Most-Played Song of 2020? For Many It's White Noise (nytimes.com) 59
An anonymous reader shares a report: In an average year, Spotify Wrapped is a sharing-optimized novelty hinging on nostalgia for a time that's barely passed. But in 2020, this data mirror instead presented many users with unexpected empirical evidence of their pandemic coping mechanisms: a strange hit parade of ambient music, background noise and calming sound effects that soothed them through an unusually anxious and sleepless time. While thousands of users posted in disbelief about their stress-inflected results, the situation made sense to Liz Pelly, a cultural critic who has written extensively about how Spotify and its competitors work to shape our listening habits. "It says a lot about the ways that corporate streaming services have ingrained themselves into our lives and facilitated music listening becoming more of a background experience," she said.
[...] The findings of some forthcoming research about pandemic coping mechanisms suggest ambient listening may be part of a larger pattern. Pablo Ripolles, a professor at New York University who studies music and the brain, was part of an international team of researchers that surveyed lockdown habits in Italy, Spain and the United States. Of 43 activities mentioned in a survey the team conducted, like cooking, prayer, exercise and sex, listening to or playing music had one of the biggest increases in engagement during lockdown, as well as the highest number of respondents who said it was the activity that helped them the most.
[...] The findings of some forthcoming research about pandemic coping mechanisms suggest ambient listening may be part of a larger pattern. Pablo Ripolles, a professor at New York University who studies music and the brain, was part of an international team of researchers that surveyed lockdown habits in Italy, Spain and the United States. Of 43 activities mentioned in a survey the team conducted, like cooking, prayer, exercise and sex, listening to or playing music had one of the biggest increases in engagement during lockdown, as well as the highest number of respondents who said it was the activity that helped them the most.
Not black noise? (Score:3, Funny)
I thought all modern popular music had been replaced by various annoying forms for black noise.
Or maybe I am just getting older.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it wrong to now refer to those songs as going to number one with a bullet?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Be grateful it is not pink noise. Yes, that is actually a real thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Be grateful it is not pink noise. Yes, that is actually a real thing.
Pray they don't hit a brown note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'd hate to accidentally (s)hit an audience with that one. Careful with those grungedubstep tunings...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Be grateful it is not pink noise. Yes, that is actually a real thing.
So is brown noise. Neener neener.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people working in music know about pink noise as it's one of the calibration noises used in setting up PAs and sound systems in mixing rooms. And yeah, it's a piercing, shitty sound to hear. I still remember the day I came to the venue a little too early for an outdoor Metallica gig and they were running the calibration sounds to set up the mixer. 50K Watts of pink noise blasting your face is NOT something you forget easily.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people working in music know about pink noise as it's one of the calibration noises used in setting up PAs and sound systems in mixing rooms. And yeah, it's a piercing, shitty sound to hear.
Pink noise is just white noise with a slight treble roll off of -6dB per octave. I think it's better than white noise for relaxation as it's a little warmer and less harsh.
Re:Not black noise? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
We do have brown noise, and while I was looking it up to refresh my memory, it's also known as red noise! Who knew?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The most played song of 2020 (Score:2)
Most-Played Song of 2020..
..is something we will never know. The idea that platforms like spotify will accurately reveal actual play numbers is ludicrous on its face. Telling us what is popular is just too powerful a tool to have it reflect reality.
Re: Not black noise? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
People stuck at home for a long time tend to do more things that can easily be done at home as opposed to the office etc. Eg: "cooking, prayer, exercise and sex, listening to or playing music".
Re: In other news... (Score:2)
I assume youâ(TM)re talking about sex with women - the best way for that not to happen is to spend a lot of time with them.
Re: (Score:2)
You must be married. :)
Re: In other news... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You're a bit of an ignorant twat arn't you. You think devout christians no longer pray before they eat a meal never mind at other times? Ditto Jews, muslims etc.
Whether or not you believe in it - I don't - the majority of the worlds population still do it.
All kinds of fun stats (Score:2, Insightful)
There will be lots of interesting stats about this year but honestly this seems like one of the least interesting.
Of the list mentioned, personally I am more interested in sex and prayer statistics. Likewise what I assume to be a correlation between them, that more sex would mean less prayer and vice versa. However on /. we all know, no one has a sex life.
Of those not mentioned, I think pregnancy, abortion, and divorce rates willall be very fascinating. I am currently living in China, so my sex life is
Re: All kinds of fun stats (Score:2)
least atypical or most typical... eck!
Re: (Score:2)
Requiring a cool down period before divorce is a violation of the right of free association.
What we need is a cool down period before marriage. Like you've gotta be living with someone and fucking them (assuming sex is a thing you do) for like three months before you get married.
Seriously though, what we really need is for government to get out of the marriage game all but entirely. They shouldn't be involved with it at all except at the legal dispute level, and marriage should be a formal contract between
Re: All kinds of fun stats (Score:2)
I agree about the nature of law and marriage. This is the essential foundation of "free love" as a social movement. It requires a lot of social breakdown with regards to marriage, family, and monogamy. For example a family can include more than three parents. However in Chinese culture we are very farvfrom seeing the logical distinction in these three concepts that are often seen as mutually assured. Even in America a large portion of the population would argue with you if you said these exist seperat
Oh, that's an easy one (Score:2, Funny)
Trance did it for me. (Score:2)
I go through cycles of what I like to listen to. I stopped listening to Trance about a decade ago, and returned to it in June, mainly to remember all the fun I had dancing to it.
But there was one huge surprise: Armin van Buuren is STILL here, and STILL the King of Trance!
It felt so good, almost like Trance was there waiting for me, letting me pick up where I left off.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really a surprise (Score:3)
Call me old fashioned... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
10m views, not bad, Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You https://youtu.be/3JWTaaS7LdU [youtu.be] is past a billion this year.
