How INXS and the Song ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ Embodies Australian Music Culture

NB: This post has remained unedited since its initial submission in content to my university as part of my undergraduate program. Changes have been made to paragraph spacing and this post now includes links to media.

In 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales the Australian rock band INXS was formed (INXS). Throughout their musical career, INXS would receive six Australian Recording Industry Association awards, be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, and sell over 80 million albums worldwide (INXS). They have become known as one of Australia’s highest- selling musical acts of all time (INXS). Their song, Never Tear Us Apart, was released in 1988 as the fourth single on their sixth studio album, Kick, and peaked on the Australian ARIA charts at number 14 (INXS; ARIA).

Since its release, Never Tear Us Apart has featured in cultural media and moments as the titular name for INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, a two-part Australian miniseries about the band which received 2.243 million national rating audience, and influenced in the week after airing, a resurgence on the ARIA charts for INXS’s albums and the single Never Tear Us Apart which reached number 11 (INXS; Moran 10).

Additionally, after lead singer Michael Hutchence’s death in 1997, his coffin was carried out by the remaining members of the band and his younger brother to the song Never Tear Us Apart (Morgan 10). The song has also been named in January 2018 as part of Triple M’s “Ozzet 100” and in 2021 was listed in Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Best Songs of All Time” (INXS; Aria; Breihan 1). Never Tear Us Apart can be argued to epitomise the idea that Australian music is found and shared in pubs as the song is still beloved by Australians today and a fan-favourite for pub karaoke, and pubs evoke the sense of nostalgia of watching Hutchence perform (Gallan & Gibson 174-175; Bennet & Rogers 501; Young 2).

Tom Breihan summarises, “To my mind, and for my purposes, there has never been a better karaoke song than “Need You Tonight,” the sole Hot 100 chart-topper from the Australian band INXS. “Need You Tonight” is a great song, but it’s not a complicated one, and it does not require a rocket launcher of a voice” (1).

Skinner argues that an Australian song is recognisably Australian in some way (Skinner 289). Skinner states that Australian music is usually considered to be male singers and/or bands that are also songwriters and perform mostly songs that fall into the rock genre (Skinner 290). One way in which Australian music is distinctive is because Gallan and Gibson explain that Australian live music is a “history of pubs” (174).

From the 1950s onwards, pubs and clubs played a major role in Australian music and culture by providing a creative space for musical performance and exposure, featuring genres such as rock, punk, pop, alternative, and more (Gallan & Gibson 174-175). Therefore, pubs gave a physical space for belonging and musical appreciation, and participation (Gallan & Gibson 176). People would remember bands, songs, drinking, and their friends to create an emotional space of music that cemented itself as an essential Australian music cultural asset such as INXS (Gallan & Gibson 176).

This physical space and emotive memory are important in Australian music culture because, “Music, in all its forms, has the potential to contribute social, financial and artistic capital to a community” (McCarthy 1). The appeal of Australian music is drawn from its emotive, participatory, and authentic nature (McCarthy 1-16).

Therefore, pubs are, “significant in this are the ways in which collective memories become textured by particular venues and how memory works to forge strong collective associations between former audiences” (Bennet & Rogers 490). The memory of these venues forms an important aspect of the Australian music cultural heritage in contemporary society today (Bennet & Rogers 490). Bennet and Rogers summarise this:

“Popular music has long been understood as a primary driver for the construction of sociocultural identity in a late modern cultural context… This understanding of popular music also extends to the local context where it is seen to mesh with other aspects of local culture, such as local dialect and the vernacular tradition in the production of rich and highly nuanced perceptions of space and place” (494).

Bennet and Rogers suggest that the relationship between popular music and cultural memory suggests that local aspects of popular music production and consumption are firmly rooted in the way that people remember the music – and use such memories as a means of articulating and justifying music’s ongoing significant in our daily lives (Bennet & Rogers 494-496).

“In this sense, there is a highly palpable connection between the significance of music and what is now commonly referred to as ‘emotional geography.’ Thus, along with other aspects of everyday taste, aesthetics and lifestyle, music and the way it is experienced become an important means through which individuals form an emotive attachment to local spaces. To put this another way, music becomes one of a series of interrelated signature experiences through which individuals understand themselves as social beings grounded in space and place” (Bennet & Rogers 494-496).

