Of Music and Media
The Department of the Music Archive’s work is interested in developing alternative music exploration, and it has been for the last two decades, even though most imaginary avenues of music discovery are neglected.[6] DR is a tightly controlled organization aligning with the political winds blowing over the Danish media landscape, and therefore it is interesting that the Department of the Music Archive incessantly refines linked data. Their approach to maintaining a digital music archive focuses on designing an experience of music discovery, even though it is not their immediate task. Besides being motivated by sheer passion, the Department of the Music Archive always keeps the public in mind with each “what-if” situation of sharing the grid of music information. Developing a digital infrastructure within a public service institution inevitably raises questions of cultural heritage. The collection itself is of value in terms of cultural heritage, but even more so is the aspect of being capable of communicating the collection to the public. Ideally, if everything is at some point digitized, it can of course be communicated and aired, but the overarching logic of music scheduling and automatized playlists – the reality of operations within public radio – limits this prospect (for more, see Krogh 2018 and Wallevik 2018, for example). The Head of the Department of the Music Archive argues that an editorial decision to “create content that reaches out to the public” (Dose 2021a) is needed. By that, he implies a sort of inclusion or interactive solution that bridges DR’s music archive with DR’s broadcasting history, which invites the public into the corners of the collection, into forgotten and unique listening experiences.
DR DJ is a proposal for just that; it is an unconventional approach to music curation the goal of which is to open up the door for the offbeat parts of DR’s music collection. DR DJ is an application for mobile devices that hinges playlists and recommendations upon DR-related personalities (such as, for example, Ena Cosovic, Master Fatman, or Bamse[7]) that, in one way or another, impact Danish cultural life. Figures 1 and 2 show two imagined entrance points to the application. The idea for DR DJ is nurtured by the Department of the Music Archive as a possible way to regain relevance for DR as an institution when it comes to music communication in a scattered landscape of music streaming. This application is imagined as an option for embracing the mediality of music today. To some extent, music is a way of artistic communication that crosses media, and this needs to be attempted for a public service media institution to uphold relevance. This is the assessment that drove the Department of the Music Archive to develop the framework for DR DJ.
DR broadcasts music via radio, podcasts, and on-demand radio replays on an app for audio products.[8] Further, DR communicates through online music articles that incorporate smart link platforms, routing users from the website to the specific streaming platform they normally use and/or to which they subscribe.[9] The concept of DR DJ tries to streamline these issues by proposing an interfacial infrastructure that stages personalities related to DR as an institution, across platforms, to be the curating links to the music. The concept sees an open market share in a different, public service-oriented take on music streaming in which, for example, certain popular TV and radio personalities are positioned as playlist curators with weekly or monthly substitutions of tracks. Playlists and personalities as well as singular tracks can be “favorited” by users and thus saved in one’s personal DR DJ discography, which is an action that is meant to open the doors further into the collections via operationalized metadata. In platforming media personalities that already have a huge reach into (certain areas of) the public, DR can target different segments of the population across age and communities. Figure 3 provides an imagination of how an overview of selected DJ’s could look, and Figure 4 imagines how the feed of a user might look (and sound).
DR DJ provides a way to go against the grain of music scheduling practices, as well as archival order, in the practices of music communication. The application activates the metadata in the database and lets the personality-curated playlists function as thresholds into the music collection, which provides users with an opportunity to excavate the history of recorded music as well as DR’s broadcasting history in tandem. It lets users dynamically navigate through the digital music archive. DR DJ creates a metaphorical space that, through curation, places the primary entities of the database (artists, releases, tracks, compositions) on the same level. Thus, the application provides users with the opportunity to experience the same music and information in different ways through time. DR DJ consists of dynamic processes in which each moment of music engagement is different – analytically and experientially – from the previous one and the one to come.
DR DJ is a reimagining of DR’s music archive and the narratives it can be capable of communicating. It further aims at repurposing the very reason for having a music archive at an institution such as DR. The proposal, however, was not realized. It was rejected for financial reasons, because the opposition between copyright fees and a public service institution delivering interfacial access to music appeared to be insolvable (Dose 2021c, 2022). Today, the organizational structure at DR is very different than it was at the time of the proposal, and on a strategic level there is a heightened focus on content that can cross media and be released digitally.[10] Perhaps DR DJ would not have suffered the same fate if the proposal had been made today? In my estimation, it is a digital solution that crosses media and fulfills the public service obligations by offering insights – for the public and DR – into music cultures and history.
Figure 1. A possible first meeting with DR DJ. Here users are to choose the DR radio channels they prefer in order to be paired with relevant DR-related personalities as playlist curators. Source: Thomas Dose
Figure 3. A possible overview of the DR-related personalities a user might have selected as playlist curators. The numbers encircled in red signify news related to the DJ, such as new tracks added to the playlist or newly added motivated descriptions of a given track.
Source: Thomas Dose
Figure 2. A possible first meeting with DR DJ. Here users are to choose the Danish music festivals they prefer in order to be paired with relevant DR-related personalities as playlist curators. Source: Thomas Dose
Figure 4. A possible overview of a user’s feed. Here, newly added tracks occur with motivated descriptions by the DJ’s. For example, Kölsch recommends Can U Feel It by Fingers Inc. and describes the track with a personal statement: “My first, and maybe still my favorite house track. This was the track I cried myself to sleep to as a teenager when the world was cruel. This track has everything!” Source: Thomas Dose
