The subtle art of the modern playlister.

“The making of a good compilation is a very subtle art… many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so you’ve gotta coooool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules…”

Nick Hornby, High Fidelity. If you haven’t read it or seen the movie… well, just do it.

Compilation tapes, mix cds, iTunes playlists.. an evolution fuelled by technology’s advances, while remaining rooted in the core human desire for personalisation. The concept of the ‘playlist’ has existed in different forms for decades, expanding its programming capabilities into different media platforms. Playlists are now in the hands of the masses, no longer tied to broadcast schedules and regimented timetables. Rizzo (“look at me I’m Sanda Dee, lousy with virginity…” ahem.) looks at the implications this shift in power has for television, through case studies of Personal Digital Recorders (PDRs), YouTube and the iPod. She explores this through the concept of ‘flow’. No longer restricted to the one-way transmission of content through broadcast media, Deleuze and Guattari perceive flow as the connections between ‘machines’ – bodies, institutions and discourses. Interruptions and breaks in connection are essential for the functionality of any ‘flow’, defined by its own unique combination of connections and processes.

PDRs produce a spatial, rather than temporal, mode of viewing, where channels become places to visit at a time suitable to the individual. They allow users to create personal playlists of the shows they are interested in, effectively giving consumers power which was previously owned by television broadcast schedulers. In this way, viewers are said to behave less like pure ‘viewers’, and more like computer users – actively engaging in the structuring of their entertainment desires. The centrality of broadcast television, tied to the concept of passive consumption, is thus being challenged: viewers can select and organise shows into their own personal channels, to be played at their own convenience – and we can fast-forward through the ads! The “‘bargain’ whereby viewers watch commercials as well as programming” (Matt Carlson, pg111) is suddenly irrelevant. I can record the footy on Friday night, and re-schedule the kickoff to 8:30 so that I can have dinner first. I can fast-forward through the half-time ad-fest and dressing room pep talks, and by the time I’m halfway through the second game… I’ve caught up with live broadcast. Sweetness.

YouTube also breaks with the temporal viewing structure of broadcast television: allowing users to establish their own ‘DIY channel’, fine-tuned to their specific tastes. This exemplifies the shift in audience attitudes, as we now demand media democratisation and ‘co-participation in scheduling, timing, controlling, viewing and engaging with media and entertainment” (pg114). YouTube encourages users to become producers and sharers, creating an online social interface for connecting with others with similar tastes and interests. Unlike passive engagement with broadcast television, YouTube users must actively search, select, download and program their choices in order to create their own ‘flow’.

The iPod, with its codependent iTunes in tow, could be the modern-day compilation tape. However, in saying this, I’d like to make something clear here… I don’t have an iPod. I’ve never had one. I have a slightly lame tendency to become stubbornly non-conformist when it comes to anything with such mass-hype. I am religiously anti-Apple – it’s always going to be the Beatles label in my mind – I am the conformist non-conformist, for sure. I’ve gone through about 5 different mp3 players (I’m also really good at breaking things. And apparently water – from a plastic bottle or the ocean – does not mix with electronics) and in formatting my current one, I use Windows Media Player. So take that iTunes devotees. I am a bit of playlist geek, there’s probably about 50 on my WMP… ranging from “hibernation for the winter” to “songs about alcoholism”, “if i had a cafe..” to merely ”f*** you”. Trust me, its a good way to procrastinate.
Rizzo explains that this interface between iTunes and the iPod (or respective alternatives!) allows the user to create and direct a number of personalised “flows”. What the iPod represents is more than a music playback device. It is mobility, freedom, the chance to dance like a lunatic silouhette against a fluorescent background. Podcasts and online TV can be downloaded and stored, ready to whipped out in any situation. Screaming child next to you on the bus? Extremely boring university lecture? iPod to the rescue: these things can be blocked out and replaced with your own hand-picked library of audio and visual delights. Television, in these situations, is useless. You can’t lug a plasma onto the L90.

Essentially, Rizzo explains that the expanded role of the playlist as a composer of diverse, personal ‘flows’ is challenging the hegemonic, one-way ’flow’ of broadcast television. New technologies and media platforms have responded to audiences’ desire for control and personalisation.
I never have to stay home on a Friday night again. 

Reference:
Rizzo, Teresa. “Programming Your Own Channel: An Archaeology of the Playlist”. In Kenyon, Andrew, Ed. TV Futures: Digitial Television Policy in Australia. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2007, p108-134.