Therefore, they explain that musical spaces such as pubs act as an important “barometer” for people to root their music and daily lives via their involvement in the music in their space (Bennet & Rogers 494). The pub is used as a place for collective sharing and celebration of music and nostalgic memory and shows the importance of Australian bands such as INXS’ songs being fan-favourites in pubs (Bennet & Rogers 501).

It is a fan-favourite because the song is not musically complex and does not require vocal talent (Breihan 1). Instead, one can get away with ‘singing’ the song by whispering the lyrics even if they’re nervous to perform because it “is a song driven by nervousness” (Breihan 1). All that is required to sing the song is a semblance of a sense of rhythm (Breihan 1). In fact, to highlight its lack of musical complexity, Breihan explains that the song was composed over one night (11).

INXS guitarist Farris thought of a riff while waiting for a cab to the airport, and ran back into his house to record the riff over a drum-machine beat he’d already laid down previously. Farris then gave Hutchence the tape when he landed, and Hutchence wrote the lyrics in a link and said it took him about 10 minutes to come up with most of them (Breihan 12).

It was said to be recorded in one sitting (Breihan 12). However, the riff in particular and the song remain a fan-favourite in Australian music to this day because of its ability to be sung and that is musically not complex, but still “is a marvel” (Breihan 12). Breihan argues that:

“The entire track is a marvel, an itchy-scratchy little throb that pushes you in all sorts of different directions. Farriss’ riff is pretty close to the one that Queen used on their own Chic-inspired quasi-funk smash “Another One Bites The Dust” eight years.

The track is spacey and mechanical, but it’s also fluid. Everything clicks into place with everything else: the bone-simple riff, the slow-roll bassline, the rubbery rhythm-guitar line, the shivery ahh of the keyboard. The band kept the drum-machine beat, but drummer Jon Farriss still played over it, adding little embellishments like that perfectly-timed cymbal-splashe. The song is all pocket. Everything rides the groove lightly” (13).

The song is also easy for people to sing because there is no chord progress in the song, instead is a modal groove (like many other hit songs of the time) that doesn’t require a technique to sing (Hein 6). It is also ‘fun’ to sing because the lyrics do not rhyme, but instead act as a dialogue between one person where there is “a low whisper calling, and then a higher, open-throated belting response” (Hein 6).

Additionally, Never Tear Us Apart embodies Homan’s argument that Australian music is embedded in performance attitudes and therefore evokes nostalgia (601-606). Hutchence was a ‘virtuoso’ singer and a charismatic performer, signifying the belief that Australian music is embedded in live, memorable performances (Bennet & Rogers 496-501).

“He had a presence — the confidence and charisma that comes from being impossibly handsome” (Breihan 3). Therefore, the song Never Tear Us Apart remains relevant in Australians’ memories of how wonderful it was to watch Hutchence perform and the nostalgia invoked from singing the song in the space of pubs nowadays (Bennet & Rogers 495).

Performances of Never Tear Us Apart are also memorable in Australian music culture because Hutchence also danced, enhancing his performance (Breihan 14). The way he also sang the lyrics of the song is notable, making use of on-beat gasps and yelps that bridge the fine line of an ‘Australian male rock star’ ambivalently sexual performance (Breihan 14).

Pullen and Rhodes argue that Australian rock stars were known for their ambivalent masculinity, as they toyed with traditional hegemonic white nationals of masculinity by embracing emotive lyrics, performance, dance, and clothing – something Hutchence was also known for (9). This is because, for Australian men, Young explains that the “very act of appearing on stage has for much of the twentieth century aroused suspicion about their gender status and their sexuality.

To aspire to the stage often implied homosexuality culturally in Australia. This has been evident in the evolving aesthetic of white Australian masculinity in pop music from the 1970s onwards” (1-2). However, INXS’ Hutchence left the cultural memory of a sexually driven performance because he defied the norm of Australian performers on stage blending together an outback or coastal Australian aesthetic with a ‘traditional’ 1970s onwards male aesthetic to appear ‘sexless’ (Young 2). Young explains this is because:

“The exception is the late Michael Hutchence whose performances were a clear departure from this in that on stage and in music videos, he conveyed a star persona that was sexually charged and often ambiguous about its sexuality. It is for that reason alone that Michael Hutchence has been referred to as Australia’s only international rock star (2).

This idea is also showcased in Hutchence’s performance of the song Never Tear Us Apart. Breihan argues that all of the intonations in the song: “…Feel like they’re part of the beat: the whispered “come over here” on the intro, the helium squeak just before the chorus, even the way he seems to half-swallow his words here and there.

Hutchence sings most of the song in a flirty baritone purr. He sounds like he’s whispering in your ear but every once in a while, the intensity jumps up 10 notches out of nowhere, and he sounds like he’s been possessed by sheer appetite: “I’m loooone-laaaaay!” (14).

Breihan also states that another reason Never Tear Us Apart remains culturally relevant today, especially as a fan-favourite for pub karaoke, is because the majority of the lyrics of ‘silly’ pick-up lines evoke a sense of fun for people to sing (15).

However, the song Never Tear Us Apart cannot be discussed without questioning if it upholds the Australian cultural music value of creativity (Gallan & Gibson 177). Like pubs as a musical venue space, Never Tear Us Apart can be critiqued for trying to work its way into Australian cultural life by including itself in music culture where instead of natural authenticity, pubs are built in to try to appeal to music lovers and Never Tear Us Apart was written and performed as a commercial endeavour (Gallan & Gibson 176-177).

Hein even argues:

“Need You Tonight” was INXS’ biggest hit, but before it dropped there was concern on Atlantic Records’ part about its commercial prospects. Here’s a quote from the band’s manager Chris Murphy: They hated it, absolutely hated it. They said there was no way they could get this music on rock radio. They said it was suited for black radio, but they didn’t want to promote it that way. The president of the label told me that he’d give us $1 million to go back to Australia and make another album” (4).

Gallan and Gibson argue that a lack of creativity and instead the pursuit of developing new ‘forms’ to gain cultural capital, is inauthentic and shouldn’t, therefore, be celebrated in culture today because of how political policy is considered to exclude creativity, and therefore Never Tear Us Apart should be scrutinised under this ideal because it arguable diminished the authenticity of the Australian musical culture (Gallan & Gibson 176).

Never Tear Us Apart showcases the idea that Australian music is found and shared in pubs, as the song is still beloved by Australians today and a fan-favourite for pub karaoke because it is easy to sing and emotive (Gallan & Gibson 174-175).

The song also evokes a sense of nostalgia within the pub space and from watching Hutchence perform matching the Australian music culture of a ‘male ambivalence’ rock star while also diverting from the traditional ‘sexless’ rock star performance that is remembered within the Australian music culture today (Bennet & Rogers 501; Young 2). However, Never Tear Us Apart also begs Australians to question if the culture values authentic musical creativity over the pursuit of commercial gain (Gallan & Gibson 176).

Works Cited
ARIA Charts, editors. ARIA. Australian Recording Industry Association, 2022, https://www.aria.com.au/charts/.

Bennet, Andy & Rogers, Ian. “In the Scattered Fields of Memory: Unofficial Live Music Venues, Intangible Heritage, and the Recreation of the Musical Past.” Space and Culture, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 490-501. SAGE Journals, doi:10.1177/1206331215623217.

Breihan, Tom. “The Number Ones: INXS’ ‘Need You Tonight.’” Stereogum, MLA, 12 Apr. 2021, https://www.stereogum.com/2143512/the-number-ones-inxs-need-you-tonight/columns/the-number-ones/.

Gallan, Ben & Gibson, Chris. “Mild-mannered bistro by day, eclectic freak-land at night: memories of an Australian music venue.” Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, 2013, pp. 174-193. Taylor & Francis Online, doi:10.1080/14443058.2013.781051.

Hein, Ethan. “INXS needs you tonight.” The Ethan Heigh Blog, MLA, 11 Jul. 2010, http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2010/inxs-needs-you-tonight/.
Homan, Shane. “An ‘Orwellian vision’: Oz Rock scenes and regulation.” Continuum, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 601-611. Taylor & Francis Online, doi:10.1080/10304310802311600.

INXS, editors. INXS. Universal Music Group, 2022, https://www.inxs.com/band/. McCarthy, Breda. “The Landscape of Music Festivals in Australia.” Music Business and the Experience Economy, edited by P. Tshumuck, P. Pearce. S Campbell, Springer, 2013, pp. 1-16, doi:10.1007.

Moran, Rob. “INXS: Never Tear Us Apart – a review.” The Guardian, MLA, 10 Feb. 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/australia-culture-blog/2014/feb/10/inxs-never-tear-us-apart-review.

Pullen, Alison & Rhodes, Carl. Who Needs that Sentimental Bullshit Anyway? OzRock and the Instability of Australian Hegemonic Masculinity. 2008. University of Technology Sydney, School of Management Working Paper Series. Research Gage, https://www. researchgate.net/profile/AlisonPullen/publication/228591888_Who_Needs_that_Sentimental_Bullshit_Anyway_OzRock_and_the_Instability_of_Australian_Hegemonic_ Masculinity/links/02e7e524d712704ad3000000/Who-Needs-that-Sentimental- Bullshit-Anyway-OzRock-and-the-Instability-of-Australian-Hegemonic- Masculinity.pdf

Skinner, Graeme. “The Invention of Australian Music.” Musicology Australia, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 289-306. Taylor & Francis Online, doi:10.1080/08145857.2015.1076594.

Young, Greg. “So Slide Over Here: The Aesthetics of Masculinity in Late Twentieth-Century Australian Pop Music.” Popular Music, vol. 23, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0261143004000145.

From the (Undergrad) Vault: How Spotify’s Use of Deep Learning Algorithms Allows for a Personalised User Experience

NB: This post is unedited from its initial submission aside from separating the paragraphs to be smaller. I did not voluntarily go into debt for this essay just be deleted from my laptop. I will at least have those sources that were hidden behind paywalls that the university paid for be put to good use! Also I would actually recommend looking up deep learning algorithms because it’s a very interesting topic and incredibly relevant to today’s media climate.

Spotify is an on-demand music streaming platform that boasts over 75 million active listeners and tens of millions of songs on its platform (Jacobson 373). To maintain its status as the largest music streaming platform, Spotify aims to personalise users’ experiences (Jacobson 373). Personalisation is an important aspect of digital platforms, as it has set a ‘standard’ of the way that users engage with music on platforms such as Spotify (Chen 1).

Therefore, Spotify puts large investments of its resources into deep learning to tune the platform’s algorithms to continually improve its personalisation for users (Chen 1). Therefore, it is important to understand how personalisation has come to exist on Spotify and its potential to influence user experience.

Gulmatico argues that music consumption patterns can alter because of digital platforms, as the platform provides new song recommendations and pushes favourite performers (1). This is done via a feature known as ‘automatic playlist recommendations’ (Gulmatico 1). Spotify makes use of deep learning, a machine learning that utilises algorithms to explain data, learn from collected data, and then learn how to make decisions/predictions to complete a task to personalise user experience (Gulmatico 2).

Usually, a machine learning task is called a ‘classification,’ which refers to sorting data and making distinctions (Carah 2022). A classification is made by algorithms making a judgement around a range of data that has been collected, which are often called features or variables (Carah 2022). Then, a machine will be ‘trained’ using a ‘training data set,’ where algorithms are ‘tested’ with previously unseen ‘test data’ (Briot 983).

One way in which AI systems are ‘trained’ involve what’s called ‘deep learning’ or ‘deep neural networks’ (Crawford & Paglen 22). Deep learning is dominant in training AIs such as Spotify because it is driven by increases in available data and computer processing power (Crawford & Paglen 22).

Deep learning approaches can be supervised or unsupervised (Carah). These two approaches are used for classification tasks where it is too hard to describe variables (Carah). By making use of these two approaches, digital platforms can create ‘layers’ that add more distinctions for an algorithm to learn (Crawford & Paglen 8).

Spotify makes use of the unsupervised approach, especially for its recommendations and curated playlists (Gulmatico 1-2). This means that not only is Spotify’s algorithm performing tasks such as classification, but it is also deep learning by trying to personalise user experience (Gulmatico 1-2). These processes are shown in Figures 1-3, showcasing how songs are pre-processed, processed, and recommended, how features are drawn out, and how features are viewed by the algorithms that are deep learning.

Figure 1: Jakheliya, Bhumil, et al. “System Architecture.” Using Deep Autoencoders to Improve the Accuracy of Automatic Playlist Generation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38040-3_71.

Figure 2: Mounika, K. S., et al. “Diversity of Filters Within Layers.” Music Genre Classification Using Deep Learning. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAECA52838.2021.9675685.

Figure 3: Mounika, K. S., et al. “CRNNs for Music Classification.” Music Genre Classification Using Deep Learning. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAECA52838.2021.9675685.

Briot argues that this process is successful if it contains three aspects: (1) technical progress in which inefficiency in ‘training data’ to optimise deep learning is improved upon continuously, (2) an AI is provided with multiple data sets to tune, and (3) improving efficient computing power (981). With these three aspects being used by a platform such as Spotify, the manual time-consuming creation of making playlists for users is no longer needed on Spotify – enhancing user experience (Jakheliya 626).

