The Renegade Listener - Connor S

Most of the music I listen too doesn't come from the Top 50 or a playlist someone else built. I find my music from friends and SoundCloud. I listen to mostly ambient, indie, and underground music, and I like that SoundCloud lets me curate that for myself. Any user has the ability to upload their own track, so a lot of what I hear comes from artists who would never get played on the radio. Susan Douglas ends her book worried that listening is dying, because corporate radio categorized individuals into labels where "variety is kept outside the door" (Douglas, 1999, p. 348). She argues that the companies and agents orchestrating this "have now helped us see ourselves as members of mutually exclusive auditory niches" (Douglas, 1999, p. 349). Yet, she still hopes that "renegades" will keep real listening alive (Douglas, 1999, p. 357). Using my own experience, SoundCloud is where those renegades exist. There is some format, but much of the framework allows users to freely explore without being limited or surveilled. I choose what I listen to, and that choice is personalized based upon my own listening. In contrast, Douglas describes the "pleasures, then, in belonging to the group while standing above it" (Douglas, 1999, p. 31).  This is exactly how SoundCloud feels. When I find an artist with only a few hundred plays, and not as many interactions, I feel like a part of a small community that discovered said artist/band/group early, while still being ahead of everyone else. That fostered sense of community through listening and engaging with those interested, allowed me to perform listening above all limitations. So is listening dead? Not on SoundCloud, because I pick my music and I orient my behaviour freely from the frameworks of the system and one's orchestrating this control. 

Reference: 

Douglas, S. J. (1999). Listening in: Radio and the American imagination. Times Books.