Using Semantic Relations in Context-Based Music Recommendations
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Islam, Law, and the State
POLITICAL ISLAM PRESENT AND PAST 508:110 Spring 2018 Monday & Wednesday 2:50pm - 4:10pm Hardenbergh Hall A7 Instructor: Julia Stephens ([email protected]) Office Hours: TBA This course is an introduction to Islamic political thought and practice, which focuses on how history can inform our understanding of contemporary Political Islam. Since the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, political debates about the role of Islam in the modern world have arguably been the single defining issue of the twenty-first century. The manifestations of Political Islam are diverse: they range from al-Qaeda and ISIS, to Muslim political parties who participate in electoral politics in Turkey and Indonesia. Nor is Political Islam limited to Muslim- majority countries. Debates about Islam have also emerged as key political questions in the United States and Europe, influencing policies in areas ranging from surveillance to immigration and education. The course traces the longer history of a range of flashpoints in these debates, including the relationship between sharia and the state, the role of new media technologies in shaping Muslim politics, veiling, and censorship of religiously offensive materials. In the process the course surveys the life of the Prophet, the early Caliphates, early-modern Muslim empires, European colonialism, and nationalist movements. But a focus on themes of contemporary relevance provides the guiding thread through this whirl-wind tour of Islamic history. The course assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. Lectures and discussions will guide students through the analysis of a variety of historical and contemporary sources, including Ottoman fatwas on drinking coffee, nineteenth-century debates about the compatibility of Islam and modern science, Sufi rock videos, and Twitter feeds. -
Popular Culture and Urban Regeneration: Manchester's
Popular culture and urban regeneration: Manchester’s Northern Quarter Dr Katie Milestone, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK The Northern Quarter • ‘Creative’ district in central Manchester, UK • Bohemian, quirky, non- corporate, hip (?) • Hub for fledgling creative industries and pop culture Location Manchester, UK 500,000 (2.5 million) Cottonopolis, Shock city, History • 19th and 20th C (up to 1960s) - thriving commercial and retail area • Close to (slum) accommodation – Ancoats • Animated 24 hours due to market Ancoats Decline Rebirth Post-war Britain and the rise of the working class • Explosion of popular culture • Rise of consumer society • Dynamic new forms of cultural production • Established cultural hierarchies dismantled • Rise of working class access to Higher Education = w/c involved in cultural production • Cultural producers (writers, film makers, musicians and artists) from working class backgrounds • Changing demographic of cultural producers • Increased representation of working class culture – especially of the north Late 1970s - 1980s The 1980s saw the success of “From 1976 onwards alternative or resistant spaces emerged in Manchester music impact on which punk and post punk the physical and symbolic were to play a crucial role. transformation of the city… The habitus of pop bohemians became imposed on spaces of the city centre and abandoned Punk had shown the sites became captured and possibilities for independent reinterpreted. The pop scene had a physical and symbolic action in the provinces… impact on the environment yet, at the same time, it was In 1982, the Hacienda marks a inspired and impressed upon by the landscape, architecture transition from the old city to and mood of the city” Milestone,K 1996: 104 in Wynne and O’Connor (eds) From the new city – the city of the Margins to the Centre:Production and industrial production to the Consumption in the PostIndustrial City, Ashgate city of the consumption of the industrial. -
Is Rock Music in Decline? a Business Perspective
Jose Dailos Cabrera Laasanen Is Rock Music in Decline? A Business Perspective Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Bachelor of Business Administration International Business and Logistics 1405484 22nd March 2018 Abstract Author(s) Jose Dailos Cabrera Laasanen Title Is Rock Music in Decline? A Business Perspective Number of Pages 45 Date 22.03.2018 Degree Bachelor of Business Administration Degree Programme International Business and Logistics Instructor(s) Michael Keaney, Senior Lecturer Rock music has great importance in the recent history of human kind, and it is interesting to understand the reasons of its de- cline, if it actually exists. Its legacy will never disappear, and it will always be a great influence for new artists but is important to find out the reasons why it has become what it is in now, and what is the expected future for the genre. This project is going to be focused on the analysis of some im- portant business aspects related with rock music and its de- cline, if exists. The collapse of Gibson guitars will be analyzed, because if rock music is in decline, then the collapse of Gibson is a good evidence of this. Also, the performance of independ- ent and major record labels through history will be analyzed to understand better the health state of the genre. The same with music festivals that today seem to be increasing their popularity at the expense of smaller types of live-music events. Keywords Rock, music, legacy, influence, artists, reasons, expected, fu- ture, genre, analysis, business, collapse, -
