The Day Music Neutrality Died (a bit) - Thank You Everynoise.com

When I wanted to work on 8th December 2023, preparing the base data for my two country music playlists, I was shocked. The key website I used for that, everynoise.com, did not provide me with the necessary information any more. I soon became aware of that the data stream from Spotify to the website is in fact down – or at least very, very limited. This is a big hit for Flyctory.com. However, I feel it is a big hit for you as well – even if you did not use the tool. Here is may thankful farewell to Everynoise.com – still hoping that the founder can somehow recover it.

What has Everynoise.com been?

Everynoise.com – or Every Noise at Once, which is the full name of the project has been established by Cambridge, MA, based Glenn McDonald. He developed an algorithm which, based on the tags and data existing in Spotify (like the genre or the release date) is creating various views on the information Spotify has got. For example, he automatically created masses of playlists, based on the genre only. The screenshot below shows a small part of the genre cloud created by the tool.

The key functionality I used was that every Friday, Every Noise at Once provided a full list of new releases on Spotify, albums and singles. It even used to mark re-releases, which was very helpful for my work. You could also filter to certain genres – and the tool also gave you all sub-genres and similar genres available. For example, you can find all country music releases in the week until 1st December 2023, the last time the tool fully worked, here.

Why doesn’t it work any more?

The answer is simple: Glenn does not work for Spotify any more. Not knowing the exact details, parts of the algorithms used required a deeper access to the Spotify databases than “normal” people have. Spotify is rather unique by having the Spotify API, which is allowing you to code applications using their databases, but these are typically limited. An example for that is play-later.com. Even if you use their deeper search algorithm Music Box, this is a nice illustration, how limited the information you get when you use the public API.

Why Has Everynoise.com been so Important?

So far, you might feel that this posting is weird. There are so many playlists and new release functionalities on any of the major streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. There are also release radars by other sources, bloggers, magazine and more. However, the more you compare these sources with Everynoise.com, the more you see how much bias is in that information. Depending on the source, they are edited and selected by humans or concentrate on “big acts”. You might also get into some of the playlist by paying a certain gratitude, fee.

The problem feels small – but even with websites like albumoftheyear.org, it feels impossible to identify a wide (there is never a complete one, I guess) and neutral list of song releases. The data is obviously there. Spotify even had the opportunity to search for new releases in the past: Until some 2018, you could search with the option tag:new to see the latest publications. You should really try to create such a list of new releases by yourself. It is impressing how quickly you run into bias limitations. Even if you register on different platforms, you will see how biased the search is. To me, that leads to two similar effects:

First of all, biased selections typically favor famous and popular artists. Vice versa, that means that upcoming artists and less popular artists massively profited from sites like Everynoise.com. If they released a single, they got exactly the same presence as the very big acts.
Especially when I think about Germany and the music which is in my focus, I feel the same effect applies to less popular genres. Sites like Everynoise give you a complete overview of all country music. The website was a key quality factor for my country playlists. Again, more popular (and commercial music) is likely having a significant advantage in a world without tools like Every Noise At Once.

Was it really that good?

Yes and no. If you, for example, check the new country releases during the last weeks in Every Noise at Once, you see that some artists or bots made use of the fact that the genre tagging in Spotify is generally rather low. Vice versa, I made some artists aware of the fact that they are not listed at all. The reason for that was likely that they or their promoter have not filled out the information properly. Thus, scanning Spotify in general is not perfect, but it is still somehow much better than the situation without the tool we got now.

What is the Impact on Flyctory.com?

I feel the two bullet points above describe it best. Everynoise.com was the key factor which allowed me to deliver country playlists with a lot of new names and artists. I presented artists to you who I feel deserved to be presented. If there is not a way to have something very similar up very soon (luckily, the next weeks won’t have too many releases anyway…), then I will not be able to continue delivering that level of quality in 2024.

I will have to decide about the options. The most straight-forward one would be to create a tool for country music, based on the Spotify API. To be honest, this is rather unlikely, just because it requires time and also an upgrade to my PHP programming skills – even though I would definitely love to do that somehow. I am also thinking about somehow changing the country playlists. At this time, I have not made up my mind. I just have intensively searched for alternative tools so far over the weekend. Unfortunately, have to state: I haven’t found anything which is really pleasing me.

How Will That Change The Website?

In worst case, it will (further) decrease the focus on country music. My connections to country music promoters and labels are weaker than to other genres. The promotion platforms I use are having a lot of different releases, but are not too strong on the country music side. Ideally, I manage to connect to some US promotion platforms focusing on the genre to at least somehow close the gap. However, the music airplay and promotion in North America is much more commercialized (i.e. airplay for money) than here in Europe.

It will not impact the Songs of the Week, for example, though. The way I am creating this playlist is very different and uses promotion platforms and promotion mailings I receive.

Last, but not Least

Despite there was a lot of discussion on social media, esp. X / Twitter, I am sure that many of you did not even know Everynoise.com. I feel this example tells you to reflect about your consumption of music, but maybe also of other items in general. Nowadays, unbiased information is rare. In some occasions, it is hard to retrieve at all. Everynoise.com did great job in that regard for music lovers for over five years. I am thankful, but also scared that this short era is over. Thanks to Glenn McDonald for his effort. Hope there will be something similar very soon. Small artists and less popular genres deserve the chance to be listened to.

All “classic” blog posts

No reviews – just debating and certain topics – these are my “traditional” blog posts in the categories Just blogging, Just blogging on music and Sports Blogging: