Curating the Fieldwork Playlist
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Kieran Fenby-Hulse CURATING THE FIELDWORK PLAYLIST he following contributions all highlight, going on to consider what a Fieldwork Playlist in a variety of different ways, how music might tell us. canT shape and even transform the fieldwork experience. In this essay, I consider the music THE MIXTAPE AS MESSAGE that has been chosen and what this assemblage of musical tracks, this anthropology playlist, To understand the playlist outlined in this might tell us about fieldwork as a research volume, I begin by considering the playlist in practice. In addition, I have been given the historical, social and aesthetic terms. The origins privilege of curating the tracks, a creative task of the digital playlist lie squarely with the enabling me to tell the story of fieldwork as mixtapes of the 70s, 80s and 90s, a medium by I understand it as an outsider. which friends, colleagues, and lovers could share It should make it clear from the start that music. Both an artefact and a social activity, I’m not an anthropologist. I’m a researcher the mixtape was usually a single cassette that trained in musicology who now works in the consisted of a series of re-recorded tracks from area of research capability and development, either the radio or your own musical collection. studying research practices and research cultures The tape was usually 60 to 90 minutes in and supporting researchers to develop their length and had a title, a theme, album art, and practice and the environments in which they occasionally descriptions of the songs that work. In this sense, I exist across and between had been selected. The mixtape enabled users disciplines. My research practice is largely rooted to create musical stories, or narratives, for in notions of synthesis and creativity, drawing particular events and activities, as well as coded on a range of methods and methodologies taken messages for friends and loved ones. Mixtapes from the social sciences and the humanities. I could be ‘Best of…’ compilations, such as the draw on this approach in this essay, examining Best of Metallica or the Best Jazz Tape Ever. what the musical tracks can tell us as cultural They could be used to showcase your musical and aesthetic artefacts, but fusing this with collection and musical knowledge and to a creative exploration of music as a narrative educate friends on musical genres or the latest medium. up and coming bands. Mixtapes also offered My invitation to contribute to this a powerful (and affordable) way of showing collection stems from my previous research affection. The romantic mixtape functioned as into the emotional and communicative power a kind of narrative capacitor, the creator’s of the mixtape and, in particular, how in recent message embedded and storied within a times the mixtape has been reimagined and carefully selected series of musical tracks, refashioned (via online music platforms, such which the listener then had to decode. The as iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon Music) as value ascribed to the romance mixtape is not a digital playlist (Fenby-Hulse 2016). It’s worth economic, but emotional, and resulted from the providing a brief overview of this work before care taken in crafting the perfect selection. As suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 2 summer 2018 58 The Fieldwork Playlist the character, Rob, describes in Nick Hornby’s collate and order music. As Dylan Jones, author novel High Fidelity: of iPod Therefore I Am, states: [M]aking a tape is like writing a letter Albums ceased to matter, and I could edit —there’s a lot of erasing and rethinking with impunity. Why bother with REM’s and starting again. A good compilation New Adventures in Hi-Fi when all you tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve really want is Electrolite and E-Bow The got to kick off with a corker, but hold the Letter? Why continue to ruin Pet Sounds, attention (...) and then you’ve got to up it the best album recorded by anyone in the a notch, or cool it a notch, and you (...) 1960s, by suffering the absurdity of Sloop can’t have two tracks by the same artist side John B when you can simply delete it. by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing ( Jones 2006: 18). in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules. (Hornby 1996: 77) iTunes-iPod synchronisation enabled users not only to create a personal library of music at the A mixtape required time and dedication. Much level of the musical track, but also to curate their thought was needed to determine what songs to music collection through the use of playlists. As include, how the songs were to be ordered, and Jones notes, albums could be easily tweaked and how this relates to the message you were trying playlists created to suit your mood or a specific to convey. activity. From the middle of the 1990s onwards, For Michael Bull (2007), the iPod revolu- the form and content of the mixtape began to tion enabled users to find a place of warmth in change—a direct result of increasing access to a cold urban environment. By creating a range the Internet at home and blank CDs becoming of playlists to suit their personal mood (music to a more affordable format. The birth of peer-2- go to sleep by, music for the gym, relaxing jazz), peer (P2P) file sharing also contributed to the iPod users furnished themselves with a music mixtape’s loss in popularity, with the mix CD library that could cater to their daily working and digital playlist becoming the preferred lives. The iPod enabled listeners to aestheticize media for music sharing. Indeed, P2P file their urban environment, the portability of sharing provided music lovers with access to a vast music library allowing iPod users a diverse and global library of music, enabling to rewrite the urban spaces in which they playlist creators to create ‘the perfect’ mix CD, as were enclosed, to transport themselves to an the sequence of tracks was no longer dependent entirely new space, a dreamworld or perhaps upon an individual’s limited music library. a reimagining of the space that they were in. The introduction of the iPod in 2001 In contrast to the cassette-based mixtape, took music listening and sharing to the next the listening experience offered by the iPod level, enabling users to create endless playlists was rarely social and more often private and quickly and easily. In addition, the iTunes music personal. While providing respite from a cold platform offered users with a legal route by urban environment, the iPod playlist fostered which to purchase not only albums, but also a listening environment and culture that single tracks, offering a new way in which to lacked the social warmth that was associated suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 2 summer 2018 59 The Fieldwork Playlist with sharing and listening to mixtapes. What The first thing that leaps out from looking connects the mixtape to digital playlist, though, at the playlist is that all the tracks are vocal is the way in which musical tracks are carefully tracks, with a tendency to draw on music that collated and curated. Although a term usually features a solo voice. There is no techno, classical, associated with work taking place in museums or instrumental music here; neither is there any and galleries, the idea of curation has become choral music. It requires no intellectual leap a buzzword in popular culture. As Steven of faith to conclude from this that the playlist Rosenbaum has said, ‘Today, curation is the carries a human tone. The largely solo voice focus, coin of the realm. Film Festivals curate their and the lyrics and musical stylings to particular program. Web sites curate their editorial. The songs within the playlist, bolster this feeling team at the shopping site Gilt Group curates by creating a sense of intimacy and directness. the items it offers for sale.’ (Rosenbaum 2011: 3). Songs such as Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make it For Rosenbaum, curation is an activity Through the Night’ and Sade’s ‘By Your Side’ use that involves expertise and careful selection sparse instrumental textures that accentuate the and is something undertaken in a range of voice, drawing the listener in. The lyrics in these different realms. However, as Mieke Bal (2012) songs, as well as in songs such as Rawl’s ‘You’ll has argued, the act of curation is nuanced Never Find Another Love Like Mine’, further and is about guiding thought processes and establish the one-to-one connection with the cultural mediation. She understands curation listener through storytelling and direct address as a performative act that is fundamentally to the listener. concerned with ‘framing objects and speaking While the overarching mood or meta- through those framed objects to addressees’ narrative of the playlist seems to lie with (2012: 179). It is from this perspective that intimacy and directness, the broad and diverse I want to engage creatively with the idea of range of musical styles and genres presented the Fieldwork Playlist and devise a thoughtful unsettle this somewhat. This is not simply a playlist that takes listeners on an anthropological playlist of acoustic, singer-songwriter music; it journey. includes soul music, country music, dancehall, reggae, pop, Mayan evangelical music, INTERPRETING mbaqanga, R’n’B, rock, and vocaloid music. THE FIELDWORK PLAYLIST The diverse range of styles provides the playlist with moments of stark contrast that grab The playlist presented in this collection provides the listener’s attention and provide additional a musical rendering of a series of fieldwork nuance and depth to its meta-narrative.