Things Right Now 017
Week of 01.06.25
Post-Cool or the 20th anniversary issue of Spike
My colleagues at Spike are celebrating their second decade by asking the question, “What does it mean to do culture post-cool?” Some thoughts on how post-cool relates to scene cool from former Spike editor and director of the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Robert Schulte:
What’s considered cool comes in cycles of excess and backlash. Scene-cool will always exist, with its clear codes—like the new seat cushions at Schmetterling, designed by Hulfe. But Berlin’s post-cool moment feels like a departure from the folklorization of the city by its most visible players (Monica Bonvicini at the Neue Nationalgalerie, PAN Records, 032c, exhibitions in power plants, exhibitions in bunkers, Ottolinger, Anne Imhof), which met its logical conclusion post-COVID, when a PR agency, Reference Studios, finally harnessed it within a marketing interface. Even Atonal, which has consistently managed to stage a contemporary-feeling festival in a Berlin power station without milking the city’s assets, seemed to lose its grip in 2024.
Ghost Artists or Spotify’s Perfect Fit Content program
Liz Pelly details a Spotify initiative to fill playlists with music from fake artists. After the introduction of algorithms, it was only a matter of time before platforms began tinkering with them to promote their own content. The temptation was too great.
Why pay creators (or in Spotify’s case artists) when a substantial portion of the audience is indifferent to the quality and provenance of the content?
…listeners often weren’t even aware of what song or artist they were hearing. As a result, the thinking seemed to be: Why pay full-price royalties if users were only half listening? It was likely from this reasoning that the Perfect Fit Content program was created.
This topic doesn’t get nearly enough airtime because it’s elitist to discuss people’s lack of discernment (or taste)—but that doesn’t make it untrue.
Perhaps Spotify understood the stakes—that when it removed real classical, jazz, and ambient artists from popular playlists and replaced them with low-budget stock muzak, it was steamrolling real music cultures, actual traditions within which artists were trying to make a living.
It’s easy to upset people with tales of Spotify nickel-and-diming virtuosic pianists and iconic jazz musicians. Things will get interesting when platforms like Instagram and Facebook figure out how to operationalize their AI internet personalities. Will anyone mourn the obsolescence of influencers?
My position: Spotify is ahead of the curve. Similar programs will be launched for all major content platforms.
The Femosphere or the recent Guardian trend piece
The Guardian names the female corollary to the manosphere.
