{"id":6274,"date":"2015-06-23T12:23:31","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=6274"},"modified":"2015-07-27T11:36:14","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T17:36:14","slug":"music-is-the-oil-in-the-human-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=6274","title":{"rendered":"Music is the oil in the human machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"oil\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In announcing<\/a> the\u00a0free version of its music streaming service\u00a0\u2014 that’s free as in ads \u2014\u00a0Google also discloses<\/a> something revealing\u00a0about the way it views\u00a0music:<\/p>\n

At any moment in your day, Google Play Music has whatever you need music for \u2014 from working, to working out, to working it on the dance floor \u2014 and gives you curated radio stations to make whatever you\u2019re doing better. Our team of music experts, including the\u00a0folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so you don\u2019t have to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This marks a continuation of Google’s promotion of\u00a0what it terms “activity-based” music. Last year, soon after it acquired Songza, a company that specializes\u00a0in “curating”\u00a0playlists to suit\u00a0particular moods and activities, Google\u00a0rejiggered<\/a>\u00a0its music service to emphasize its practicality:<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a Google Play Music subscriber, next time you open the app you\u2019ll be prompted to play music for a time of day, mood or activity. Choose an activity to get options for several music stations to make whatever you\u2019re doing even better \u2014 whether it\u2019s a station for a morning workout, songs to relieve stress during traffic, or the right mix for cooking with friends. Each station has been handcrafted \u2014 song by song \u2014 by our team of music experts (dozens of DJs, musicians, music critics and ethnomusicologists) to give you the exact right song for the moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is\u00a0the democratization of the Muzak philosophy. Music\u00a0becomes an input, a factor of production. Listening to music is not itself an “activity” \u2014 music isn’t an end in itself \u2014 but rather an enhancer of\u00a0other activities, each of which must be clearly demarcated. (As I’ve argued<\/a> before, the fuzziness of human experience is anathema to Silicon Valley. Before you can code it, you have to\u00a0formalize it.)<\/p>\n

Here’s a sampling of the discrete\u00a0activities\u00a0\u2014 “jobs” might be the more accurate term \u2014\u00a0that Google lets you choose from in ordering up units\u00a0of music:<\/p>\n

Barbecuing
\nBeing Romantic
\nBreaking Up
\nCoding
\nCooking
\nDaydreaming
\nDrinking
\nDriving
\nEntering Beast Mode
\nEntertaining
\nFalling in Love
\nFamily Time
\nGetting Cosy
\nGetting Married
\nGirls Night Out
\nHaving Friends Over
\nHaving Fun at Work
\nPregaming
\nRaising Your Kids
\nRelaxing
\nSleeping
\nStudying
\nWaking Up
\nWorking
\nWorking Out
\nYoga<\/p>\n

Once you accept that music is an input, a factor of production, you’ll\u00a0naturally seek to minimize the cost and effort required to acquire\u00a0the\u00a0input. And since music is “context” rather than “core,” to borrow Geoffrey Moore’s famous categorization of business inputs, simple\u00a0economics would dictate that you\u00a0outsource the supply of music rather than invest personal resources \u2014 time, money, attention, passion \u2014 in\u00a0supplying it yourself. You should, as Google suggests,\u00a0look to a “team of music experts” to “craft”\u00a0your\u00a0musical inputs, “song by song,” so “you don’t have to.” To choose your\u00a0own songs, or even to\u00a0develop the personal taste in music required to choose your\u00a0own songs, would be wasted labor, a distraction\u00a0from the series of essential\u00a0jobs\u00a0that give structure and value\u00a0to your days.<\/p>\n

Art\u00a0is an industrial lubricant that, by reducing the friction from activities, makes for more productive lives.<\/p>\n

Image: Marilyn Peddle<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In announcing the\u00a0free version of its music streaming service\u00a0\u2014 that’s free as in ads \u2014\u00a0Google also discloses something revealing\u00a0about the way it views\u00a0music: At any moment in your day, Google Play Music has whatever you need music for \u2014 from working, to working out, to working it on the dance floor \u2014 and gives you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6274"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6377,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274\/revisions\/6377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}