How I Listen: Live Nation Labs’ Kyle Bylin
As part of Hypebot's 9th Anniversary celebration, we're featuring some old friends and familiar names. In this ongoing series, How I Listen, we ask industry leaders and artists to share how they discover and consume music. This edition features Kyle Bylin, former editor and writer at Hypebot and currently a user researcher at Live Nation Labs.
1) What device(s) do you use to listen to music?
I listen to music on my Macbook Air and iPhone. Lately I have been setting my iPhone in a glass bowl and using that as a speaker system. It works surprisingly well, or at least well enough. I have a portable speaker, but it's somewhat big and doesn't hold a charge. I don't think the Beats by Dre "Bowl" is coming to a store near you anytime soon. But this is an important reminder to the music and technology industry: I have been writing about this sector for a long time — and I know every single product that solves this problem — but I have hired a bowl because it solves it well enough.
2) What streaming music service(s) do you use most often?
I'm listening to the lovely classical music sounds of focus@will right now. I have no idea whether it helps me focus and get more work done, but I want it to, so that "placebo effect" seems to work. I use Spotify to listen to single favorite songs on repeat — hundreds of times — and almost nothing else. I use Slacker exclusively for the "New Rock First" station because it usually suggests music that I like. I have been browsing Twitter #Music lately, trolling for new music, but it's tiresome to skip through 150 songs. I want "My 25 Songs" that I should check out and be done with the app.
3) Besides recommendations from friends, how do you discover new music?
I don't have friends that recommend me music, and I generally dislike social music. That said, I don't discover new music, or make the time to try. Either I stumble across it or I don't. I believe that personal discovery should be integrated into the experiences I already engage with — that I should not have to seek out and discover music; it should find me. Popular music emerges in the places that I frequent and I audition songs for the opportunity to be added to my experiences. I think is a fairly accurate representation of how the world works/looks to causal music listeners.
4) What new music are you listening to most this week?
My most recent single song obsessions:
Fall Out Boy — Save Rock and Roll (177 plays)
Barenaked Ladies — Odds Are (167 plays)
Walk the Moon — Anna Sun (174 plays)
Dead Sara — We Are What You Say (282 plays)
5) Shameless Plug: What are you promoting/launching/planning that you want to share.
I want to launch so many things… #stealthmode
