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Audio-First

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by Nick Pappageorge

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Exploring the dynamism happening across audio, music, AirPods, and AR. <a href="https://pappageorge.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">pappageorge.substack.com</a>

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November 6, 2020

Audio, Evolution, and Memes: Why TikTok Is The First YouTube Challenger

Quick FYI for folks new to Audio-First:* Read and/or listen - the audio version is great & has bonus clips* Audio is also available on all the <a target="_blank" href="https://pod.link/1497788808">podcast apps</a>* The Audio-First <a target="_blank" href="https://npappag.com/2019/12/03/why-i-started-newsletter-about-audio-first-tech/">Charter</a> (why we’re here)* Finally, this post may be easier to read on <a target="_blank" href="https://npappag.com/2020/10/29/audio-memes-why-tiktok-is-the-first-youtube-challenger/">my blog</a>___________________“Who controls the memes controls the universe” tweeted Elon Musk, referencing a line from Dune. Somehow it feels both trollish and profound.If you live on the internet, you know it when you see it. Memes are everywhere. More importantly, it feels like memes matter today. A well-crafted internet joke like Musk’s can yield more attention than a well-funded PR campaign.Lately, I’ve been reading a fascinating <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine">book</a> on the topic. First, I learned the academic definition of memes is far more expansive than just internet jokes. Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to refer to fashions, ceremonies, customs, and technologies that spread across human brains. The mechanism: mimesis, better known as imitation.[Dawkins] discussed [meme] propagation by jumping from brain to brain, likened them to parasites infecting a host, treated them as physically realised living structures, and showed how mutually assisting memes will gang together in groups just as genes do. Most importantly, he treated the meme as a replicator in its own right. Everything you have learned by imitation from someone else is a meme. But we must be clear what is meant by the word ‘imitation’, because our whole understanding of memetics depends on it. Dawkins said that memes jump from ‘brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation’ (1976, p. 192)…Everything that is passed from person to person in this way is a meme. This includes all the words in your vocabulary, the stories you know, the skills and habits you have picked up from others and the games you like to play. It includes the songs you sing and the rules you obey. So, for example, whenever you drive on the left (or the right!), eat curry with lager or pizza and coke, whistle the theme tune from ‘Neighbours’ or even shake hands, you are dealing in memes. Each of these memes has evolved in its own unique way with its own history, but each of them is using your behaviour to get itself copied.Susan Blackmore “The Meme Machine”Think of memes as the smallest atomic unit of culture. Some memes are funny, some are relatable, and some are not very useful and don’t spread widely.Memetic theory says these mind-viruses compete against each other for their slot in the next human brain. Some memes make it. Others don’t. (Even more interestingly, some memes make it without regard to their real-world usefulness—only their ability to <a target="_blank" href="https://bitesizebio.com/1344/selfish-genes-and-gene-centered-evolution/">replicate</a> most effectively.) Memes, they argue, are part of a Darwinian system. This is all rooted in the idea of <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Darwinism#:~:text=Universal%20Darwinism%20(also%20known%20as,of%20biological%20evolution%20on%20Earth.">Universal Darwinism</a>, which says evolution applies to any “replicator” with the following conditions:* selection – the fittest survive* variation – there are slight changes between copies* heredity – the offspring inherits characteristics from the parentMemes satisfy these conditions and replicate “cultural instructions” just like genes do.Of course, our lives are increasingly digital. Arguably, more culture is mediated through media and tech platforms than in real life. Thinkers like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett were talking about <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/5f-JlzBuUUU?t=932">cultural evolution</a> and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzGjEkp772s">theory of mind</a> abstractly more than, say, lip-syncing TikToks. Even so, types of social media posts—as digital shipping containers for memes—help them propagate.To social media’s credit, they’ve taken the Darwin-governed world of memes and built fairly Darwinian systems around them. Now, a retweet button here or a like button there governs how memes spread (or struggle for life). Digital memes satisfy all the evolutionary pre-conditions:* selection – some posts get comments & likes, going viral and becoming part of public awareness* variation – every story gets told slightly differently* heredity – Meme image templates, quote tweeting, TikTok duets all derive from existing contentYou can expect a lineage to form from the most “successful” genres of social media posts. Viral templates survive for a reason.Seeing social media through a memetic lens is, admittedly, a bit confusing. It’s