Therefore, Spotify offers its users the feature of ‘automatic playlist generation’ systems, which are generated by algorithms that consider users’ engagements with the platform (Jakheliya 626). Jakheliya explains that digital platforms have created this system for their platform using two main approaches: the collaborative approach and the content-based approach (626). S

ystems embedded in the collaborative approach require user data to generate accurate results, while the accuracy of playlists generated using the content-based approach systems instead relies upon features categorised from the platform’s dataset (Jakheliya 627). Spotify, therefore, prefers to utilise the content-based approach (Jakheliya 626).

The next question to ask then is: how does Spotify’s algorithm determine the features of a song in a content-based approach system so that user experience can be personalised (Matera 1)?

Jakheliya in Figure 4 showcases the deep learning model that is to be discussed in relation to Spotify in the following paragraphs (630).

Figure 4: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “System Architecture.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Matera explains that Spotify collects the necessary data for training sets by using its API, which allows deep learning algorithms to access metadata and musical content that Spotify holds as shown in Figure 5 to extract features to turn into classifications (1).

Figure 5: Jakheliya, Bhumil, et al. “Histograms of Features Representing Distribution of Data.” Using Deep Autoencoders to Improve the Accuracy of Automatic Playlist Generation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38040-3_71.

Metadata is used to link together users’ likes/dislikes and media habits to recommend similar user profiles and similar songs that the algorithm learns to believe users may like, while musical content is classified by labelling genres, artists, and more (Anderson 561).

Spotify’s algorithm labels clusters of artists and determines the acoustic properties of songs (Anderson 561). This is seen in the figure below, which shows that the function of a deep learning model is to “perform content-based filtering on Spotify Song Dataset,” which Jakheliya explains is, implemented with the help of two sub-models: Autoencoder Model and Clustering Model as shown in Figures 6 and 7 (630).

Figure 6: Jakheliya, Bhumil, et al. “Autoencoder Neural Network.” Using Deep Autoencoders to Improve the Accuracy of Automatic Playlist Generation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38040-3_71.

Figure 7: Jakheliya, Bhumil, et al. “Deep Learning Model (Content-Based).” Using Deep Autoencoders to Improve the Accuracy of Automatic Playlist Generation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38040-3_71.

Spotify then uses Gracenote, a third-party music metadata service, which determines the ‘mood’ of a song by processing audio signals into features (such as harmony, rhythm, and more) – known as data extraction and pre-processing (Anderson 561; De Quirós 354). Then, the deep learning algorithm will use the features of a song to determine which genre, moods, and more the algorithm should recommend – known as feature extraction (Anderson 561; De Quirós 353-358).

Mounika explains that transferring learning is used to “insert features of specified audios and labels from various data into an allocated space with linear transformations” as seen in Figure 8 (5). This figure shows how transfer learning can classify features to then recommend songs to users in Spotify’s deep learning progress (Mounika 5).

Figure 8: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “Linear Correlated Features of Popularity.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Gulmatico also shows varied categories that data can be sorted into, showing in the figure below how over 170,000 songs from Spotify were collected from the API to extract four classifications from them: primary, numerical, dummy, and categorical as shown in Figures 9-11 (3).

Figure 9: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “Features Under the Dummy Category.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Figure 10: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “Features Under the Numerical Category.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Figure 11: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “Features Under the Categorical Category.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Now that the data is collected, the algorithm can then be trained using data. Figures 12 and 13 below showcase the results of the process Gulmatico explains:

“In this stage, the researcher conducts some pre-processing to get and normalize the data that is needed for K-means when clustering a certain dataset. The development utilizes the Standard Scaler, a module by SK-learn under pre-processing, to normalize certain values on columns.

The range of values for danceability and instrumentality is only roughly 0 to 1. On the other hand, the range for duration and popularity can be in the millions. The data was scaled so that it was homogenous and clusterable. To find the dataset’s real major components, we’ll need to utilize a decomposition method (3)”

Figure 12: Jakheliya, Bhumil, et al. “Box Plot of Tempo Feature.” Using Deep Autoencoders to Improve the Accuracy of Automatic Playlist Generation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38040-3_71.