But I only listened to that a couple times this year. What gets me through is Greatest Love of All. https://youtu.be/IYzlVDlE72w [youtu.be] It's only at 183M though.
Ah yes, the Christmas classics (Score:2)
I'm dreaming of a white noise.
Sorry.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, one of my favorites! I hope nobody minds, but I'm gonna sing along!
~/ I'm dreaming of a white noise,
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops burn
And children listen
To hear hangmen in the snow
I'm dreaming of a white noise
With every Holiday Greetings I write
May your days be compliant and redlined
Like all your Christmases have been white
I'm dreaming if a white noise /~
Like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops burn
And despicables listen to hear
Science! Yeah bich! (Score:1)
With all the anxiety producing media weâ(TM)ve pumped into the mediasphere, More and more people turn to audio only media to cope with... the media. Thatâ(TM)s way the most listened media is white noise, yeah! hurr fpptppt smarts! yeay for mass media! Its an effective coping mechanism according to our stats that are literally exclusively biased to only those renting media! Durr!
Re: Science! Yeah bich! (Score:1)
Remember when visa hires understood unicode? Dice remembers hole 4
Anthrax. Sound Of White Noise (Score:1)
Great Album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Uhhhh (Score:3, Insightful)
So the most listened to track on streaming media is something people could listen to for free, by turning off streaming and listening to basically nothing, and this is somehow supposed to be evidence that streaming media is helping people cope with stress? Am I the only one here that is not a fucking idiot?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Uhhhh (Score:2)
Unless you live by the sea and a wind is blowing. :D
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Uhhhh (Score:2)
White noise helps to block stuff out, and it's really helpful when you live in a crowded apartment building.
Guess I'm a weirdo for using a white noise machine so I don't have to listen to the fake laughs and bullshit banter from my neighbors. :\
Re: (Score:2)
is something people could listen to for free, by turning off streaming and listening to basically nothing
Only if you're a nerd who considers "listening to nothing" to be an op amp on a breadboard amplifying thermal noise from a resistor. And only because they give away old op amps for free at the makerspace.
Re: (Score:2)
You may be the only one that hasn't seen the millions of ASMR videos on YouTube that are essentially the same thing. They've been going around for about a decade but judging by the amount of times they're getting mentioned in pop culture the past few years, it seems pretty mainstream now. The surprising thing would be if they only just now started showing up on audio-only services.
Re: (Score:2)
Am I the only one here that is not a fucking idiot?
No bud, you just drank too much last night and don't have the cognitive means to sort out why everything is bugging you today.
I have tinnitus (probably a result of centuries of alcoholism and living through the industrial revolution). Ambient music/noise is really helpful at blocking the broken tube television in my head that's screaming 24/7.
As well, having background sounds without a well-defined beat help you focus. This is why people like to work in c
Obviously... (Score:2)
We've been in an anxiety pandemic ever since ~2004.
And Covid, being actually real, and not just the usual shadows under the bed, of course kicked the collective mental illness* into ludicrous speed.
I would love to test the correlations to: ... square ... in the second half of the 20th century.),
-- lack of lead pollution (Which apparently strongly correlates with violence and crime but also generally being less afraid and less
-- growing inteligence (=awareness of more possible dangers, but inability to hand
Re: (Score:2)
We've... since ~2004.
You'll never be able to change how you feel if you don't start taking ownership and saying "I."
I've been listening to Whitney Houston, AoA, and The Bangles all year. I don't have extra anxiety, now that the election uncertainties have passed.
Since 2004?! When are you going to finally see somebody about it?
Just some educated guesses...
Wait, what??? OK, who were you quoting then?
How "Many", btw? (Score:2)
Dozens? There's dozens of them?
Sonic Snake Oil? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
anyone who believes listening to something will make their prick ... bigger probably deserves what they get.
Oh, good!
I always wanted to deserve her, but every boy feels a little fear inside.
https://youtu.be/G333Is7VPOg [youtu.be] (Madonna - Papa Don't Preach)
Re: (Score:2)
Good name for a band...
That's not white noise (Score:2)
The track in TFA which claims to be white noise sure doesn't sound like white noise. It's frequency distribution sounds much more like pink or possibly brown noise centered around 400-500 Hz. Actual white noise would be grating to most because it biases strongly towards the higher frequencies.
My go-to "track" is this SoX command in a Linux terminal:
play -n -c1 synth brownnoise band -n 25
...which plays one mono channel of noise in a Brownian distribution, centered at 25 Hz, which is about as low as typical
Re: (Score:2)
pink or possibly brown
Slashdot never could tell the difference, but in general, if it was the pink stuff you'd have known.
I thought it meant (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, this is modern pop with modern production:
https://youtu.be/_Rt49n4Nglo [youtu.be] (AoA - Heart Attack - fanservice version)
White noise (Score:2)
To block out all of the bullshit around us. I have a white noise machine for my bedroom, and a recording of a ham radio broadcast with birds chirping, complete with atmospheric noise and static lightning crashes, played on a continuous loop for when I am sitting out in public.
Where an analogue radio works better (Score:2)
I actually listen plain old radio on a channel where they talk, put music and so on, It actually helps to have a background, and it's useful because gives me a sense of time that working at home is somewhat missing.
Re: Where an analogue radio works better (Score:2)
A years ago, I was using an AM radio to create white noise on a blank station. I was on the high end of the dial (1600 or 1700), and it was just a nice atmospheric hiss. I layed down in my bed, starting to drift off to sleep when I heard a loud, shrill "BLEEREERRERP!" that startled the fuck out of me. It lasted only a second or two, but I did not expect something like that at all.
From the sound of it, I believe it was a low speed data burst. I don't know why something like that would be on the AM broadcast