Listen to Lists

© HKW / Spector Books / Olaf Nicolai

Publication series Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet), Volume 2
Editors: Lina Brion, Detlef Diederichsen
Publisher: Spector Books, Leipzig, 2021
80-100 pages, German and English edition
color and black-and-white illustrations, paperback with folded dust cover
ISBN DE 978-3-95905-454-6
ISBN EN 978-3-95905-455-3
Price: 10 €

Available at bookstores, mail order buying / postal shopping via the Webshop

Lists have been used for a long time to provide orientation in the world of music. The technological triumph of streaming services has turned the supply of music into a new consumer format that has come to dominate the way music is brought to market. However, the playlist does more than just format the music, it also structures the way people listen to it and sorts the data logs collected by streaming services. This revolution has spawned new organizational categories, aesthetic tendencies, and modes of behavior. Listen to Lists launches us into an exploration of this phenomenon. With contributions by Kristoffer Cornils, Maria Eriksson, Jasmine Guffond, Liz Pelly, Robert Prey

Table of contents:

Introduction
Lina Brion, Detlef Diederichsen

Disassemble to Understand
Jasmine Guffond interviews Maria Eriksson

On the History of the Playlist
Kristoffer Cornils

Playlists and the Datafication of Music Formatting
Robert Prey

What about the Unplaylistable Artists?
Liz Pelly

Listening Back
Maria Eriksson interviews Jasmine Guffond