Where to Next? a Dynamic Model of User Preferences
Where To Next? A Dynamic Model of User Preferences Francesco Sanna Passino∗ Lucas Maystre Dmitrii Moor Imperial College London Spotify Spotify [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Ashton Anderson† Mounia Lalmas University of Toronto Spotify [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION We consider the problem of predicting users’ preferences on on- Online platforms have transformed the way users access informa- line platforms. We build on recent findings suggesting that users’ tion, audio and video content, knowledge repositories, and much preferences change over time, and that helping users expand their more. Over three decades of research and practice have demon- horizons is important in ensuring that they stay engaged. Most strated that a) learning users’ preferences, and b) personalizing existing models of user preferences attempt to capture simulta- users’ experience to match these preferences is immensely valuable neous preferences: “Users who like 퐴 tend to like 퐵 as well”. In to increase engagement and satisfaction. To this end, recommender this paper, we argue that these models fail to anticipate changing systems have emerged as essential building blocks [3]. They help preferences. To overcome this issue, we seek to understand the users find their way through large collections of items and assist structure that underlies the evolution of user preferences. To this them in discovering new content. They typically build on user pref- end, we propose the Preference Transition Model (PTM), a dynamic erence models that exploit correlations across users’ preferences. model for user preferences towards classes of items. The model As an example within the music domain, if a user likes The Beatles, enables the estimation of transition probabilities between classes of that user might also like Simon & Garfunkel, because other users items over time, which can be used to estimate how users’ tastes are who listen to the former also listen to the latter. -
Fizzy Drinks and Sufi Music: Abida Parveen in Coke Studio Pakistan
Fizzy Drinks and Sufi Music: Abida Parveen in Coke Studio Pakistan By Zainub Beg A Thesis Submitted to Saint Mary’s University, K’jipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Theology and Religious Studies. December 2020, Halifax, Nova Scotia Copyright Zainub Beg, 2020 Approved: Dr. Syed Adnan Hussain Supervisor Approved: Dr. Reem Meshal Examiner Approved: Dr. Sailaja Krishnamurti Reader Date: December 21, 2020 1 Fizzy Drinks and Sufi Music: Abida Parveen in Coke Studio Pakistan by Zainub Beg Abstract Abida Parveen, often referred to as the Queen of Sufi music, is one of the only female qawwals in a male-dominated genre. This thesis will explore her performances for Coke Studio Pakistan through the lens of gender theory. I seek to examine Parveen’s blurring of gender, Sufism’s disruptive nature, and how Coke Studio plays into the two. I think through the categories of Islam, Sufism, Pakistan, and their relationship to each other to lead into my analysis on Parveen’s disruption in each category. I argue that Parveen holds a unique position in Pakistan and Sufism that cannot be explained in binary terms. December 21, 2020 2 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ 3 Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................. -
States of Affect: Trauma in Partition/Post-Partition South Asia
STATES OF AFFECT: TRAUMA IN PARTITION/POST-PARTITION SOUTH ASIA By Rituparna Mitra A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of English – Doctor of Philosophy 2015 ABSTRACT STATES OF AFFECT: TRAUMA IN PARTITION/POST-PARTITION SOUTH ASIA By Rituparna Mitra The Partition of the Indian subcontinent – into India and Pakistan in 1947 – was one of the crucial moments marking the break between the colonial and postcolonial era. My project is invested in exploring the Partition not merely in terms of the events of August 1947, but as an ongoing process that continues to splinter political, cultural, emotional and sexual life-worlds in South Asia. My dissertation seeks to map analytical pathways to locate the Partition and the attendant formations of minoritization and sectarian violence as continuing, unfolding processes that constitute postcolonial nation-building. It examines the far-reaching presence of these formations in current configurations of politics, culture and subjectivity by mobilizing the interdisciplinary scope of affect-mediated Trauma and Memory Studies and Postcolonial Studies, in conjunction with literary analysis. My project draws on a wide range of cultural artifacts such as poetry, cantillatory performance, mourning rituals, testimonials, archaeological ruins, short stories and novels to develop a heuristic and affective re-organization of post-Partition South Asia. It seeks to illuminate through frameworks of memory, melancholia, trauma, affect and postcoloniality how the ongoing effects of the past shape the present, which in turn, offers us ways to reimagine the future. This dissertation reaches out to recent work developing a vernacular framework to analyze violence, trauma and loss in South Asia. -
Colocated with ACM Recsys 2011 Chicago, IL, USA October 23, 2011 Copyright C