hard to know where the shipping container begins and ends. In theory, they’re merely vehicles for culture to hitch a ride on. (As Blackmore wrote, memes are “substrate-neutral.”) But the mechanisms are worth studying. The difference between a Twitter meme (e.g. “Time for a thread”) and a newspaper meme (e.g. “Area man…”) is the memetic evolution has been turned up a few notches. It spawns imitators way faster. Anyone can chime in with their own version.If memes behave like genes, perhaps the various tech platforms resemble the different climate zones, where possessing a certain trait is highly adaptive. (Aside: Is Facebook akin to a tropical rainforest, enabling the most memeo-diversity? It might not be provable or even helpful to ponder.) The point is certain memes are naturally selected based on their product choices.Finally, and most notably, memes travel across regions at a startling pace. Like an invasive species caught in a ballast tank, digital shipping containers spread memes farther and faster than ever. Every human brain is now a potential target.The first great meme machineIn 2006, internet analyst Mary Meeker was asked how Google could justify its acquisition of YouTube for $1.65B. Meeker made the bull case and pointed out that YouTube felt like a natural evolution:“What’s interesting to me about the evolution of media today is that these 3 minutes clips–and I’m generalizing–that are amateur in nature are often times very funny. Because people happen to be in the right place at the right time. When I first watched some funny videos on the internet, I was reminded of the early days of MTV when music was presented in a different way. And I was also reminded of the early days of Saturday Night Live…my hope and my bet is that [YouTube] was an event that will push the traditional content creators to focus more aggressively on monetizing their content on the internet.Mary Meeker (<a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/NpappaG/status/1059891535553138689?s=20">full clip</a>)The analysis still looks spot-on 14 years later.What made YouTube special was its ability to aggregate short, punchy clips that are “amateur in nature.” The rest is history. With time, that ushered in a whole creator economy and encouraged media corporates to buy in. Now, banks value YouTube at $200B – $300B alone, making it one of the greatest M&A deals of all time.YouTube’s scale and early start allowed it to enjoy a near-monopoly on virality, at least in video form. “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfFcyTuopbI">Damn Daniel</a>” and countless other memes from YouTube have ported over to everyday conversation. Previously, viral internet ideas spread as static images with editable text. Video added a new level of fidelity. Now, YouTube’s scale allows the world’s ideas, jokes, and culture get replicated to the tune of <a target="_blank" href="https://npappag.com/2020/01/10/youtube-is-the-worlds-biggest-radio-station/">100 billion hours per day</a>. Like any good social technology, YouTube unleashed an extremely powerful broadcast tool. In its wake, trillions of bits of cultural material spread from brain to brain. YouTube perhaps the first great meme machine on the internet.In terms of meme replication power, YouTube enjoyed the last decade without a credible challenger. That is, until the rise of TikTok.The second great (video) meme machineTikTok has famously taken video virality to another level. There’s some great write-ups about the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2020/8/3/tiktok-and-the-sorting-hat">history of TikTok</a>, and how it <a target="_blank" href="https://turner.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-tiktok-and-understanding">pivoted </a>its app Musical.ly into what it is today. Personally, I think the most remarkable feature is TikTok’s explicit focus on memes.TikTok’s main differentiator is audio-related. In every video, the audio itself can easily be “forked”—or copied—into a half-original new creation. All you have to do is film something compelling over it. This is not a huge secret. Every TikTok user knows there’s a song ID at the bottom of every video, and if pressed, will show you all the other videos using that song. From there, it will even encourage you to film your own imitation, lowering the friction to creation.Audio forking spawns thousands of imitationsCurrently, Fleetwood Mac’s song “Dreams” is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/entertainment/fleetwood-mac-dreams-charts-trnd/index.html">back in the charts</a> again thanks to Doggface208 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@420doggface208/video/6876424179084709126?source=h5_m">posting</a> a TikTok video lip-syncing on a skateboard while drinking Ocean Spray. Thousands of others have “forked” the Fleetwood Mac audio, and replicated DoggFace208’s video while skateboarding on their own. Other hit songs have minted entire video genres.The platform offers more than just dancing along to famous songs. The same applies to videos with original audio, which also can go equally viral as people iterate on the audio-meme. Often, this is done with the “duet” feature, where creators anticipate remixes on a script they create.TikTok’s chief innovation is often said to be the creation tools, the mobile focus, the constrained time limit, or the superior algorithm. Those are all important. But I suggest the most important factor is this “A/V forking”–splitting audio and video–that encourages