Figure 13: Jakheliya, Bhumil, et al. “Box Plot of Loudness Feature.” Using Deep Autoencoders to Improve the Accuracy of Automatic Playlist Generation. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38040-3_71.

A ‘Principal Component Analyser’ module from ‘SK-learn’ is then used to complete the algorithm’s system, allowing two variables to be determined as the ‘principals’ so that the metadata can be clustered again for tuning (Gulmatico). The scatter plot data in Figure 14 showcases how clusters led to their classifications into different features.

Following the pre- processing stage of Spotify’s deep learning, the classifications will be sorted into a hierarchy of ‘important information such as artist and genre which are more weighted than harmony/rhythm or models such as Linear Regression as shown in Figure 15 (Gulmatico 4). Linear Regression predicts if a song will be popular based upon audio features (by answering questions such as “is this song danceable?”) by calculating a total average per audio characteristic (Gulmatico 4).

Figure 14: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “Scatter Plot of 2 Components.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Figure 15: Joshua Gulmatico et al. “Clustering of Data Using Hierarchy Method.” SpotiPred: A Machine Learning Approach Prediction of Spotify Music Popularity by Audio Features.” 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPC2T53885.2022.9776765.

Spotify recommendations, therefore, are based on users’ preferences of features such as genres and artists, and the features of songs that they listen to the most (De Quirós 353- 358). This process also goes through ‘fine-tuning,’ in which optimisers are used to continuously improve the algorithm’s ability to learn and recommend for better-personalised user experience (Mounika 3).

The five steps in improving ‘flow’ are: extracting data, pre- processing data, model development, evaluation, and prediction (Gulmatico 2). Using these five steps the table below shows the process that four distinct models are used in datasets to evaluate the efficiency of the Spotify algorithm’s process (Gulmatico 2).

Gulmatico explains that The System Architecture shown above is a process in which data extraction goes through an efficient application, where data is placed into deep learning training sets/procedures to train the algorithm until it is most optimal (2).

The Spotify algorithm once it has processed metadata turns features into song vectors (De Boom 385). These song vectors are used to predict users ‘tastes,’ and are known as ‘tase vectors (De Boom 385). Taste vectors are an output of a retrieval reference number that aggregates song vectors from users’ metadata to represent their musical habits. Therefore, the taste vectors are used to generate song recommendations by, “querying a tree data structure for the nearby song vectors” (De Boom 385).

Therefore, Briot explains that Spotify’s recommended automatic playlists feature is based upon a recurrent neural network’s deep learning that has processed combinations of “arbitrary embeddings and features” that have been supplied with song vectors to produce a “user taste vector” to personalise user experience (985).

To maintain a positive personalised user experience, this feature, therefore, is in a constant state of tuning, as with each song’s metadata and user metadata that is processed, the deep learning algorithms need to be updated often so that recommendations can immediately reflect users’ current habits – which the recurrent neural networks do to calculate new taste vectors to generate recommendations (Gulmatico 4).

Additionally, about the impact, Spotify’s deep learning algorithms have on users, despite many datasets existing for musical streaming platforms, Gulmatico argues that there is no accurate way currently to determine the impact of Spotify’s deep learning algorithm on users’ musical habits (4). Striphas does however argue that there are three key aspects to current music habits users consistently experience: information, crowd, and algorithm (395).

Striphas explains that culture and music are intertwined, such as how digital platforms are intertwined with our daily lives, and therefore argues that currently, an algorithmic culture is developing – where new songs and popularity of music emerge not from publicness but from exposure/recommendations on digital platforms that are based upon deep learning algorithms (395).

Therefore, users need to understand how algorithms function and influence their music streaming experience to see how algorithms ‘intervene’ with ‘connections’ (Van Der Nagel 83). Connections are made by an algorithm based upon artists, mood, features, and more and algorithms take this metadata and are trained to then recommend music based upon users’ engagement and habits rather than seeking out the music themselves (Van Der Nagel 83).

Van Der Nagel states that because platforms are political (as they mediate between the decisions of owners, researchers, designers, and users that allow for data to be collected and processed), people engaging with platforms such as Spotify should be aware of how their experience is being personalised by an algorithm that’s been trained and continuously is optimising its processes (83; 86). This is especially important because algorithms on digital platforms are a part of everyday life for many people nowadays, as they are suggested music by Spotify’s algorithm (Seaver 1).

