Essay - Blog Posts
“Talking to yourself can be useful. And writing means being overheard.”
— Zadie Smith, ‘Intimations’
"If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, a false promise. Maybe what you want isn't what you want, you just enjoy wanting.”
-Mark Manson
i find today's internet-music-discovery landscape super interesting so i'd like to weigh in with some "casual" observations. as a teen growing up in the late aughts, my musical diet was fueled by two primary sources: myspace music and last.fm.
part 1: back then
myspace was huge for small artists back in the day. arguably the beginning of "bedroom pop" as a concept, artists like Owl City found traction through posting songs on this new social media platform which had its own music player and allowed html customization. developing an artist brand was pretty accessible to anyone with a mic, DAW, and basic coding knowledge.
before the streaming age officially started, last.fm among other similar sites, soft-launched the concept with "scrobbling." it's a similar concept today to Spotify's "artist radio." i think at the time there wasn't precedent for copyright/publishing payouts for streaming songs on-demand, so you couldn't just pick a song you liked and listen. you had to shuffle. the benefit of this, for me, was that songs had a pretty hefty genre taxonomy, allowing me to make such discoveries as "the weird jangly guitar music i listened to is called 'math rock' and here are 20 songs i like in this genre." discovering different genres, music from different countries, this was a very exciting time to be a teenager interested in music.
these are the examples of internet music discovery i remember primarily, but it's important to remember that such platforms as the radio, iTunes charts, and MTV still had a pretty strong grip on driving consumer music tastes. music labels were incredibly relevant, but there was now a foot in the door for smaller artists to make a name online. at the time, the natural outcome for those smaller artists progress was to sign a record deal.
one of the most famous cases is probably Justin Bieber? i didn't really follow his rise at the time, but according to wikipedia, Scooter Braun of Taylor-Swift-Debaucle fame clicked a youtube video of Bieber's by mistake in 2007. His debut single One Time was released in 2009 under Island records and RBMG, both under Universal Music Group.
part 2: an interlude
the big 3 major record labels in the west are Universal, Sony, and Warner. even today, virtually every top-charting artist on a given music streaming platform is distributing their music through one of these labels. if you're ever curious, Spotify has a "show credits" button if you right click any song. the "source" at the bottom will tell you the labels under which a song was released; Columbia, Republic, Interscope, Atlantic, and many more. Often you can google these and follow up the chain to the parent company, and more often than not it will be one of the big 3.
big labels have a lot of money for things like marketing singles and albums, booking big expensive concert venues, shooting fx-laden music videos on fancy sets, etc.
labels also have entire branches of people whose jobs are more or less to guarantee more visibility on platforms like Spotify. it's also advantageous for Spotify that the music that's already popular, mostly from these labels, lives in a visible space on their platform. they want to sell subscriptions and play ads because they have been hemmoraging money since day 1.
i think this is important to note before diving into the modern listening/discovery landscape.
part 3: the modern listening/discovery landscape
so nowadays there are a lot of ways to discover new music. hell, there are a lot of ways to discover old music. let's talk about some of the important ones, as i see it.
at 350 million users, Spotify is the most popular music streaming service. you can find music charts to see the most popular songs, you can sort by genre, country, or make a "radio station" based off any artist or song. they also release tons of playlists curated by real human people (i think). that's a lot of ways to listen. i don't personally use spotify, but i do really love this site which shows a beautiful data cloud of genres sorted by closeness:
every noise at once - this site actually slaps so hard. unfortunately it will no longer be updating as the creator was fired from Spotify and lost access to the internal data that made the site possible. it still lives on as an amazing resource for "branching out" from artists you already listen to. the amount of data is very satisfying for my foraging-for-music-like-berries-ass brained self.
anyways, Spotify also curates "Fresh Finds" playlists, giving space to independent artists or artists on smaller independent labels. at a quick glance, the average listenership for these artists is ~100,000. personally, i think that's pretty cool and worth checking out if you like the idea of finding independent artists to support.
one can't talk about the modern music age without talking about TikTok. there is already a ton of TikTok discourse regarding music so i'll just say this: on a platform that is very good at categorizing and delivering content to niche interests, TikTok can be a really powerful tool for music artists who are Built Like That. dance trends, miniature music videos, production breakdowns, acoustic covers, remixes, sped up, slowed down; these things are all being mixed together in fascinating ways by artists and consumers alike. memes become songs and songs become memes. it's a fascinating little ecosystem. audio and video content are becoming synonymous in a very organic way and i think that's neat. as an added bonus, it seemed to confuse the hell out of label people, at least for a little while.