imitation.By splitting content into the audio and visual, the hurdle for creating an entertaining video gets (1) easier for the creator and (2) exponentially more competitive in aggregate. Often, the original post of a viral TikTok is outdone by imitators that “perform” over the audio in an even more entertaining way. As a result, TikTok’s native content is far more explosive and gripping compared to YouTube.The way TikTok focuses on memes is intentional and apparently the product of rigorous focus group testing. From <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-a-youtube-star-helped-make-tiktok-a-global-hit">The Information</a>‘s paywalled piece:TikTok executives were initially hesitant about the memes. But things changed in 2019, when Tiktok did an in-depth survey of its U.S. users, focusing on groups older than middle-school age. The study, called “tribe research,” screened and analyzed users’ profiles and usage of the app. It found that TikTok’s users felt disenfranchised on Snap and Instagram, according to a person familiar with the study. The people familiar with the study said they were surprised to find that the app was particularly popular among minorities, the LGBT community, and poorer whites. The common ground, according to the survey, appeared to be a fondness for memes.The survey results prompted ByteDance to tailor the app toward memes. TikTok began directing user traffic to more meme-related content and started creating its own campaigns targeting memes. The company added the features that allow users to add texts directly to videos, enabling them to create memes more easily on TikTok. The popularity of memes in the U.S. surprised ByteDance employees. The company’s typical go-to market strategy overseas usually focused on recruiting top influencers from sites such as Youtube and Instagram, sponsoring big offline events and advertising campaigns.This is obvious to anyone who’s used TikTok—it’s the main appeal—but it’s worth pointing out the innovation is audio- and meme-related. And it’s consciously built into the UI of the app.Time for some meme theoryIn TikTok’s case, the inherited meme is often the soundtrack—but includes other behaviors (e.g. skateboarding with Oceanspray while looking blissed out). TikTok memes that survive not only capture the zeitgeist but represent all the things that are selected for as “good” on the platform.Previously, most social platforms innovated on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service">social status</a> & metrics that show a “proof of work,” as Eugene Wei has noted. Broadly, these selection mechanisms translate to things humans care about in real-life (e.g. status). Likes, comments, and superior algorithms have also helped fine-tune the selection process of identifying what content is most “fit.”TikTok seems to be playing a different game, evolutionarily. There’s less emphasis on likes and social capital (selection), and more on spawning new imitations (heredity). Technically speaking, by relying less on 100% original content, there’s increased heredity and decreased variation. The videos—and by extension the memes inside—are extra “fit.” This brings up the average TikTok video’s quality, which, in turn, makes the most “successful” videos exponentially better.The lack of originality doesn’t come at a cost, either. As Jia Tolentino wrote in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/how-tiktok-holds-our-attention">How TikTok Holds Our Attention</a>, creators have embraced this new evolutionary process. There’s no shame in remixing:“Adam Friedman has begun producing music directly for influencers, and engineering it for maximum TikTok success. “We start with the snippet, and if it does well on TikTok we’ll produce the full song,” he told me. I suggested that some people might think there was a kind of artistic integrity missing from this process. “The influencer is playing a central role in our culture, and it’s not new,” he said. “There’ve always been socialites, people of influence, the Paris World’s Fair. Whatever mecca that people go to for culture is where they go to for culture, and in this moment it’s TikTok.”It’s hard not to compare this to hip-hop production, which was once criticized as stealing from classic songs and only adding a new vocal overlay. But it’s its own art form, and being able to reinterpret existing music has simply created a superior end product. (Not to mention, it’s grown into the number 1 genre in America.)While status is still baked into TikTok’s system, that’s just table stakes now. Heredity—or remixing—seems to be a key new lever for social products. Going forward, perhaps the new playbook will center on designing systems for memetic evolution.Where else could “forking” work?It’s not always wise to pick the hottest tech narrative today and try to copy their secret sauce. In TikTok’s case, A/V forking has been baked into the platform for years. Its head start might actually be unstoppable, even with Facebook in the race. The content is the platform now, and the feedback loops are hard to replicate.As far as I can tell, there aren’t tons of examples of social media remixing-as-a-feature, aside from the Twitter quote-tweet or the Tumblr retweet. The walls between posts are generally rigid. Originality and scarcity work.YouTube is already trying to insert more TikTok-like short videos into its mobile app. But it doesn’t easily allow A/V forking. Instagram might be the best candidate to make reposting easier (for one, it already