Algorithms can ‘hook’ people by providing a personalised experience to encourage more engagement, which provides more metadata to the platforms (Seaver 1). Van Der Nagel and Seaver encourage users to think critically about how algorithms are providing an easy solution to searching for musical playlists/songs, and therefore consider how their data is being used to keep them on the platform via deep learning algorithms (86; 1).

Spotify aims to personalise its users’ experiences by utilising deep learning to tune the platform’s algorithms to continually improve its personalisation for users (Chen 1). Therefore, it is important to understand how personalisation has come to exist on Spotify and its potential to influence user experience (Seaver 1).

Spotify utilises deep learning, a machine learning that allows algorithms to explain data, learn, and recommend songs/playlists to personalise user experience (Gulmatico 2). Recommendations are given by classifying features of songs’ metadata to make a judgement of what songs to recommend to users based on their listening habits (Gulmatico 2). This is made possible because Spotify’s deep learning algorithms are ‘trained’ using a ‘training data set’ using an unsupervised approach to process data (Briot 983).

Works Cited
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What Was Your First Anime?

A ‘first anime’ can be a gateway into watching anime. Seeing a boppy OP, melancholic ED, cool animation and awesome voice acting can really let one fall down the rabbit hole…

For me, the first anime I remember watching was Yu-Gi-Oh! I watched it on the kids’ channel and ended up seeing the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series probably about three times over my childhood due to screening the same episodes over the years. I also remember watching some Pokemon, but I wasn’t as invested in it as Yu-Gi-Oh! because I didn’t understand what was happening. (How? I hear you asking? How does a seven-year-old understand the convoluted rules of Dueling yet not the cute Pokemon? And to that I say – I saw the first episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! so it made more sense. The Pokemon episodes I first saw was awkwardly 3/4s through the series. And since this is free-to-air television it’s not like I could find the first ones to watch or understood the concept.) I also watched Bakugan Battle Brawlers but honestly I don’t remember anything except being wowed by how the Bakugan would pop out and having a replica toy and I’d make my mum watch me ‘battle’ while she had been trying to actually do something important. I also watched Astro Boy (the 2003 series) from which I mostly remember feeling conflicted as a child about everyone’s goals and personalities…

But the first anime I saw that wasn’t targeted towards a children’s demographic (despite some of them still being very popular with other demographics) was Guilty Crown. I think it was a great ‘first anime’ for me because it was only 12 episodes long, have pretty characters, a decent story line and concept, and awesome music – perfect for a teenage me! From there I started anime like Death Note, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul, Hyouka, Death Parade, the Studio Ghibli movies, and Yuri!!! On Ice.

What was the first anime you remember watching? Or what was the anime that got you into anime?

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5 Facts to Know About Star and Stripe

1. Star and Stripe’s real name is Cassie. She has naturally brown hair but currently dyes it blonde and has navy blue eyes. She is from the United States and is the Number 1 ranked U.S. Pro-Hero. She has unmade parents and a younger sister.
2. She made her debut in the manga as a silhouette in Chapter 303, and officially debuted in Chapter 328. In the anime she appeared in a cameo as a child in Episode 58 and in the movie Two Heroes (in flashbacks).
3. Star and Stripe’s hero name is based upon a nickname for the U.S.A. flag, which her hero costume is designed after.
4. Star and Stripe has given special authority to allow her to call upon a series of state-of-the-art hypersonic intercontinental cruise missiles from the U.S. military called Tiamat. Tiamat is the name of the Babylonian goddess of the primordial sea and chaos.
5. Star and Stripe is called “the strongest woman around” by All for One. All for One has said that she easily notices cheap tricks and petty tactics. Her power is also shown to compete against Shigaraki while he used at 98% full power of All For One. She is shown to have superhuman physical prowess, including speed, strength, balance, endurance, agility, reflexes and more. Although her abilities are not at All Might’s level, they are still considered to be incredibly impressive.

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Are There Any Characters You’d Want to Bring to Life?

It’s an age-old, eternal question. I think it’s really hard to answer because there’s so little context provided with the question. Am I summoning them because the world’s in danger? Will we be friends? Will they be left alone to fend for themselves in this strange world?

I personally think it’s a bit cruel to pull someone out of their world, but for the sake of the question we’ll just pretend that you HAVE to pick one character to bring to life and you’ll be responsible for their integration into society. In this case I was definitely choose a character that’s sane with very little friends or family or much of a life so that they won’t feel as depressed being stuck here and isn’t going to effect our world too much. Know that I think about it that also sounds like a hard ask of characters… Maybe someone like Shinji then? Or maybe someone like L who would just solve crimes?