it's also incredibly volatile. any platform with a mysterious algorithm deserves a bit of scrutiny. anyone can blow up overnight, but not everyone can blow up overnight. for every viral hit that breaks containment, there are 10,000 more of equal artistic merit that don't. that being said, i've found a ton of artists there whose work i really enjoy and are building their own communities off the platform. as far as discovery goes, if you lean hard into engaging with the kinds of music you like on TikTok, it WILL show you similar music.
then there's youtube, another insanely huge platform. on the surface, youtube's music scene is pretty plain: if you look at the trending music videos, you'll see a mix of big pop names as well as kpop, latin artists, as well as what i lovingly refer to as the "Baby of the Month" (whichever new rapper has "Baby" in their name).
however, youtube also has a lot of unadvertised stuff going for it in the music world. tons of people curating playlists, DJ sets, and other interesting mixed media presentations of music you've probably never heard before. plus if you start watching a ton of those types of videos, i find the recommendations to only get better and better (i.e. weirder and more niche, which i prefer!)
it's also a great place to listen to video game or anime scores, as a lot of them never hit streaming platforms for reasons unknown to me.
one specific recommendation i have if you like dance music is Boiler Room. DJ sets are very efficient for finding new music. a DJ might play 20-40 songs in an hour depending on how wacky their set is.
there's also bandcamp, which is constantly emailing me new music. if you're into that, i recommend bandcamp!! also recommend if you like actually downloading the music you find. it's one of the best platforms to actually support an independent artist you like as well! shameless plug here btw
part 4: uhhh let's try and wrap this up?
ok so maybe i lied when i said this would be a casual observation. sue me.
anyways, some platforms are built more fair than others and they all have their own biases. i personally recommend using as many platforms as possible to discover new music, and lean hard into engaging with the music you like there.
for better and for worse, these platforms are already digesting your usage habits. at least use that to your advantage. search for weird genres on youtube. if that random tiktok singer has a discord, join it and ask for reccs. tailor every algorithm to serve you the craziest newest shit you've never heard. confuse the hell out of these platforms until they finally deliver something you like.
maybe that's not the most satisfying conclusion. if anyone is looking for new music to listen to, it takes a decent amount of time and effort.
finally, this is, of course, all my opinion and please take it with a grain of salt. i'm probably wrong in a few spots, i worked a 9 hour overnight shift and decided to go on a huge rampage regarding this subject, which i'm super passionate about!! i am no gatekeeper nor arbiter of enjoying or finding music. there is no objectively correct way to enjoy music or to find it. in fact, if anyone has their own favorite ways to discover new music, i'm all ears!!!
I decided to listen to "the hits/popular songs" radio station for a bit and while I do love The Weeknd's Blinding Lights I was a bit disappointed at some of the new songs I had only heard through it.
Like this is what music is these days? Catch me listening to all the previous albums I have purchased on iTunes.
Why I ship Murphy/Heather
A short, crappy essay by Pikana Chuster AKA Scarlet Fitch mod.
Done by request
As a rabid fangirl, I’m inclined to ship. Some of you may know that I have a habit of shipping everyone with everyone else with no exceptions: most prevalent in the Super Smash Brothers, Pokemon and -more recently- the Silent Hill archives. However, despite my support of all pairings whether crack, canon, het, yaoi or yuri, I do show favoritism to certain shippings. One particular pairing I’ve invented is Murphy Pendleton / Cheryl “Heather” Mason from Silent Hill Downpour and Silent Hill 3 respectively. (For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to Cheryl as Heather for the rest of the article so we don’t get confused with Shattered memories Cheryl or Silent hill 1 Cheryl.) The pairings has received generally positive feedback on both tumblr and deviantart due to its creativity but is still more obscure then some of the more popular non-canon ships such as Murphy/Henry or Heather/Alex. Through hotness factor, adaptability and personality traits, I’m here to reason why I ship this as my Silent Hill crossover OTP (one true pairing) and hopefully bring a bit more popularity to it. Visually, a couple must be attractive for people to draw or video a pairing. It must be able to capture people and make them react either ‘OMGWTFBBQ?!’ or ‘Hey, this is cute/sexy/nice! The Murphy/Heather pairing can make you do both. This pairing can look insane simply because of the age difference. Regardless of if you’re tolerant of age-difference pairings (as well as taboo/pedophillia) or not, you can’t deny that there’s a big gap between the two. While Murphy hasn’t been officially aged, he has been placed to be between late twenties to late thirties. I’ve always assumed he was approximately ten years older then Henry Townshend, making him roughly thirty-eight. Heather is seventeen (physically) which could offset some people initially. Alternatively Heather can also be regarded as twenty-four (adding Cheryl’s seven years), thirty-one (adding Alessa’s fourteen years to Heather) or thirty-eight (adding both Alessa and Cheryl). Although visually this doesn’t change anything, it may be easier on the brain to think that Heather is potentially the same age as Murphy. You know... lessens the squick. Proportionately, if we use the heights given to us in a certain