allows reposting a tagged Story). Allowing this for static posts as well might be more impactful than Reels, its weak TikTok copycat. But it would also inflate the scarce currency of likes, risking their golden goose.Another candidate might be Spotify, which could literally broker music remixing in-app. Spotify recently <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/24/21192473/spotify-revoking-support-developer-api-third-party-dj-apps-algoriddim-djay">discontinued</a> support Algoriddim’s DJay, which was a fantastic source for live DJing from the Spotify catalog. Recently, Spotify started allowing podcasters to sample full songs with Anchor, enabling a type of remixing. Allowing professional-quality music to be created in an IP-compliant way could be really meaningful for the future of music, and may be a future goal.Interactive content like Netflix’s Bandersnatch could be forked and crowdsourced leading to better stories and experiences. Or perhaps more feasibly in the world of gaming, allowing user-created worlds be forked more easily (Fortnite does this to some degree with Creative Mode). Finally, I’ve seen some features on Reddit 3rd party app (Apollo) that makes forked image memes more visible. (You can click into the OP more easily.)However, it might be up to startup challengers to truly innovate on content forking in the spirit of TikTok. Apps building in the <a target="_blank" href="https://npappag.com/2019/05/22/why-im-closely-watching-listening-to-audio-airpods/">airpods & audio</a> space are currently hot, in part because they’re unique experiences in a world filled with images and videos.Clubhouse feels fresh because it allows synchronized remixing of live audio (aka discussions – what’s old is new). <a target="_blank" href="http://riff.world/">Riff</a> works as a kind of shipping container for voice messages across different platforms. <a target="_blank" href="https://getshuffle.app/">Shuffle </a>allows snippets of podcasts to get shared easily, and could perhaps add remixing. One interesting app called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.voisey.app/">Voisey</a> has built a TikTok-like video app for submitting hip-hop beats and allowing live-recording over them, creating a highly iterative hip-hop feed. (H/T to <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/vidythatte">Vidy Thatte</a>, who I know is building something cool there.) I’ve covered a few other audio startups in my newsletter <a target="_blank" href="https://pappageorge.substack.com/">here</a>.Beyond audio-first apps and social media, it’s less clear. Forking is a term borrowed from the world of open-source software and cryptocurrency and both remain great candidates. Other crazy areas could include journalism (forking stories based on agreed-upon facts) somehow on the blockchain. Things like legal contracts could also be forked, but that’s getting beyond the original point.In short, the next great meme machine could take forking to another level. Remixing will likely be part of the toolkit, as TikTok proved to have superior memes. Meme theorists like Dawkins might have more to offer than Skinner (and the legion of psychologists employed by Silicon Valley) when it comes to making compelling social products._____________________________________________________________Further reading/listening: <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/uM7aqhRypKI">Mary Meeker</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service">Eugene Wei</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X">Susan Blackmore</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/how-tiktok-holds-our-attention">Jia Tolentino</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://pca.st/z679bb1h#t=13m34s">Turner Novak</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/vidythatte">Vidy Thatte</a> have all inspired ideas here. Thanks to <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/BGigodot">Brice Gigedot</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/kneelingbus">Drew Austin</a> for seeing early drafts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://pappageorge.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">pappageorge.substack.com</a>

April 9, 2020

Audio-First #10: The Metaverse, Apple M&A, and Quarantine Diversions

[Listen above (& <a target="_blank" href="https://pod.link/1497788808">podcast apps</a>), read below, or both if you’re feeling crazy]Welcome back audio nerds! I hope you’re well in these trying times. I also hope last time’s <a target="_blank" href="https://pappageorge.substack.com/p/audio-first-9-ars-fail-audios-fortune">deep-dive</a> on Brazilian music was fruitful. For me, it’s been very necessary to stay positive.As the coronavirus went from Faraway Problem to Very Real Threat, things are no doubt profoundly weird. But there’s some comfort in the fact that it’s weird for everybody. That we’re all in this.Most of us are lucky enough to be insulated from the real medical emergency, and the relative comfort is eerie in its own right. But you get accustomed to it fast. I mean, last night I ate dinner while in the bathtub. Meanwhile, I have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/frontline-covid-ultrasounds">friends</a> working in NYC emergency rooms.Compounding on this bizarreness is the sense of time-travel. If you’re young, this a peek into what life will be like retired. If you’re quarantining with a significant other, it’s like hitting fast-forward to marriage. And then there’s