Electrospective App Debuts On Spotify Spotlighting Over 50 Years Of Electronic Music
Electrospective launched last summer featuring electronic music back to 1958 from EMI, Virgin, Parlophone and Mute. It's been a fairly low key project but yesterday they raised their profile with the Electrospective App combining their historical perspective with Spotify resources to provide a unique look and listen to electronic music. The app combines multiple playlists, Electrospective's historical timeline and a playlist generator for a focused approach with an expansive feel.
Looking back at the launch of Electrospective as a website with timeline and related social media sites, it appears to have been initially intended as a short-term project. Now under the direction of Universal Music Catalogue, Electrospective has continued in relatively quiet mode.
Yesterday Electrospective launched the Electrospective App on Spotify featuring music from 550 albums dating back to 1958.
The Electrospective App combines:
Featured Playlists – an interesting selection from the weekly updated #Electrospective to a playlist based on The Human League's appearance at Kew Gardens in 2013.
The Electrospective – the browsable timeline of albums from 1958 to the recent past.
Playlist Generator – with a selection of years, genres and qualitative choices.
The Electrospective App struck me as a particularly nice way to make the connections between electronic music's diverse reach from the avant garde to pop music. Perhaps another playlist would be the way to highlight those connections.
From a different perspective, such an app is one of the better arguments for Spotify's value and potential to musicians in that it goes beyond web radio and playlists to build a richer resource combining Spotify's access to music and the curatorial knowledge of folks outside of Spotify with a commitment to a specific form of music or music catalog. These are the sorts of projects that can help introduce listeners to new musicians as well as back catalog gems with some relevant context.
Jemima Kiss maintains that the app is "part acknowledgement that Spotify is the only sensible way to offer a comprehensive digital music service at scale." I would add that it suggests the possibilities for what can happen at scale when outside curators are involved.
The music represented by this one project alone also points to the fact that Spotify is incredibly underpriced and there may not be much that can be done about that situation in the near-term given the history of pricing such services.
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
