Last week, I had a strange music listening experience that can only really happen in our brave new world of streaming audio.
A few days ago I posted an item on Facebook about Louis Jordan. Shortly afterwards I was listening to some of his music on Spotify. I checked the related artists section where I saw a listing for a singer named Ella Mae Morse. Given that I’d never heard of her, I clicked on the link and played a few tunes.
I was immediately hooked. It was a good mix of old-school jump blues, jazz and rockabilly, essentially pre-rock n’ roll, rock n’ roll from the late 1940s and early ‘50s, like a female Bill Haley. Afterwards I did what I usually do when I stumble onto someone I haven’t heard of before, I read articles on Wikipedia and Allmusic.com and listened to a few of her albums, earmarking some choice cuts for playlists. (On a side note, a few days later I asked my Dad who has encyclopedic knowledge of '50s music about her and he had no idea who she was either.)
Here’s where it gets interesting. Every morning I usually put on NPR Music’s Radio Heartland, which plays a mix of contemporary folk, Americana, and non-Nashville country, with the occasional oldie as well, like a Chuck Berry tune or something from deep in Joni Mitchell’s catalogue. Anyway, the day after my listening binge, when one of these older songs popped up I thought the voice sounded familiar, even though I didn’t know the song. I checked the track list and it was Ella Mae Morse.
Now was this just an example of Big Data at work? Did Spotify direct me to her in the first place because of my listening profile? Or did NPR’s music app somehow pick up on what I was doing and send the information to its programmers? In my experience, Big Data is never really all that accurate. Spotify is the same service that keeps trying to sell me a Camaro and recommends such stalwarts of ‘70s pop as the Starland Vocal Band and Gilbert O’Sullivan to me in its customized Discover Weekly playlist. So part of me thinks, to paraphrase Doc Brown, it may be just one big coincidence.
Either way, it’s worth giving Ms. Morse’s music a listen.