the looming pandemic, which feels like something History Book People agonized over, like Hades or scurvy. (A testament to human achievement, in a way.)We’re living in one giant, collective anachronism. Closed for businessAudio-First has been slowly stumbling towards a Grand Unifying Theory of Media. I’m not there yet, but we previously reduced it to “mind control.” That’s effectively the game for creators: how desirable was your mind control? As the neuroeconomist Paul Zak notes, “A good story’s a good story from the brain’s perspective, whether it’s audio or video or text. It’s the same kind of activation in the brain.” Recently, hearing Gavin Baker <a target="_blank" href="https://pca.st/bg03ec6g#t=39m44s">talk</a> about The Metaverse added a new layer of perspective:“The metaverse is simply a series of connected virtual worlds I firmly believe the majority of people will spend a majority of their waking hours within my lifetime. Today, most of those worlds are called video games. And I would say The Metaverse being the culmination of the internet is a relatively accepted opinion amongst early-stage venture investors and large technology companies...as you see a DJ named Marshmello did a concert in Fortnite that 40M people watched. There's a special Star Wars event. There’s already events regularly in every video game. I’m more and more convinced that video games will be foundational to the metaverse. One signpost there is we have a lot of data on internet traffic. According to Verizon, Video Game traffic is up 100%. And Telecom Italia saw video game traffic up 75% and social media traffic up 0% because people are connecting through video games.”The full picture here is that audio (and anything Audio-First) is part of an umbrella of media-tech that allows you to enter a virtual world. Listening to a podcast like Serial is quite a bit different than a persistent virtual world like Fortnite. But fundamentally, and neuroscientifically, they’re on the same spectrum. They compete for mindshare.Now if you’ve read Snow Crash, you know there’s 3 different ways to access the proverbial Metaverse: high-quality home VR, grainy public arcade-style VR, or for the real addicts, a portable headset. (Eerily similar to what we have today). What attracted me to audio & audio-first tech is that the third portable option has seen a lot of momentum technologically–airpods, music streaming, podcasting, voice assistants, generative audio, conversational AI–these all seem to be converging on a compelling virtual world that’s portable. Sure, it’s not complete immersion like our home system. But it delivers something that only requires 70%-attention, allowing us to get a taste of the giant computer-storyteller-machine while going about our day. That’s why I wrote in <a target="_blank" href="https://pappageorge.substack.com/p/audio-first-4-the-youtube-edition">edition #4</a> that the reason I’m ‘long’ audio is because I’m ‘long’ distracted consumption. There’s just a shocking amount of surface area unlocked.With COVID-19, however, this is short-term a bad break for audio. Music streaming and podcasting and AirPods are built upon the assumption that people can consume on-the-go. Unsurprisingly, podcast listening is already <a target="_blank" href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/03/it-appears-people-staying-at-home-all-the-time-is-bad-news-for-podcasting/">down</a> from the start of March. Similarly, musicians, who rely on tour income and second jobs to pay the bills, are very much <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/danideahl/status/1247239584167182340?s=20">affected</a>. I suspect this will all rebound as normalcy returns, but this is a seriously bad demand shock. On the startup front, things are tricky for the time being. Smart guy and friend of the show <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/mhdempsey">Michael Dempsey</a> wrote a great summary of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.michaeldempsey.me/blog/2020/04/01/vc-markets-arent-clearing/">why startup funding is still on hold</a> right now. The demand shock, the asset-wide allocation, and general uncertainty has already affected the funding environment. Similarly, Chamath Palihapitiya highlighted <a target="_blank" href="https://pod.link/recodedecode/episode/NDZhZjRhNDYtZWViZC0xMWU5LTg1YzgtOTc5YTUzNTdlZDY1">on a must-listen pod</a> that companies are now price takers, and said that founders can expect 30% haircuts. For now, the startup go-go days are on pause.Finally, as I hinted in the last edition, COVID-19 is a likely boon for tech giants like Apple. Apple also has a massive balance sheet to make smart acquisitions. With much of the tech industry reeling from the fallout, Apple’s $200B cash-on-hand could buy a wild portfolio of services and hard tech (say <a target="_blank" href="https://newatlas.com/electronics/silicon-micro-loudspeaker-fraunhofer-arioso/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=f7f1673af9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_02_11_56&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-f7f1673af9-93033789">sound-producing nanomaterials</a>, h/t Dror Poleg). Already, it’s snapped up Dark Sky and NextVR in just 2 weeks. The NextVR acquisition, in particular, hints that Apple is taking this concept of metaverse extremely seriously.Right now, the world is rife with predictions about what COVID will bring and how it will change our habits. Just by exposure during quarantine, there’s a good