Colocated with ACM RecSys 2011 Chicago, IL, USA October 23, 2011 Copyright c . These are an open-access workshop proceedings distributed under the terms of the Creative Com- mons Attribution License 3.0 Unported1, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 1http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Organizing Committee Amelie´ Anglade, SoundCloud Oscar` Celma, Gracenote Ben Fields, Musicmetric Paul Lamere, The Echo Nest Brian Mcfee, Computer Audition Laboratory, University of California, San Diego Program Committee Claudio Baccigalupo, RED Interactive Agency Dominikus Baur, LMU Munich Mathieu Barthet, Queen Mary, University of London Thierry Bertin-Mahieux, Columbia University Sally Jo Cunningham, the University of Waikato Zeno Gantner, University of Hildesheim Fabien Gouyon, INESC Porto Peter Knees, Johannes Kepler University Daniel Lemire, Universite´ du Quebec´ Mark Levy, Last.fm Markus Schedl, Johannes Kepler University Alan Said, Technische Universitat¨ Berlin Doug Turnbull, Ithaca College Preface Welcome to WOMRAD, the Workshop on Music Recommendation and Discovery being held in conjunction with ACM RecSys. WOMRAD 2011 is being held on October 23, 2011, exactly 10 years after Steve Jobs introduced the very first iPod. Since then there has been been an amazing transformation in the world of music. Portable listening devices have advanced from that original iPod that allowed you to carry a thousand songs in your pocket to the latest iPhone that can put millions of songs in your pocket via music subscription services such as Rdio, Spotify or Rhapsody. Ten years ago a typical personal music collection numbered around a thousand songs. -
Notes from the Underground: a Cultural, Political, and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground Music
Notes From The Underground: A Cultural, Political, and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground Music. Stephen Graham Goldsmiths College, University of London PhD 1 I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Signed: …………………………………………………. Date:…………………………………………………….. 2 Abstract The term ‗underground music‘, in my account, connects various forms of music-making that exist largely outside ‗mainstream‘ cultural discourse, such as Drone Metal, Free Improvisation, Power Electronics, and DIY Noise, amongst others. Its connotations of concealment and obscurity indicate what I argue to be the music‘s central tenets of cultural reclusion, political independence, and aesthetic experiment. In response to a lack of scholarly discussion of this music, my thesis provides a cultural, political, and aesthetic mapping of the underground, whose existence as a coherent entity is being both argued for and ‗mapped‘ here. Outlining the historical context, but focusing on the underground in the digital age, I use a wide range of interdisciplinary research methodologies , including primary interviews, musical analysis, and a critical engagement with various pertinent theoretical sources. In my account, the underground emerges as a marginal, ‗antermediated‘ cultural ‗scene‘ based both on the web and in large urban centres, the latter of whose concentration of resources facilitates the growth of various localised underground scenes. I explore the radical anti-capitalist politics of many underground figures, whilst also examining their financial ties to big business and the state(s). This contradiction is critically explored, with three conclusions being drawn. First, the underground is shown in Part II to be so marginal as to escape, in effect, post- Fordist capitalist subsumption. -
Defending Sufism, Defining Islam: Asserting Islamic Identity in India
DEFENDING SUFISM, DEFINING ISLAM: ASSERTING ISLAMIC IDENTITY IN INDIA Rachana Rao Umashankar A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology. Chapel Hill 2012 Approved by: Dr. James L. Peacock Dr. Carl W. Ernst Dr. Margaret J. Wiener Dr. Lauren G. Leve Dr. Lorraine V. Aragon Dr. Katherine Pratt Ewing © 2012 Rachana Rao Umashankar ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT RACHANA RAO UMASHANKAR: Defending Sufism, Defining Islam: Asserting Islamic identity in India (Under the direction of Dr. James L. Peacock and Dr. Lauren G. Leve) Based on thirteen months of intensive fieldwork at two primary sites in India, this dissertation describes how adherents of shrine-based Sufism assert their identity as Indian Muslims in the contexts of public debates over religion and belonging in India, and of reformist critiques of their Islamic beliefs and practices. Faced with opposition to their mode of Islam from reformist Muslim groups, and the challenges to their sense of national identity as members of a religious minority in India, I argue that adherents of shrine-based Sufism claim the sacred space of the Sufi shrine as a venue where both the core values of Islam and of India are given form and reproduced. For these adherents, contemporary shrine-based Sufism is a dynamic and creative force that manifests essential aspects of Islam that are also fundamental Indian values, and which are critical to the health of the nation today. The dissertation reveals that contested identities and internal religious debates can only be understood and interpreted within the broader framework of national and global debates over Islam and over the place of Islam in the Indian polity that shape them. -
