Updated: December 14
Earlier this week, the most beloved music genre discovery platform, Every Noise at Once, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that "the future of everynoise.com, in its current form, is probably short."
In one of our latest articles on how Spotify makes up all those bizarre music genres (fun read, check it out!), we reported that Every Noise at Once was created back in 2018 by Glenn McDonald, a Spotify "genre alchemist," and serves as a "scatter-plot of the musical genre space," analysing the sounds, aesthetics, production era, and regional influences of songs to identify similarities. For lots of people, this site is the main platform for music discovery, so no wonder the news was met with disappointment. Glenn started to work on the tool in 2014, as he shared with Spotify for Artists in 2018, and initially, it was a debugging tool.
Every Noise at Once is like a treasure map for music lovers—its genre map lets users dive deep into the world of sounds and thousands of genres (literally!), discovering new genres and hidden gems along the way. But now, with Glenn no longer at Spotify, the data flow has dried up, putting the site's future in jeopardy.
"everynoise.com is and was a projection of things I worked on at the Echo Nest, and then Spotify. As of this morning, I'm not working there, and I expect most of the things I did will no longer be done. The domain is mine, but the processes that updated the site have already stopped running, and the current server may stop serving at any moment. Once that happens, I will try to bring back at least a wistful memorial to what it was. But even failing that, its 10-year history lives on in the Wayback Machine. And music, of course, survives our fragile and temporary machines for organizing it," shares Glenn on Furia.com.
Fans, who relied on the site for weekly genre updates and killer playlists, took to social media to express their frustration. Many see this as a casualty of recent Spotify layoffs, and the possibility of losing such a unique music hub has left a sour note in the community.
Glenn revealed on X and Furia that while he's no longer with Spotify, some things he left behind are still running. Playlist updates are happening through internal connections, but the lack of fresh data is a serious hiccup.
"The job I used to do at Spotify was to experiment with what could be made out of listening data, but the experiments that worked were then automated to run on appropriate schedules. There was no technical reason that they shouldn't keep running without me, but external evidence showed that they did a few hours after I was laid off. People who weren't and still care now seem to have at least found the Off switch and flipped it back On, as some data-driven daily playlists are updating again. Currently no data updates are making it to everynoise.com, though, and all the big weekly jobs run on Fridays, so it remains to be seen what my ghosts there are still allowed to sing."
As fans anxiously await updates from Glenn, the uncertainty around Every Noise at Once has them wondering if it'll become a nostalgic memory or find a second wind. The impact of its potential demise is already resonating with its dedicated users:
"I'm not an unmitigated fan of many things in this world. But @EveryNoise was, without qualification, my favorite website ever. I don't know this week's Spotify layoff will be remembered as one of the worst business decisions ever, but I will remember it that way," says one of the fans on X.
Update (December 14): Glenn shares on his X:
The original everynoise.com server at Spotify is not currently responding, so my assumption is that Spotify has turned it off. I have redirected the domain to an archived copy, but the DNS update will take a while to propagate. Nobody panic. At least not yet. DNS updates can take 24-48 hours, but if you can't wait that long, the temporary bypass url is https://furia.com/everynoise_public/
While Every Noise at Once may be facing a rough patch, its 10-year legacy will live on, whether it gets a new lease on life or becomes a relic in the Wayback Machine. In the fast-paced world of online music discovery, the potential loss of this unique platform serves as a reminder of how fleeting our digital favourites can be.