chance people see the digital world as “primary” more than ever. That could bring metaverses here even faster. Short term, though, it’s a bad break for audio. Quarantine is showing how audio’s edge is dependent on people being portable. Obviously, our ears aren’t going anywhere and we won’t be sheltering in place forever. So I remain optimistic. As it stands today, though, tech giants seem better positioned than ever.Quarantine DiversionsWhat’s working for me is going deeper on my favorite artists, reading up on music history, and watching any remotely interesting documentary. We’re also living in a golden age of podcasts & docuseries, where I have some recs below. Read* About how The Beatles’ Revolver was made, with a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beatles-acid-test-how-lsd-opened-the-door-to-revolver-251417/">fascinating, detailed account</a> their breakup* I was curious about the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/fiona-apples-art-of-radical-sensitivity">upcoming Fiona Apple album</a>, which included a bunch of salacious facts (ctrl-f ‘Tarantino’).Listen* A fairly well-known podcast hosted by Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell called <a target="_blank" href="https://pod.link/1311004083">Broken Record</a> has some of the most captivating music interviews I’ve ever heard. You can <a target="_blank" href="https://pod.link/1311004083/episode/NTUwNDcxY2MtODA4MC0xMWU4LWJjZjItNDM1YzczYTYwYjM4">listen</a> to Nile Rodgers talk about working with Madonna, Diana Ross, as well as a hilarious account of playing with Prince (my personal fav). I learned that Tyler The Creator vastly prefers Igor, and that he’s a ‘chord person’ far more than a ‘drum person.’ You can listen to Flea spill his guts, or hear Andre 3000 explain why he’s uninspired about releasing new music.* VCs - <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/chamath">Chamath</a>’s other interview with Kara Swisher was good. I’ve been enjoying <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/justGLew">Geoff Lewis</a>’ video updates. Both investors predict a breakup of the EU due to Covid, interestingly.* <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/5wnCTZtzIZxasRSHzI1JeW?si=JcrvLyUOSzGuOazYeC4OsA">Yves Tumor</a>’s latest album (must-listen IMO)Watch* The impressive <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/all-musicians-streaming-live-concerts.html">list of artists</a> doing home concerts* <a target="_blank" href="https://play.hbogo.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GVU3jywQc21FvjSoJAY1G?reentered=true">Kurt Cobain Montage of Heck</a> (HBO)* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80049094">Amy</a> (Winehouse) is classic (NFLX)* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80227122">Miles Davis: Birth of Cool</a> (NFLX)* My Youtube-famous roomie has a video arguing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlnkCaDeUuE">why Scorcese’s </a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlnkCaDeUuE">The Last Waltz</a> is the best concert film of all time* This <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WpudasPafg">3 hr BBC doc on the history of electronic music</a>, which I found very informative (YT)* 13 live <a target="_blank" href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/13-live-performances-and-concert-films-to-stream-during-quarantine/">performances and concert films</a> to stream in self-isolation, omitting one of my favs from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4xKvHANqjk">Khruangbin</a>Liner notesDrake’s “Toosie Slide” Is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theringer.com/music/2020/4/3/21207204/drake-toosie-slide-tiktok-dance-challenge">a Master Class in Marketing</a>, but Nothing Else. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-creation-and-the-myth-of-kanye-west-11585139341">creation myth</a> of Kanye West. If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to a friend. If you didn’t, forward it to an enemy. Stay tuned and keep it locked,Nick<a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/npappag?lang=en">NpappaG</a>PS - I’m doing an upcoming interview with an iOS developer about airpods, audio, and the future of Apple. You can submit questions and talking points <a target="_blank" href="https://forms.gle/5SHUqQ78endnnrge9">here</a>. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://pappageorge.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">pappageorge.substack.com</a>

March 13, 2020

Audio-First #9: AR's fail, audio's fortune, and a musical guide to Brazil

[Listen above, read below, or both!]Hello audio nerds! It’s good to be back. I’ve spent the past few weeks in Brazil for, um, research. And the music there did not let me down. More on that below.If you’re new here, read <a target="_blank" href="https://npappag.com/2019/12/03/why-i-started-newsletter-about-audio-first-tech/">The Charter</a>. Today we’re welcoming 60+ new reader-listeners, so thanks to Substack for plugging Audio-First on the homepage. One final note: all Audio-First editions are also findable on the podcast apps <a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/audio-first/id1497788808">Apple</a>/<a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5vUrKClIs6iBmsZAt6lAmI?si=jhW2CZY6SQSbTnE8YLpqUA">Spotify</a>/<a target="_blank" href="https://pca.st/60659ppl">Pocket Casts</a>/<a target="_blank" href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/audiofirst?refid=stpr">Stitcher</a>/<a target="_blank" href="https://pod.link/1497788808">others</a>. (I prefer Pocket Casts because it displays the text fully linked in the Notes section. But you do you.)Onward.Lo-fi ARMagic Leap, the bellwether company in augmented reality, is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/augmented-reality-startup-magic-leap-is-said-to-explore-a-sale">exploring</a> a sale according to Bloomberg. The report suggests it could be for as much as $10B, which would be a healthy return on the $2.6B (!) it raised in equity financing.But $10B is likely a stretch. Elsewhere, outlets like TechCrunch thinks <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/11/magic-steep/">this will be a fire sale</a>. 