Where are we?

我們在哪？

Oh, we're on the terrace right now at Spotify, jamming out to some music.

喔，我們目前在 Spotify 頂樓聽音樂。

Correct.

沒錯。

This is me in my natural habitat, vibing to music.

這是我常做的事，享受音樂。

It's not uncommon to see other people in this office doing this same exact thing.

在這間辦公室裡，這個景象很平常。

The days of buying CDs and creating mixes to your car have been replaced.

那些買唱片、自己混車上音樂的日子已經被取代。

With music subscriptions.

被訂閱線上音樂取代。

I listen to Spotify.

我聽 Spotify。

Spotify.

Spotify。

I like the Spotify playlist.

我喜歡 Spotify的歌單。

To me the most intriguing addition to the world of digital music is the curated playlist.

對我來說，數位音樂最有魅力的地方就是它的精選歌單。

Ones that professional make to appease various audiences.

是專業人士為不同聽眾所選的。

All major stream services have playlist editors of some sort.

所有大型的音樂串流服務都會有歌單編輯人員。

My colleague Reggie Ugwu wrote a sick piece about them last year.

去年我的同事 Reggie Ugwu 針對他們寫了一篇非常棒的報導。

A series of songs can speak to a person's mood, culture, community, and if done right, they can attract a lot of followers.

一系列的歌曲可以跟一個人的心情、文化、族群產生共鳴，做得好還可以獲得相當多的粉絲關注。

So I decided to head to the Spotify headquarters, in New York.

我決定前往在Spotify 紐約的總部。

Talk to an editor, someone who professionally makes playlist for a massive audience.

跟一位專門為廣大聽眾製作歌單的編輯聊聊。

Alright, now we'll check it out.

好，我們一起來探個究竟吧。

Alright, so we're inside the Spotify headquarters.

好的，現在我們在 Spotify 總部裡。

Nice to meet you.

很高興見到你。

My name is Athena, I'm an editor here at Spotify.

我的名字是 Athena，我是 Spotify 的編輯。

Let me show you around.

我來帶你們參觀一下。

- This is kitchen two. - How many kitchens do you have?

- 這是 2 號廚房 - 你們有幾個廚房？

A lot of my day revolves around listening to music.

我大約一整天都圍著聽音樂轉。

My particular focus is around emerging music, new artist, trying to help them grow and find spots for them, to expand the audience.

我特別關注新興音樂、新人歌手，試圖幫助他們成長並找出適合他們的定位，擴展聽眾群。

My hope is that they don't really recognize more than two or three names at most, so the artist change every week, and a lot of them are unsigned.

我希望聽眾一次最好不要認得超過兩三個的創作者，每個禮拜都會更換不同音樂創作者，他們很多都是沒簽約的。

And I'll listen to a thousand songs every week, so we can make this playlist and has over five hundred thousands followers in it, all emerging artists.

我每個禮拜都會聽一千多首歌，這樣我們才能建立這個擁有超過五十萬粉絲關注的歌單，而且全由新興歌手所組成。

The people that you find, like is there a way that they actually make money from being put on Spotify?

你找到的這些人真的有辦法因為音樂在 Spotify 上架而賺到錢嗎？

Many artists tell me that they quit their day job, they've got signed because A&R heard them on Spotify.

很多歌手告訴我他們辭去了工作，因為唱片公司在 Spotify 上聽到他們的音樂然後跟他們簽約。

I'd wanna help artists make a living out of their music and find new fans, and that's like the most fulfilling thing.

我希望能幫助歌手靠他們自己的音樂生活，並獲得新粉絲，這讓我很滿足。

So how do you get this job?

你是怎麼找到這份工作的？

I've been a musician like my whole life.

我一直以來基本上都是一位音樂家。

I was classically trained violinist.

我是受過訓練的古典小提琴家。

In college, I moved into this kind of known for being a queer friendly house.

大學時期，我搬進那種同志友好的住處。

That's kind of where I got my first experience really sharing music with others.

大概是那個時候才真的第一次體驗到跟別人分享音樂。

And after I graduated there, I realized that I want to do that like on a bigger scale.

畢業後，我發現自己想要把這件事的規模做得大一點。

Athena's job is like a dream, she just find the spot in the office, sits there and listens to music.

Athena 的工作很夢幻，她就在公司裡找個地點，然後坐在那裡聽音樂。

So that's exactly what we did.

我們完全照她這麼做。

We listened to new music, we talked about old music.

我們聽新的音樂，聊了舊的音樂。

Hearing the music for the first time in like a long time, is like such a cool feeling.

隔了很久再重新聽到新音樂的感覺很酷。

"Damn, what's that song?" and then you're hearing it, you'll like, "Got it!"

「可惡，那首是什麼歌？」然後你聽到之後就 「就是它！」

Never letting the shit go again!

不會再把它忘記！

We talked about Timberland, naturally.

當然，我們談到了 Timberland。

Shout out Timberland.

向 Timberland 致敬。

How do you personally find music?

你自己是怎麼找到音樂的？

Every way possible.

任何機會。

Going to shows, like people email me all the time, artist, management.

去看表演，像很多創作者和經紀公司常常都會傳郵件給我。

Do people still send CDs?

還有人寄唱片嗎？

They love sending me vinyls so, I mean, I love vinyl.

他們很愛寄黑膠唱片給我，我也很愛黑膠唱片。

You know that cool thing that shows related artists from the artist you are currently listening to, well, that has a lot to do with human and technology working together.

你知道那個很酷的功能，可以依據你現在聽的歌手而顯示出相關的歌手，那個全是人類與科技的合作結果。

We have technology that helps us crawl the web and read how people are talking about certain artisan groups and that helps us figure out like what's related.

我們的科技能夠幫我們在網路上尋找資訊，並解讀人們討論的特定創作者族群， 幫助我們找出相關音樂。

I'm gonna listen to my music everybody alright.

各位，我要來聽我的音樂了。

When you're creating a playlist, does it matter what order it goes in?

你在建立歌單的時候，順序重要嗎？

Completely.

非常重要。

Really?

真的？

Yeah, we're obsessive about that.

對，我們對於這點很執著。

People are gonna listen to on shuffle, but like transitions as an editor are very important, everything has to flow and be a mood together.

人們會隨機播放音樂，但編輯的工作在銜接音樂上就很重要，每首歌都要連接的順暢，還要同一種感覺。

So Athena actually spearheaded this year's LGBTQ playlist for Pride, I mean music always play a big part in culture identity, but it's really cool to see it integrated into playlist.

Athena 今年帶頭建立 LGBTQ 的Pride 歌單，雖然音樂對於文化認同總是扮演要角，不過看著它結合成歌單還是覺得很酷

What I really wanna to do was empower the LGBTQ community, to tell their story in their own voices,

我真正想做的是賦予 LGBTQ 族群能夠用他們自己的聲音訴說他們的故事的能力，所以今年我們除了Spotify 建立的 Pride 歌單以外，

and so this year what we did was, in addition to this Spotify curated Pride playlist, we went out to a number of artists, activists and influencers and other kinds of people, and we asked them to curate us a playlist.

我們還找了一些歌手、社會運動者、有影響力的人還有其他類型的人請他們幫我們建立一個歌單。

That was really important to me to allow as many different voices as possible.

盡可能讓多元的聲音被聽見這點對我來說非常重要。

So making playlists is fun.

建立歌單很有趣。

I think we knew that.

我想這我們都知道。

But on a mass scale I think it needs to speak to the audiences' current state of mind and sometimes how do I identify.

但總地來看，我想它需要能跟聽眾心靈交流，有時候也牽涉到自我意識。

There's a whole lot of different playlists representing different people.

已經有非常多代表不同族群的歌單。

We're always trying to make more playlists that speaks to different audiences.

我們一直試圖讓更多的歌單能為不同的聽眾發聲。

I know because of my own unique experience that it's really important that we make sure that all voices are heard.

因為自己特殊的經驗，我發現讓各種聲音都能被聽到是非常重要的。