock Scene.\u00a0<\/em>Diss. Carleton University, 2016. Web. 23 Aug. 2017.<\/p>\n —. \u201cEverybody Knows There is Here: Surveying the Indexi-local in CBC Radio 3.\u201d Oxford Handbook of<\/em> Music and Virtuality<\/em>, edited by Sheila Whitely and Shara Rambarran,, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 514-528<\/p>\n Bennett, Andy.\u00a0Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place<\/em>. Palgrave, 2000.<\/p>\n Berland, Jody. \u201cRadio Space and Industrial Time: Music Formats, Local Narratives, and Technological Mediation.\u201d Popular Music <\/em>9, 2, 1990, pp. 179-192.<\/p>\n Boehm, Carola. \u201cThe Metadata Bear. Or: Bearing the Weight of Accessibility.\u201d Journal of Educational Media<\/em>, 24, 3, 1999, pp. 177-189.<\/p>\n Bolter, JayDavid and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media<\/em>. MIT Press, 1999.<\/p>\n Cohen, Sara. Rock Culture in Liverpool: Popular Music in the Making<\/em>. Clarendon Press, 1991.<\/p>\n Crossley, Nick. \u201cPretty Connected: The Social Network of the Early UK Punk Movement.\u201d Theory, Culture & Society<\/em>, 25, 6, 2008, pp. 89-116.<\/p>\n Diamond, Evan. \u201cOh No, Not Another Music Community!\u201d The Bandcamp Blog<\/em>, https:\/\/blog.bandcamp.com\/2010\/02\/11\/oh-no-not-another-music-community\/<\/a><\/p>\n Flanagan, Andrew. \u201cBandcamp Hits $100 Million Payout Milestone, Plans Artist Subscriptions.\u201d Billboard<\/em>, http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/business\/6494556\/bandcamp-100-million-payout-milestone-artist-subscriptions-ethan-diamond<\/p>\n Fuller, Matthew. Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture<\/em>. MIT Press, 2005.<\/p>\n Fuller, Matthew and Andrew Goffey. Evil Media<\/em>. MIT Press, 2012.<\/p>\n Galloway, Alexander R. The Interface Effect<\/em>. Polity Press, 2012.<\/p>\n Galuzska, Patryk. \u201cNew Economy of Fandom.\u201d Popular Music and Society<\/em>, 38, 1, 2015, pp. 25-43.<\/p>\n Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. <\/em>MIT Press, 2006.<\/p>\n Harrison, Anthony Kwame. \u201c\u2018Cheaper than a CD, Plus We Really Mean It:\u2019 Bay Area Underground Hip Hop Tapes as Subcultural Artefacts.\u201d Popular Music<\/em>, 25, 2, 2006, pp. 283-301.<\/p>\n Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide<\/em>. New York University Press, 2006.<\/p>\n Kruse, Holly. \u201cLocal Identity and Independent Music Scenes, Online and Off.\u201d\u00a0Popular Music and Society<\/em>, 33, 5, 2010, pp. 625-639.<\/p>\n —. Site<\/em> and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes<\/em>. Peter Lang, 2003.<\/p>\n Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media<\/em>. MIT Press, 2001.<\/p>\n McIntyre, Hugh. \u201cDirect-To-Fan Platform Bandcamp Has Now Paid Artists $100 million.\u201d Forbes<\/em>, http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/hughmcintyre\/2015\/03\/10\/direct-to-fan-platform-bandcamp-has-now-paid-artists-100-million\/<\/a><\/p>\n Morris, Jeremy Wade. Selling Digital Music, Formatting Culture<\/em>. University of California Press, 2015.<\/p>\n —. \u201cArtists As Entrepreneurs, Fans As Workers.\u201d Popular Music and Society<\/em>, 37, 3, 2014, pp. 273-290.<\/p>\n —. \u201cMaking Music Behave: Metadata and The Digital Music Commodity.\u201d New Media & Society<\/em>, 14, 5, 2012, pp. 850-866.<\/p>\n Morris, Jeremy Wade and Devon Powers. \u201cControl, Curation, and Musical Experience in Streaming Music Services.\u201d Creative Industries Journal<\/em>, 8, 2, 2015, pp. 106-122.<\/p>\n O\u2019Connor, Alan. \u201cLocal Scenes and Dangerous Crossroads: Punk and Theories of Cultural Hybridity.\u201d Popular Music<\/em>, 21, 2, 2002, pp. 225-236.<\/p>\n Peters, John Durham. The Marvelous Clouds: Towards A Philosophy of Elemental Media<\/em>. The University of Chicago Press, 2015.