2019 was a year of flameouts for well-funded AR startups like ODG, Meta, and Daqri. Additionally, Magic Leap suffered incredibly weak demand on its consumer headset and has since pivoted to enterprise, where it hasn’t found a foothold. If I were a betting man, I’d say this ends closer to a flameout, too. This isn’t to poke fun, either. A lot of this tech will be crucial towards building AR, which feels all but inevitable as the smartphone successor. It’s just the consensus seems to have shifted, conceding that AR is further out than previously thought (more of a 5-10 year range). This is a letdown to the startups and investors in the space. However, if AR’s timeline is now delayed, the opportunity for audio—with more time in the interim—increases a lot. As I argued in my Betaworks <a target="_blank" href="https://npappag.com/2019/10/30/airpods-our-first-taste-of-transhumanism-video/">presentation</a> last year: * AirPods will likely be remembered as our first taste of transhumanism (we wear them all day & the sales are on par with iPhones so far)* AirPods could become a lo-fi AR or a low-fi Neuralink (it’s mostly a software problem now)* But so far, nothing we use them for is that novel (it’s all stuff we did with wired headphones)Perhaps augmented reality’s current problems are audio’s fortune. As the “interfaceless interface,” audio could offer many of the upsides of AR, except it’s here and now. We’re already wearing them all day long, as AR makers hoped for their headsets. And they can approximate a lot of real-time information from the smartphone (and maybe soon with head angles and gestures).Second, the vision for AR headsets could be achieved, in part, with audio. It’s not difficult to imagine, say, 50% of the Magic Leap demos (like emails, basic search) could work somehow with today’s audio tech. The bottleneck right now is the smart assistant.This is why I’m looking to Apple for any sign about where this goes. As I wrote in a <a target="_blank" href="https://pappageorge.substack.com/p/audio-first-1-the-charter-my-airpods">previous </a><a target="_blank" href="https://pappageorge.substack.com/p/audio-first-1-the-charter-my-airpods">Audio-First</a>, the dictation of text messages on the AirPods Pro feels like that first taste of where audio is going:Aside from noise cancellation, the biggest new addition is the native text message reading. (ICYMI - incoming iMessages are read aloud by Siri.) I love it. More and more, I find myself dictating messages out, especially when I’m outside running. It works fine enough, even if the Siri interaction is a bit slow. To me, it seems obvious that Apple will have a Siri-led category of new apps. It’s just a matter of when.So far, Apple’s been quiet and has kept developer features with SiriKit pretty limited. But I suspect this will change in time. Additionally, Apple’s been rumored to be working on an AR headset for the past 10 years, and the reported ship dates keep <a target="_blank" href="https://www.thegamingeconomy.com/2019/11/12/apple-ar-headset-delayed-until-2022-stadia-to-launch-with-12-titles/">getting pushed back</a> (currently to 2023). In the near-term, it looks like an even bigger opportunity for audio & AirPods. And amidst a work from home wave due to COV-19, I’d guess AirPods are spiking in demand. Perhaps we’re in a catalyzing moment. Musica BrasileiraOn the music front, Brazil was magical. Granted, my most predictable travel habit is falling in love to the point where I browse Zillow, tell everyone back in NYC that "I could totally live there," and then never follow through. But Brazil, I swear, is a unique crucible for music.My knowledge going in was more around bossa nova, which I understood as a beautiful jazz-samba fusion that pairs nicely with a pina colada. The reality on the ground was that, and a whole lot more. Bossa nova, samba, pagode (pronounced pah-go-jee, a sort of samba-folk hybrid), and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWR2tchJv6E">tropicalia</a> (psych-rock like Caetano Veloso) are probably the most exported music I encountered down there. Even my local friends there play it themselves. These are the “national” music genres.Brazilian music, from what I <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaFakolFvNo">learned</a> in a documentary, has had a unique evolution, often fusing American music with its own unique sounds and instruments. To an American’s ears, it’s a wonderful degree of same-but-different. In culture and history, Brazil is not unlike America either. The most well-known genres have African roots and are steeped in a turbulent history of counterculture, political upheaval, and lasting inequality.The contemporary party music, however, was something else entirely. At parties and Carnaval events, people kept asking me