Digital Musicologists: Online Music's Tastemakers
What would it be like to listen to music all day and get paid for it? Believe it or not, this job exists. As the digital music revolution ensues, the "musicologist" has emerged as an influential member of the online music ecosystem. A musicologist creates massive quantities of music info, known as metadata, that power today's online music portals - everything from artist bios, album reviews, genre tagging and more. So that Adele bio in Spotify, or that Arcade Fire album review in iTunes - yup, written by a "musicologist", and their work is shaping music discovery every day.
Presenters
Chuck Eddy, a native of Detroit and graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia’s journalism school, spent several years as music editor of The Village Voice and as a senior editor at Billboard. He is the author of the books Stairway to Hell, The Accidental Evolution of Rock'N'Roll, and Rock and Roll Always Forgets, and has written thousands of freelance music pieces over the years for Creem, Request, Entertainment Weekly, and countless other publications and websites. He currently serves as the metal editor for rhapsody.com, writes the Sonic Taxonomy column for spin.com, contributes to Rolling Stone, emusic.com, and elsewhere, and lives in Austin.
Michael “Addi” Addicott is the Manager of Curation at Pandora, where he leads the team of people who curate, acquire, and ingest the music and comedy that make up the Pandora library. The curated catalog that is compiled by the Curation Team is integral in providing listeners with the ultimate personalized listening experience and requires a deep collection of the best music across a wide range of genres. In addition, Michael leads the team that maintains and develops genre stations, regularly communicates with people within the music industry, and collaborates with other teams within the company, supporting their efforts and initiatives as needed.
He earned a BA, in music composition from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and spent his collegiate years developing his skills as a pianist, vocalist and DJ.
Michael continues to perform as a professional DJ, which he’s been doing for nearly 20 years. He has held residences at Bay Area venues such as the DNA Lounge, Ruby Skye, and Temple, among many others including AT&T park where he was the Ballpark DJ for the San Francisco Giants from 2002 – 2010, earning a Pennant ring in his first year, and a World Series ring in his last. Michael also continues to enjoy being the Music Director for the Golden State Warriors where he is currently in his 16th season.
Wednesday, March 14
