UnShazamable!

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From Rob Walker's newsletter

I was listening to latest episode of WFMU’s Downtown Soulville when DJ Mr. Fine Wine described the CD he is offering as a premium for supporters of his show in the station’s current fund drive. The show features (often rare) soul and R&B on 45s, and so does the CD  — songs like “Doo Plus Two” by Dicky Doo and the Don’ts. Out of 25 songs on the disc, Fine Wine noted, Shazam (the popular song-identification app) recognized only six or seven. The rest, he mused, were “unshazamable.”

I liked this term, so I looked into it. Turns out that it’s been in use since at least the late 2010s, referring to music that Shazam doesn’t recognize and thus has a sort of “off the grid” connotation — and appeal.

This is partly a tribute to how astonishingly good Shazam is. I use it all the time, and I’m always surprised on those occasions when it’s stumped.

But that aside, maybe it’s also a handy term for something bigger.

Everybody complains (understandably!) about the algorithms that shape our entertainment choices and direct our attention. But seeking the unshazmable isn’t just a way of escaping the algorithm. The unshazamable isn’t even in the database that the algorithm is designed to mine!

Tapping into something enjoyable that didn’t come from a database doesn’t have to take the form of consuming a particular cultural object like a rare song; it could be an experience, a moment of presence. Looking at the moon can be unshazamable.

So this week, be alert to, and try to appreciate, unshazamable things — in the broadest sense of the term!