what I think about the genre “baile funk” (pronounced “funky”). Baile funk, often just called funk, is basically the local equivalent of hip-hop, and I heard it everywhere. It has a distinctive cha-cha-cha-tik-cha beat that you can’t mistake, and culturally seems to occupy the same space as ratchet dancefloor hip-hop.In a recent Guide to Urbano Music, Felipe Maia summarized funk’s history: Between the 1950s and early 2000s, the population of favelas in Rio de Janeiro grew dramatically—the product of scarce public housing programs and unplanned urban expansion. At street level, the scenario was not so different from a subset of the South Bronx in the ’70s: a large, young, black population that wanted to party despite tough living conditions. This background laid the foundations for Brazilian funk, a genre that from its inception was deeply connected to club culture, also favoring danceable tracks, boiling-hot venues, and heavy soundsystems. DJ Marlboro was a high-profile figure in the early Brazilian funk scene, since he’d performed on many radio shows and gigs in Rio in the 1980s. In these sets, he dropped hip-hop anthems such as Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” or DJ Battery Brain’s “808 Volt Mix,” which became rhythmic cornerstones for Brazilian funk (or, as it’s called in the U.S., baile funk).It also turns out funk has its roots in American hip-hop and is currently going through a slot of the similar debates that hip-hop <a target="_blank" href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/05/02/female-mcs-are-changing-brazilian-funk-music">did</a>:Funk, which has roots in American hip hop, is performed mostly by men. Its critics say its lyrics promote misogyny, promiscuity and crime… A particular target is funk proibidão (taboo funk), in which explicit lyrics both glorify and lament violence. Funk ostentação (ostentation funk), which celebrates money and fame, is especially popular in São Paulo.Sounds like a familiar story. If you really want to see the baile funk scene in action, watch this short <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrbbU4yMZ5Y">documentary</a> from Boiler Room. Some really wild footage.After listening to my share of funk, some of it’s quite good. And some of it’s hard on the ears, or sounds hokey (e.g. the funk remixes of Old Town Road or A Star Is Born). But on the whole, it echoes urbano and hip-hop sounds that I know and enjoy.Since leaving Brazil, I can’t help but wonder if some of this music is going to grow in popularity here. Anitta, who’s probably the biggest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/latin/8507583/anitta-brazil-latin-star-kisses-interview">pop star</a> in Brazil today, is a trilingual funk singer who’s starting to do crossovers with big names like J Balvin. (I’ve had her song Bola Rebola on repeat.) I also learned Diplo famously compiled <a target="_blank" href="https://www.thefader.com/2015/01/17/how-diplo-took-baile-funk-out-of-brazil">funk mixtapes</a> as a way to export the sounds and get Brazilian producers on the map. After a Super Bowl in Miami, featuring Shakira and J. Lo, it’s pretty clear Latin music has arrived. I‘m curious what the future holds for Brazilian music, or if it can even be lumped into Latin trap. In my brief survey of people there, the impression I got was that Brazil doesn’t really consider itself Latin American. “It’s just Brazil,” was the common answer. (And almost nobody there speaks Spanish.) In any event, the country is clearly brimming with musical life. Everyone I met seemingly had music talent. Somehow, I found myself participating in 3 of my 5 lifetime drum circles.If you want a little starter pack, I compiled all my locally-recommended songs and Shazams into <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2c8JrSexsxAEoSGfDAs24L?si=GaEFvpPnTayeXPd9Yhzq1g">a playlist here</a>. If you want to hear more Funk, try <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWTkIwO2HDifB?si=yOcL4-HISuO4Bk4Q0E9L0g">this</a>. But if you listen to nothing else, I’d say try out Jorje Ben Jor, Novos Baianos, or Caetano Veloso.Liner notesConcert <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/major-concert-promoters-suspend-big-shows-around-the-world-11584048566">promoters</a> suspend big shows around the world. New Four Tet and new <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/0ZJt4dCoI19u71k37E1nQu?si=JkIAXE6UTwqF_mj5b0-5qg">Jay Electronica</a> (feat. a lot of Jay-Z), making it feel very 2009. An <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/sza-interview-new-music-950364/">interview</a> with SZA. Apple WWDC will be entirely <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/neilcybart/status/1238499098539499524?s=20">online</a>.Stay tuned and keep it locked. And stay safe out there!Nick<a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/NpappaG">@NpappaG</a>FYI sampled songs: Tudo o Que Voce Podia Ser by Milton Nascimento, Bossa Nova Brasil by Joao Donato, and Marinheiro So by Caetano Veloso, and Bola Rebola by Tropikillaz. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://pappageorge.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">pappageorge.substack.com</a>

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What is Audio-First?: Exploring the dynamism happening across audio, music, AirPods, and AR. <a href="https://pappageorge.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">pappageorge.substack.com</a>
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