It’s a tough question really to answer. What do you think about it all?

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Which Anime Would You Remaster?

Some anime has just plain poor animation. It can be for a range of reasons – usually a lack of budget, poor work conditions, and rushing through production. Would you want any shows suffering from these to be re-animated? Re-making them like FMAB can really boost the fan-base after all and bring the anime the recognition it should have originally deserved if it wasn’t poorly produced.

Alternatively, remastering an anime can be nice because the animation can be improved due to technology advancements. For example, Sailor Moon can be remastered for a clearer image than the 90s series has. Are there any older anime you’d want remaster if they already haven’t been?

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5 Facts to Know About Nejire Hado

1. Nejire debuted at age 17 and is currently 18. She is 164cm tall, her blood type is B, she was born in the Akita Prefecture, and her favourite things are lilies and jasmine tea.
2. Horikoshi has said that he has trouble drawing Nejire’s long hair.
3. Nejire’s surname contains the kanji for ‘wavelength’ (波 ha) and ‘motion, change, confusion’ (動 dō). Put together, her surname spells the Japanese word for ‘wave’ in physics terminology. The hiragana contained in her given name means ‘distortion, twist, warp’ (ねじれ nejire). If you put all the characters in her name together, it means ‘wave twist.’
4. Her stats according to the Ultra Analysis Book are:
   Power 5/6 (A)
   Speed 4/6 (B)
   Technique 5/6 (A)
   Intelligence 4/6 (B)
   Eccentricity 6/6 (S)
5. In the popularity polls Nejire placed as following:
   Ranked 64^th in the 4^th Popularity Poll
   Ranked 38^th in the 5^th Popularity Poll
   Ranked 23^rd in the 6^th Popularity Poll

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What’s the Worst Anime You’ve Seen?

A poorly rated anime is Rail Romanesque at 5.08 at the time I’m writing this on MAL. Interestingly, it has been approved for a second season despite this poorly performing first season. The story revolves around trains and seems to be disliked because of its poor story line and concept.

There’s so many anime out there, so obviously there’s going to be some very bad series. The worst series I’ve ever seen is Dance With Devlis because it’s the anime that taught me I don’t like harem anime and mediocre musicals numbers from strange men trying to pursue a questionable relationship. I didn’t make it past 4 episodes.

What’s the worst anime you’ve seen? Did you finish it? Why did you hate it?

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5 Facts to Know About Himiko Toga

1. Toga likes blood and pomegranates, she is 157cm tall, and debuted at age 16 and is now 17. She is also currently the youngest member of the League of Villains and the only female member after Magne’s death. She is also the only female lieutenant in the PLF.
2. Toga was the first character in the series to have their name revealed in katakana instead of kanji. It’s believed this was done to avoid hinting at her Quirk. Toga’s surname contains the kanji for ‘migrate’ (渡 to) and ‘self’ (我 ga), and her first name contains ‘wear, put on,’ (被 hi) ‘somebody,’ (身 mi) and ‘child’ (子 ko, this is also a feminine name suffix).
3. Toga’s concept art had her archetypal ‘yandere’ nature, but one of her concept designs had a different and plainer face with short pigtails and sharp teeth. According to Horikoshi, Toga is the hardest female character to illustrate with her eyes in particularly being difficult to draw.
4. Due to television regulations in Japan, Toga couldn’t be shown naked in the original broadcast of the series when she was supposed to be. Instead, the footage had to be altered to look like she was wearing a light skin toned body suit. The footage was changed back though in the home releases.
5. Toga’s stats according to the Ultra Archive are:
   Power 1/5 (E)
   Speed 4/5 (B)
   Technique 3/5 (C)
   Intelligence 3/5 (C)
   Cooperativeness 1/5 (E)
   Toga’s stars according to the Ultra Analysis are:
   Power 1/6 (E)
   Speed 4/6 (B)
   Technique 5/6 (A)
   Intelligence 5/6 (A)
   Unruly Hair 5/6 (A)

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Are There Any Tech Anime?

Does anyone know about any anime revolving around IT? There’s always cool hackers in anime, but wouldn’t it be cool if there was a group of hackers like Anonymous hacking into a corporate/government system to release information for the greater good? The episodes can be set-up like Ocean’s 8 with the character introductions, preparation, planning, practise, and plan. It would be awesome to watch!

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