A University Dissertation on the Impact of the Stone Roses (May 2000)
A university dissertation on the impact of The Stone Roses (2000) "We don’t bear a grudge against anyone apart from Nick Kent because he’s a liar" : Journalism and the Stone Roses as part of the Manchester music scene from 1985 to July 1990 Nick Kent is a famous rock journalist and he was sent by the Face to interview the Stone Roses in December 1989, and the quotation that opens the title was a response as much to that interview, as a reflection of the Stone Roses trouble-some relationship with the press. The nature of careers and scenes prevents the time period from being arbitrary, but there are reasons for studying this period. For the music press this is a very interesting period, as this table suggests [Toynbee 93] In this is a period 5 magazines started and 2 weekly papers and 1 magazine ceased publishing. The sales figures as well show that fluctuating sales and varying demand for different magazines. The NME itself this was a time of great change. It had 2 different editors with the change from Ian Pye to Alan Lewis in mid-1987, and a fluctuating staff. The period also reflects a varied Stone Roses. Offering a rare opportunity to cover there entire history, Gary Johnson ran a review of their first gig in Sounds [Robb 97]. For most of the period, the band received no press coverage other than occasional single and live reviews. The level of coverage escalated in the last half of 1989, and the period ends with the block coverage of the Spike Island gig, one of the last gigs by the band for four years. -
Coke Studio Pakistan: an Ode to Eastern Music with a Western Touch
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Coke Studio Pakistan: An Ode to Eastern Music with a Western Touch SHAHWAR KIBRIA Shahwar Kibria ([email protected]) is a research scholar at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Vol. 55, Issue No. 12, 21 Mar, 2020 Since it was first aired in 2008, Coke Studio Pakistan has emerged as an unprecedented musical movement in South Asia. It has revitalised traditional and Eastern classical music of South Asia by incorporating contemporary Western music instrumentation and new-age production elements. Under the religious nationalism of military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the production and dissemination of creative arts were curtailed in Pakistan between 1977 and 1988. Incidentally, the censure against artistic and creative practice also coincided with the transnational movement of qawwali art form as prominent qawwals began carrying it outside Pakistan. American audiences were first exposed to qawwali in 1978 when Gulam Farid Sabri and Maqbool Ahmed Sabri performed at New York’s iconic Carnegie Hall. The performance was referred to as the “aural equivalent of the dancing dervishes” in the New York Times (Rockwell 1979). However, it was not until Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s performance at the popular World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival in 1985 in Colchester, England, following his collaboration with Peter Gabriel, that qawwali became evident in the global music cultures. Khan pioneered the fusion of Eastern vocals and Western instrumentation, and such a coming together of different musical elements was witnessed in several albums he worked for subsequently. Some of them include "Mustt Mustt" in 1990 ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 and "Night Song" in 1996 with Canadian musician Michael Brook, the music score for the film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and a soundtrack album for the film Dead Man Walking (1996) with Peter Gabriel, and a collaborative project with Eddie Vedder of the rock band Pearl Jam. -
Commercial Alternative
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Birkbeck Institutional Research Online Commercial Alternative Joseph Brooker – Slow down / You’re taking me over… 1 – Another victory like that and we are done for.2 By the end of the 1980s, popular culture and media commentary brimmed with a self-conscious desire to name and describe the present. Few decades have had as clear an account of themselves as the 1980s, whatever the gaps and limits of that account. The 1990s became ever more sure of what had happened in the 1980s; but packing the 1990s themselves into a compelling summary proved more difficult. For the time being, those looking for stories of the last decade must make do with tracts like Stephen Bayley’s Labour Camp, a brief, bilious assault on the aesthetics and politics of Blair’s first term. For all his rancour, snobbery and carelessness, Bayley lands a few hits, and leaves a few hints. Bayley reads New Labour in terms not of social and economic policy, but of taste and image: Blair’s choice of car, the efforts at ‘rebranding Britain’, the design of the Dome. The cultural emblem of the Blair years, he proposes, is Elton John: He is a popular phenomenon, therefore it is irrelevant and elitist even to wonder if he is actually any good. He is emphatically middle-of-the-road. He is classless.... After a much-reported past of rock-star excess, he is clean, dried out…. Whoever would have thought you could relaunch old Labour? Whoever would have thought you could relaunch Elton John? The parallels between the two transformations are remarkable.3 The thought is suggestive, but leaves much unsaid about the new terrain inherited and shaped by the Blair government.