<\/p>\n Reynolds, Simon. Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture<\/em>. Soft Skull Press, 2012.<\/p>\n Sargent, Carey. \u201cLocal Musicians Building Global Audiences: Social Capital and the Distribution of User-created Content On- and Off-line.\u201d Information, Communication & Society<\/em>, 12, 4, 2009, pp. 469-487.<\/p>\n Scott, Suzanne. \u201c#Wheresrey?: Toys, Spoilers, and the Gender Politics of Franchise Paratexts.\u201d Critical Studies in Media Communication<\/em>, 34, 2, 2017, pp. 138-147.<\/p>\n Shank, Barry. Dissonant Identities: The Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Scene in Austin, Texas<\/em>. Wesleyan University Press, 1994.<\/p>\n Srnicek, Nick. Platform Capitalism. <\/em>Polity Press, 2017.<\/p>\n Stahl, Matt. Unfree masters: Recording artists and the politics of work<\/em>. Durham, NC & London: Duke University Press.<\/p>\n Straw, Will. “Cultural Scenes.”\u00a0Society and Leisure<\/em>, 27, 2, 2004, pp. 411-422.<\/p>\n Taylor, Arlene G. and Daniel N. Joudrey. The Organization of Information <\/em>(3rd<\/sup> ed.). Libraries Unlimited, 2009.<\/p>\n Terranova, Tziana. \u201cFree Labour: Producing Culture For the Digital Economy. Social Text<\/em>, 18, 2, 2000, pp. 33-58.<\/p>\n Tozzi, John and Nick Leiber. \u201cHelping Indie Musicians Market Their Tunes.\u201d Bloomberg Businessweek,<\/em> http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/bw\/magazine\/helping-indie-musicians-market-their-tunes-11172011.html<\/p>\n Van Buskirk, Eliot. \u201cMusical Map: Cities of the World.\u201d\u00a0Spotify Insights<\/em>,https:\/\/insights.spotify.com\/us\/2015\/07\/13\/musical-map-of-the-world\/<\/p>\n —. \u201cSoundcloud Threatens Myspace as Music Destination for Twitter Era. Wired<\/em>, https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2009\/07\/soundcloud-threatens-myspace-as-music-destination-for-twitter-era\/<\/a><\/p>\n Zappavigna, Michele. \u201cAmbient Affiliation: A Linguistic Perspective on Twitter.\u201d New Media & Society<\/em>, 13, 5, 2011, pp. 788-806.<\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> In an earlier study, the indexi-local was identified in the online radio station CBC Radio 3 and argued to operate as a \u201cvirtual image\u201d of local music scenes (Audette-Longo). In doing so, it looked to the \u201cexperiential potentiality\u201d of participating in a local music scene vis-\u00e0-vis this online radio station (516). This article further builds on this initial study of how styles of participating in independent music overlap local music scenes and a single digital music platform by considering the tagging practices of platform users. Moreover, because this article branches off from a broader study of independent music within Ottawa, Ontario\u2019s indie rock scene (Audette-Longo, \u201cShine a Light\u201d) the examples of tagging included below deal with Bandcamp and Soundcloud accounts based in Ottawa.<\/p>\nIntroducing Bandcamp and Soundcloud<\/strong><\/h6>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Longo-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLocality and Metadata: Music Scenes, Collective Intelligence, and Extra Work<\/strong><\/h6>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Longo-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Longo-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGray Locality, or, Engineering Connections <\/strong><\/h6>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Longo-4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Longo-5.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Longo-6.jpg\")
<\/p>\nConclusion<\/strong><\/h6>\n
Works Cited<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Endnotes<\/h6>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/88x31-1.png\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"