Every Noise at Once is a

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

discovery

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

created by former

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

employee Glenn McDonald. It operates as a directory of

musical genres This is a list of music genres and styles. Music can be described in terms of many genres and styles. Classifications are often arbitrary, and may be disputed and closely related forms often overlap. Larger genres and styles comprise more specifi ...

, artists, and tracks listed by Spotify, in a

scatter plot A scatter plot, also called a scatterplot, scatter graph, scatter chart, scattergram, or scatter diagram, is a type of plot or mathematical diagram using Cartesian coordinates to display values for typically two variables for a set of dat ...

word map style. Since December 2023, McDonald has no longer been able to update the site with new data after he was laid off from Spotify.

Features

The website operates as a directory which maps and tracks the algorithmically generated musical genres listed on Spotify, which are usually not visible on the Spotify app itself aside from its yearly

Spotify Wrapped Spotify Wrapped is a viral marketing campaign by Spotify released annually since 2016 between November 29 and December 6, allowing users to view a compilation of data about their activity on the platform over the preceding year, and inviting th ...

event. These genres are arranged on a long word map in a colour coded

structure such that songs lower down are more "organic" and up is more "mechanical and electric", whereas left is "denser and more atmospheric" and right is "spikier and bouncier". Users can click on the name of a genre to hear a 30-second sample of a song, click on

chevrons Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...

next to any genre name to display another word map of artists corresponding to that genre, and click on the chevrons next to an artist's name to view their tracks as well as a list the genres that their music fits within. Each genre is given its own dedicated Spotify playlist. The site also provides information on popular songs and new releases for each genre, and allows exploration by city, by country, by label or by

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

. Genres listed on the website, and thus in Spotify's list of genres, include

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with dream pop) is a subgenre of indie rock, indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion (music), distortion and effects, a ...

freak folk Psychedelic folk (sometimes acid folk or freak folk) is a loosely defined form of psychedelic music that originated in the 1960s. It retains the largely acoustic instrumentation of folk, but adds musical elements common to psychedelic music. ...

, doomcore,

Viking metal Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by a lyrical and thematic focus on Norse mythology, Norse religion, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age. Viking metal is quite diverse as a musical style, to the point where some consi ...

, escape room,

happy hardcore Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or " hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s ...

goregrind Goregrind is a fusion genre of grindcore and death metal. British band Carcass are commonly credited for the emergence of the genre. Goregrind is recognized for its heavily edited, pitch shifted vocals and abrasive musicianship rooted in grindco ...

, sky room, grungegaze,

dungeon synth Dungeon synth is a genre of electronic music that merges elements of black metal and dark ambient. The style emerged in the early 1990s, predominantly among members of the early Norwegian black metal scene. Dungeon synth usually evokes Middle Ages ...

filthstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken bea ...

, deep filthstep,

brostep Brostep is a harder form of dubstep that emerged during the late 2000s and early 2010s and pioneered by artists like Skrillex and Rusko (musician), Rusko. In 2011, dubstep gained significant traction in the US market, by way of a post-dubst ...

liquid funk Liquid funk, liquid drum & bass, liquid DnB, melodic drum & bass, or sometimes just liquid is a subgenre of drum and bass. While it uses similar basslines and bar layouts to other styles, it contains fewer bar-oriented samples and more instrume ...

neo-pagan Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common simila ...

and

didgeridoo The didgeridoo (;()), also spelt didjeridu, among other variants, is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous Drone (music), drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgerido ...

music. It also covers genres from specific nations including

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

show tunes A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context. Th ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

drain,

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

, German

oi! Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement wa ...

and Finnish

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

History

McDonald created Every Noise at Once when he was working at music intelligence firm

The Echo Nest The Echo Nest is a music intelligence and data platform for developers and media companies. Owned by Spotify since 2014, the company is based in Somerville, MA. The Echo Nest began as a research spin-off from the MIT Media Lab to understand ...

. This company had been acquired by Spotify in 2013, and the genre mapping data created by McDonald was built into various Spotify features, including its "Daily Mix" and "Fans also like" recommendation functions. He added a list mode for genres in May 2014. By December 2020, the site hosted 5,071 genre distinctions, and by October 2021 it hosted 5,602. On December 4, 2023, McDonald was one of the 1,500 employees

laid off A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization ...

by Spotify. As a result, he lost access to the data needed to maintain and update the website's database; it was no longer updated with new music from this point, and he lost the ability to fix any errors caused by changes on Spotify's end. At this point, he and his team had categorized tracks from about one million artists into 6,291 named genres, including 56 kinds of

, 202 kinds of

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk horror ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Fo ...

and 230 kinds of hip hop. A spokesperson for Spotify stated that the current status of Every Noise was likely to remain for the foreseeable future.

Reception

Following McDonald's being laid off in December 2023, Jess Weatherbed of ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American Technology journalism, technology news website headquarters, headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City and operated by Vox Media. The website publishes news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, cons ...

'' stated that Every Noise at Once provided "simplicity" to its users, "a set of basic discovery features that allowed people to explore new genres and browse new music within those genres without filtering through a deluge of algorithmic recommendations. It’s a native utility that Spotify is noticeably lacking, despite having the data readily available to implement it if the company wished to do so." She stated that it was "truly one of the best things about Spotify, despite never being an official part of the service." ''Billboard Canada'' described it as "one of the most extraordinary sites on the internet" and "gloriously

minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

Every Noise at Once website
Internet properties established in 2013 Music websites