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Jenna Busch

Professor Gardiakos

ENC 1102

22 September 2020

Genre Analysis and Intertextuality

Music is heard and interpreted by people all around the world and has been this way for

centuries. Music to some people can be a way to relax and to others a way to party. However,

how the music is interpreted is up to the audience and what they pick to listen to is also a

choice made by the audience or listener. There are numerous genres of music and more genres

of those genres but I am going to be focusing on specific knowledge of music, ethnomusicology,

and media studies. When most people listen to music, they have a specific taste and they build

playlists or likes off of that. What most people don’t think about when they click play on a song

is the ethics, economy, fakeness, and scandals that might be behind that song or the site you

are streaming it from. “The Long History of the 2017 Spotify "Fake Music" Scandal” is an

academic article published in the academic journal of Music. The section that I have read and

analyzed is Volume 38, Number 2, Summer 2020. This academic article includes various facts

about a certain music scandal that Spotify performed and the course it took overtime. This

article shows what the music genre or discourse and ethnomusicology and media studies want

to display and teach their audiences.

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First, the look of an academic paper in the music discourse of genre looks very similar to

an English academic paper for that its mostly referring to sources, analysis of them, and an

explanation of the terms being used. One thing that is notably different from an academic

paper about music or ethnomusicology is how they show their evidence or examples. While

there isn’t too much data besides streams, likes, dates, etc. in the music they can still show this

different than any other

subject. This image to

the left is from the

academic article and it is

showing how “fake

music” and “fake artists”

made by Spotify and

published on certain

playlists can get millions

of listens even though

this is not ethical to the real artist or other artists on the platform. With that being said this is

an example of how a music genre would provide evidence, through images showing a person’s

stats and compare them to others and even to their own to get their point across. While the

look of the genre of music and academic articles written about certain events look very similar

to any English essay many other elements make the genre stand out.

The information included in this genre is very specific. The very first line of “The Spotify

“Fake Music” scandal” reads, “In July 2017 The Verge reported that popular streaming music
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service Spotify was employing a handful of musicians to produce over fifty tracks to fill out the

company’s “Peaceful Piano,” “Calm Vibes,” and “Music for Concentration” in-house playlists.”

This very first line sets the stage that we are going to be talking about music in some way. While

psychology or medical discourse would include studies and facts about what is going on in their

world, music is the same way. In this academic article, we are provided with information

regarding how Spotify is cheating the system and hurting real artists. While that is the main

topic of the article, anyone who reads it is also provided with information about how artists

make money from streams, how streams help artists get big, how different countries interpret

and praise/award music and so much more. One interesting piece of information provided in

this academic article is, “anti-Spotify activists such as Radiohead front man Thom Yorke and jazz

orchestra leader Maria Schneider still refuse to distribute their music on the service, stating

that the company forces musicians to accept far less money for their work.” This shows that

there are artists and activists against Spotify that are currently taking a stand to change things.

This is a piece of information I learned for the first time while reading this academic article and

while it is disappointing to hear, given that musical artists already make lower than what they

are worth, it is a good piece of information to know if you are interested in music and the ethics

of music. The information inside the music genre is based on all-around music and specifically

with the ethnomusicology and media studies about the problems.

If you were to read an academic article about current music knowing nothing about

music or how it tracked the language would most likely confuse you. In this article, the language

used to describe the music is very specific to their topic at hand. For example, they use

language like streams when if you were not writing an academic article about music you might
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just use the words plays instead, but this would not grasp the full concept and language of the

genre. The genre and article also use language like playlists, mood-music, musical labor, library

music company, listening royalties, and so much more throughout the article. The author uses

this language because of the genre and topic of discussion at hand. The author assumes

(intertextuality) that the audience reading this will have learned these terms before and

understand what he is discussing.

Lastly, the genre of music does various things to get things done throughout its discourse.

One of the main sections of academic articles of music is the history and music and how it has

developed through time. In this section the authors of the articles work together to teach and

analyze music over time and how it has changed or built off of one another. Specifically, in the

ethnomusicology and media studies section of the music discourse they study and explain to

their audience how the media of music works and how different cultures create and interpret

music. In this, they can explain the ethics behind certain media strategies such as “fake artists”

and how they can be terrible for artists and in doing so spreading the word in hopes to change

the music back to normal. The genre of music is very large as it can stretch from teaching

classical music and how to interpret it to how streaming sites are robbing musical artists and

hurting their reputation. Overall, in this discourse of music authors of academic articles are

working together to teach people about music, to show what it means to some cultures, the

history of it, how it is changing, and maybe even how certain parts of it are coming to an end.