Silent Hill Downpour ending, Heather would be roughly a forehead shorter then Murphy. Some people like me enjoy couples without a massive height difference because it implies there is a power balance in the relationship (although that isn’t always the case.) Along with Alex, these two characters have my favourite designs. Heather is beautiful as she doesn’t scream sexuality like most female protagonists but is a clash of both masculine and feminine traits. In fact, she’s one of the most realistic video game designs I’ve seen, being a teenage girl with reasonable proportions and facial “imperfections” such as freckles. Murphy, too, isn’t a flawless model. Unlike previous characters in the series, he has a scar on his face and darker shadows and lines making him look older and more gritty- suitable for a person in his position. Since Heather is both visually and mentally mature, albeit a little hot-headed, she doesn’t look completely out of place when she stands near Murphy. Overall, I find that Murphy’s rugged/prisoner look goes well with Heather’s physical design. I just really like looking at this pairing- hence my fanart/photo manipulations. As fun as they are, in this essay, I will not go into AUs (Alternate universes) simply so I don’t waste too much time. That means I will show how well this couple can work in-canon Pre and post-game. In-universe crossovers can be tricker then complete crack or crossover pairings because you have to take into account timelines. Thankfully, Murphy hasn’t been given a distinct timeline which makes him very easy to slot in with Heather’s set universe. Adaptability of a duo means there’s more room for creativity and visualizing. A good part of any shipping is the diversity and trying new things with them: placing them in situations ranging from horrible to sweet to insanely awkward. For example, Heather was a criminal delinquent Pre-Silent Hill 3. Sometimes, in jubi, you are taken to real prisons in an attempt to scare you out of crime. Since in-game, we are never told why Heather turned away from crime, maybe she could have met Murphy in prison. For a post-game example, I can see Murphy moving to the same town as Heather (there are only three cities near Silent Hill: Brahms, Portland and Ashfield) and them getting to know each other someway or another. Like most Silent Hill protagonists, large portions of their backstories and post-stories haven’t been touched on. The flexibility of this couple makes it easily available to use and makes it fun to play with. Interesting enough, there is a possibility that Heather and Murphy have met in-game. For those who have gotten the ‘Surprise Ending’, you will have noticed that Heather is in the back cheering with the others. Although this meant to be a shout out to the upcoming HD collection, one could take it that Murphy has met Heather (and James, Mary, Laura and Pyramid Head) before due to him only being surprised at the fact that there was a party. However, as a joke ending, I don’t expect anyone to take this seriously. It’d be a good prompt though. Now, the most important bit, character personalities. There is no such thing as a compatible relationship as individuals react to others in different ways. For any relationship to work, people have to have some ground to bond over. A.K.A some similar traits. Both characters have very sad backstories (which always a plus for any shipper since angst is a very good way for characters to bond.) where each of them had ‘normal lives’ pre-Silent Hill before it was taken away from them. Heather is described as a “normal, carefree girl who loves to shop” and Murphy was a “happy family man” before the death of a loved one causing ruin of their respective families. In either my romantic or platonic head-canons, I always see the two flittering in between a father-daughter bond or a hurt/comfort romantic bond. Neither of them are ‘picture perfect’ characters too. Heather is an ex-smoker and delinquent while Murphy... he was in jail. That’s a record for any Silent Hill protagonist. However, what really made me first think of this couple was, of course, Silent Hill. Both of these two characters’ reasons for being in Silent Hill revolved around revenge. Both Murphy and Heather are good-natured in general but circumstances force them to become similar, hardened servants of vengeance. The difference is Heather was still seeking it out during her adventure and Murphy was paying the price for it during his. I have more head-canons that will come soon that plays on it. While both have the potential to make it on their own (I can still hear some of you tell me that Heather doesn’t need a man. I know, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want one), both of them hate to be in solitude as shown by Murphy’s resentment in jail and, while wishing to be on her own during the game, Heather’s dependency on her father. Of course, all couples need some dynamics. With Heather, we can either play with her sarcastic and humorous side, her feminine side or her nonchalant, low-tolerant BAMF status the fandom and I love to give her. On Murphy we could either show his hardened-criminal shell or good-natured and soft-spoken side as seen in game. Mix and match them how you like folks. You could portray the two in a father-daughter, sweet, tsundere or antagonistic relationship and still keep them in character. They fit that well together.
Individually and together, I think that these characters are great potentially, visually and mentally. I always wanted to spread my love of these two so... well... here's my chance. If I think of more things, I will add them. If you have questions or accusations, bring them up so I can address anything I’ve missed. Hopefully you all haven’t fallen asleep due to my over-analysis and can try ship this couple with me (or at least understand why I ship what I ship).
Thank you for reading and I bid you adieu!
