For the fifth hack, we were supposed to look at one of our previous hacks and expand upon it, perhaps giving it a deeper meaning or providing an expansion into the details of the previous hack. For this hack, I decided to look back into my third hack for the course, my Software Invasion of Spotify, which I used in a completely different way than it was intended. For a refresher here is the artist statement for that hack, which I had renamed Mixify as a play on words from Spotify, but incorporating the baking element of creating recipes through playlists.
The Creative Process
My first iteration was an expansion of what I had already created in Spotify, playlists consisting of recipe ingredients & instructions because I thought it would be cool to make an extension of what I had already started in my previous hack. However, after looking at the instructions, I realized that I would have to put more thought into my work in order to “fundamentally reimagine it.” For the first portion of my work, I spent time trying to expand the recipe idea into a entire recipe book of sorts, even creating AI images of the different desserts in order to make a cohesive folder of these recipes which was made up of American Classics.
However, once I started actually making these different playlists, I felt as though what I was doing wasn’t fulfilling enough to be a deliverable for this project. Which brought me back to square one after a good chunk of time working on this first version of my project. When I was thinking of what I could do, I looked into previous ideas that other Spotify users had done and noticed a trend of making “POV” playlists where they would make up scenarios such as taking an exam and being unsure of the answers to certain questions, labeled “POV: you’re trying to complete a test.” With this, my mind started heading in a different direction of trying to do a point of view playlist, and my focus was more on “POV: Dr. Seuss reads you ‘Green Eggs & Ham'” but once I started creating this playlist, I deemed it useless because Spotify already has a feature where you can follow along with the lyrics of a song, or in this case, a story.
So, yet again, I was back at square one and getting a little desperate because I didn’t have much time to start over from scratch before we needed to present our hacks to the class. I went back through the Reddit subreddits that I had been looking at previously and that is when I started digging deeper into the playlists and seeing what I could make up that maybe Spotify doesn’t offer. This is where I found even more playlists labeled as “POV” that furthered my thought process into my creation, when I found playlists such as “POV: ordering McDonald’s in France.” Though the idea of this specific playlist was silly, it helped me think about how vast the song/audio collection on Spotify is, and how sticking to one language would be restricting me in ways that I was previously unaware of. I also had begun thinking about how the “Green Eggs & Ham” already had the lyrics available for listeners, but only in English. With these two thoughts intermingling in my brain, I then came up with my final idea, which was to use Spotify playlists in way of translating songs as this is something that Spotify hasn’t accomplished yet. Once I started delving into this realm more, I realized that this is an idea posed by many Spotify users as noted on the Spotify community page here.
Once I had locked in this idea of translating lyrics, I then had to look into what song/artist I wanted to use and whether it would be better to translate from a different language to English or vice versa. In terms of choosing what language to translate from, I had decided Spanish would be easiest since I know both English and Spanish already, and I decided to translate a Spanish song into English because I had already worked on searching for songs with specific wording in English with the previous hack, as well as, with the previous ideas in this hack. Once I had this idea locked in, I then had to decide what song or artist I was going to look into and use for this project, and I wanted to use a song with a deeper meaning that might not be as known amongst other communities besides the Latino one. This is when I landed on Bad Bunny because as some may be aware, Bad Bunny has used his music in order to advocate for different issues that the Latino community has faced such as displacement of natives in Puerto Rico, violence of LGBTQ+ members, and machismo. For example, in his music video for “Yo Perreo Sola,” Bad Bunny dressed in drag throughout as a statement about respecting women and bringing attention to trans women in the community who should be treated in the same manner because they are women as well. He has stated many times that he feels he needs to use his platform to make a difference in the communities that enjoy his music, whether they want to listen or not. Though his music is widely known because of how catchy it is, I felt that sometimes his message flies under the radar, especially when people are unaware of the weight his lyrics carry when all that they can understand is the beat. So, due to this, I decided Bad Bunny would be the perfect artist to highlight in this project. I also decided that his song, “Andrea” would be the perfect song to translate because it’s a personal favorite of mine, not only because I love how it flows, but also I love the message behind it. As a Latina woman, I found this song to be similar to my own and other’s sentiments, it has become increasingly obvious in my learning, reading of the news, and independent research that women in Latin America face much more hardship than men because of machismo. I felt this song is catchy, and I’ve heard it played around when I’m in public, but maybe people don’t know the lyrics or the message behind it, and I wish Spotify would implement translating songs to allow for more listeners to interact with music in the way that artists intend.
I definitely found translating lyrics to be a much more difficult task than creating a recipe book, perhaps because Bad Bunny uses more complex language than ingredients or instructions would, or perhaps because my translation differs from another person’s as was mentioned in class, but once I finished the first verse, I felt accomplished about my project and what I would be presenting to the class. For this hack, I think I would label it, “concierto mobile” since it showcases Spotify’s Karaoke/lyrics feature similar to a personal concert and naming it in Spanish to also showcase the translation feature to it.
Research
Believe it or not, Reddit was a big help in my creative thinking & process for this project because I was aware that other people had used Spotify in these similar ways that I had begun using playlists and folders in Spotify. When I found r/weirdspotifyplaylists, I began a deep dive into what was being created with all the different and unique songs that are readily available on Spotify. With every look into all of the playlists, I felt my idea growing under the surface, waiting to be found.
I even found a website that a user had created that could create this playlists with whatever you inputted for it, if Spotify contains a song with the words you searched, showcasing how this playlist creation format has become popularized throughout the world, allowing people to show creative freedom, send messages, and whatever else their heart may desire. I even used Weird Spotify in order to search for words that were giving me trouble when I was creating my own playlists.
Bad Bunny
Besides research into the different playlists that were being created by Reddit users, I also had to do research on Bad Bunny for this project in order to showcase just how important my decision of using his music was for me. Bad Bunny is a Reggaeton artist from Puerto Rico who has famously used his platform to advocate for different communities within the Latino community because he believes in justice for all, even staring into the face of violence or hatred in order to send his message. The biggest example I can think of his advocacy in his work is through his music video for “Yo Perreo Sola” because he dressed in drag in order to help advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and women all around with his visuals and his lyrics despite the ridicule he received for his work because of the machismo that exists in the communities that he is popular in.
Andrea
Though his biggest example of advocacy, in my opinion, is through this music video, this is not the only time when Bad Bunny ruffles some feathers with his work. Arguably, I believe he does this a lot with his work as he uses his lyrics to talk about current issues affecting his community. With that being said, I found that “Andrea” would be the perfect song to showcase for this project as it is another beautiful example of Bad Bunny using his platform to advocate for women, violence against women, and vulnerable communities. When Bad Bunny first released this song many of his fans speculated that he had created it in response to a murder case in Puerto Rico at the time, where a woman named Andrea Ruiz had been failed by the legal system as she tried to fight for her abusive ex-boyfriend to be arrested or file a restraining order against him but was not granted this, and just a month later she was found dead, with gruesome injuries on the side of the road. Though Bad Bunny has come out and said he did not write this song about her specifically, he and myself, find it powerful that many viewed the song in this way because it showcases just how well his words flowed to bring attention to gender-based violence in the Latino community, so much so that fans connected it to a specific cased. Although it sucks that this advocacy is needed since gender issues are widespread throughout Latin America, I’m glad that someone has taken it into their hands to help with bringing the attention to the media.
Sources
https://www.reddit.com/r/weirdspotifyplaylist
Reddit about Spotify Translated
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Translation-lyrics/idi-p/5799639
https://peopleenespanol.com/chica/bad-bunny-andrea-song-true-meaning