Intertextuality is an important factor in any academic article. Inside this academic

article, intertextuality is a major factor in proving and supplying facts and information to their

audience. This academic article uses a total of fifty-seven cited sources all completing various
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tasks of explaining the problem at hand. The very first source cited is an article by Tim Ingham,

titled, “Spotify Is Making Its Own Records . . . and Putting Them on Playlists,”. This was the first

published article about the Spotify scandal, the first person to come out and speak the truth

about what had been going on. The article itself is mostly bullet points going through facts and

observations of the fake names and songs out there, basically just scrapes the surface of the

content. “The subsequent tracks appear on Spotify under fake artist names. These fake artists

are credited on Spotify with owning their own master rights. But they don’t. Because they’re

made-up people.” This quote is the first piece of information out there claiming and attempting

to prove or start to prove what this academic article is about. I believe the author chose this as

the first source to credit the very first author that said something about the scandal and also to

show how far it has come, given that the academic article is about the long history. This article

is rather just bullet points from a few years back and now people can write full academic

journals on the subject and prove that this is true. This source is used to support the author's

claim and prove his claims throughout the introduction of his paper.

The next source I will discuss that the author includes is “Spotify Is Accused of Creating

Fake Artists — But What Is A Fake Artist?” by Andrew Flanagan. While the last source was

mostly to support a claim and show where this journey all started this source is a little different.

This source is to help the reader understand the concepts at hand a little better. The term

“fake” artist never had too much of a strong definition and confused most people because how

was the music made if the person is fake. Well, this source helps to explain that concept and

prove that really, “Several of these supposedly fake artists have been traced back to two very

real Swedish producers — Andreas Romdhane and Josef Svedlund.” While there were more
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producers than these two to go on this source helps to exemplify and provide insight into the

people who were actually behind the “fake” artists. I believe it was constructive and smart to

include this source in the academic journal because it helped clarify some terms and provided

further insight into the people being used by Spotify. While it does help to clarify these

concepts it also is one of the earlier writings published about Spotify’s scandal which helps tie it

to the source discussed before and show how they have worked together given in Flanagan’s

references Ingham’s showing how intertextuality connects from source to source.

Lastly, another source included in this academic article by Goldschmitt is “Why Spotify’s

Fake Artists Problem is an Epidemic. Literally.” This source is again by the author Tim Ingham.

Using multiple sources by the same person (he uses about 5 of his articles throughout the

article) shows that Goldschmitt has done a lot of readings by this author and has learned a lot

from him on the topic as he (Ingham) has also published numerous articles on the topic of the

Spotify Scandal over the past few years. This can show that his intertextuality and sources used

throughout the academic article are attributed to a lot of Ingham’s and shows how prominent

his articles will play a role and intertextuality as a whole. Another reason that it was good to

include this specific source is it further explains and provides facts of where these “fake” people

are coming from but unlike the last source, this one pinpoints it to a company, Epidemic Sound.

“We know for a fact that Epidemic-owned songs, under fake artist names, are being added to

Spotify playlists with uncommon regularity. As a result, they are collectively racking up

hundreds of millions of streams.” This piece of evidence and many other facts of how fake

artists they are paid, how Spotify can buy the songs for much cheaper than an actual artist, and
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the ethics behind it all is provided in this source making it very important to the author and very

supportive to his beliefs as well.

All three of these sources help to support the author of the academic article and help

keep the conversation moving with new facts around the corner. They each provide facts that

the Goldschmitt wishes to use and implement into his discussion and conversation of the

Spotify scandal. With a topic so broad and deep as this one, given the scandal was very deep

and lasted over years, intertextuality and learning from other sources to create ideas is key.

These key bits of information that are inside the sources and used throughout the academic

article help the audience learn and understand more about the topic at hand. To provide facts

and analyze the long history of the Spotify scandal as a whole you must use outside knowledge

and facts to help learn along the way and Goldschmitt did this through his fifty-seven sources.

This topic of Spotify’s scandal written in the academic article is important in the discourse

community of music and contributes greatly to the conversations now. Music has evolved from

records, to CD’s, to now streaming apps and places to buy mp3 files. This shows that this

specific topic of a streaming site and the scandals going on inside of it are a concern with the

world now and contribute to the conversation of music now and how it’s been developing in its

discourse. Overall, the genre of music is very complex and can have very different perspectives

and topics but in the case of this academic article, it showed the ethical problems with Spotify’s

“fake” artists and how it has affected so much over its history.
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Works Cited

Flanagan, Andrew. “Spotify Is Accused Of Creating Fake Artists - But What Is A Fake Artist?”
NPR, NPR, 12 July 2017, www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/07/12/536670493/spotify-
is-accused-of-creating-fake-artists-but-what-is-a-fake-artist.

Goldschmitt. “The Long History of the 2017 Spotify ‘Fake Music’ Scandal.” American Music,
vol. 38, no. 2, 2020, p. 131., doi:10.5406/americanmusic.38.2.0131.

Ingham, Tim. “Spotify Is Making Its Own Records... and Putting Them on Playlists.” Music
Business Worldwide, 8 July 2017, www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-
its-own-recordings-and-putting-them-on-playlists/.

Ingham, Tim. “Why Spotify's Fake Artists Problem Is an Epidemic. Literally.” Music Business
Worldwide, 13 July 2017, www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/why-spotifys-fake-artists-
problem-is-an-epidemic-literally/.

Porter, J. E. (1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. Rhetoric Review, 5(1)