iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

While those creeps are busy promoting AI music, I keep being delighted by the possibilities of machine learning. I'm learning "Bye Bye Blackbird" and the changes in all the fake books are so wrong; in trying to figure out what they actually are, it sure is nice to be able to isolate the bassline

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Sean Padilla (He/They) Will Write a Good Song About Anything @seanpadilla.blacksky.app · 13h

Ed Sheeran taking more Ls than a llama named Llewellyn at Lollapalooza

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 18h

Backing Andrew's Patreon is such a no-brainer, get on that music history nerds!

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 18h

The music that suits my personal emotional needs the best was made by Duke Ellington in 1938 without his knowing or caring anything about me or my needs whatsoever

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 18h

I'm trying to keep an open mind about AI music, I really am, but if this guy is an accurate representation of the AI music community, well x.com/nicksaraev/s...

x.com

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The thing about the florid apocalypticism you sometimes encounter on this site is that a lot of people are less horrified by literal civilizational collapse than by the notion that our descendents are just going to keep muddling through and in less than a century nobody will remember us.

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 21h

80s Miles can be a tough sell but Paul Thompson makes the strongest possible case www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtCw...

youtube.com

How “Da Butt” Helped Create a Miles Davis CLASSIC

YouTube video by pdbass

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Dr. Emily Hamilton-Honey @hermioneclone.bsky.social · 21h

Bwahahaha. Which shows that Nick Saban has no idea how much professors make. Some (quite a lot! Likely the majority!) are making *less* per year than a student's athletic scholarship. Which tells you exactly how much academia values professors.

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Danny Fearns @dannyfearns.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I don't follow Formula One, but good on them for using subtitles for the hard of hearing…

F1 track with numerous Zoom signs on the advertising billboards

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Eric Harvey @ericdharvey.com · 30/09/2026

he looks like the part in a Cronenberg movie right before a guy‘s face morphs into something crazy

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Next unit in pop history is Tin Pan Alley and Broadway. Sure, you've heard a million jazz versions of "Blue Skies" but how about Western swing? www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtQa...

youtube.com

Blue Skies (1939)

YouTube video by Tim Okasa

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

One of my big themes in music history class is that genres are musicologically meaningless, and what they really describe is audiences. Exhibit A: "Blue Yodel No. 9" by Jimmie Rodgers from 1930. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BFb...

youtube.com

Blue Yodel No. 9 by Jimmie Rodgers (1930)

YouTube video by Jimmie Rodgers

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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward

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autumn coded @hoovybaby.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Just talk to another human already jesus fucking christ

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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Dada perfection

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musisic timothy @wgwgsa.net · 29/09/2026

The degree to which people actually hate finding out that they were listening to ai-generated music has honestly surprised me. I was a cynic who thought most non-music enthusiasts would shrug and not care. But as it turns out -everyone- hates this stuff! gives me some faith

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A forklift could be a powerful assistant for lifting weights at the gym

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yesterday after class some of my students got into a conversation with me about AI. They were reacting to my belief that genAI music is a fad that will blow over, that it's more like VR than like DAWs, a solution in search of a problem. They want to believe me but are doubtful.

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Watched Backrooms. Pretty good! Plot made zero sense but impeccably weird and creepy vibes.

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Sam Antics @dsoart.com · 29/09/2026

kids would rather be choosin' sexes than listening to choosin' texas

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Here's a weird jazz history fact: Louis Armstrong outlived John Coltrane

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Andrew Hickey @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 28/09/2026

I listened to the first verse and chorus of "Choosin' Texas" and now I think maybe all the people saying they've not heard it just actually have no memory of doing so because it has absolutely no memorable qualities whatsoever.

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

One problem my pop history students are having is the lack of a neat linear timeline. One of them asked me, is there some big master chart showing when everything happened? The answer is, no. You can point to specific dates like the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan show, but that's it.

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La Bodega Baddie 🇵🇷 @zeenthecity.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Growing old is a blessing denied to many.

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Better Call Saul music supervisor sure does love Nancy Sinatra

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Excited to learn that @debcha.bsky.social is writing another book because her last one, How Infrastructure Works, is a banger

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Nick Brumfield @nickjbrumfield.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A systematic, critical understanding of history, especially the long history of technically skilled people either being used by elites or being blinded by their own high modernist ideology to do incredible harm, should in my opinion be a requirement of any technocratic profession

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Birds Are Dinosaurs @birdsaredinosaurs.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Me: Yeah, I'm into country music The country music:

Movie poster for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County, a movie about Klingons and William Shakespeare. The poster looks like a giant spectral Klingon is about to eat the starship Enterprise.

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It takes two minutes to search up "Choosin' Texas", listen to some of it and determines that it sucks

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Novelty Cistern @noveltycistern.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

obviously statler and waldorf explored each other's bodies. but did they roast one another the entire time

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Negative harmony is one of my favorite musical solutions in search of a problem. Some guy's Substack today is titled "Making Negative Harmony Useful" and I'm like, if that's the starting point, it's not useful.

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I updated my "Blackbird" remix to include Paul McCartney's recording of "Bye Bye Blackbird" and a breakbeat from "The Bird Wave" by Jimmy McGriff ethanhein.bandcamp.com/track/blackb...

ethanhein.bandcamp.com

Blackbirds, by Ethan Hein

from the album Beatles remixes

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

WhoSampled rabbit hole led me to this beat tape and it's a good one ourssamplus.bandcamp.com/track/blue-b...

ourssamplus.bandcamp.com

Blue Bird, by Ours Samplus

from the album Orphan Loops

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Paul McCartney missed his calling as a crooner www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4JV...

youtube.com

Bye Bye Blackbird

YouTube video by Paul McCartney - Topic

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mccloskkc.bsky.social @mccloskkc.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Dr John’s idiolect is so fun. “Art Neville’s ‘Cha Dooky Doo’ was the first guitar solo with extortion”

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

500 Songs diss of the day: Dr John calling Iron Butterfly "Iron Butterfingers"

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

So I wrote that chapter for an edited volume about generative AI in music ed and why it's a bad idea, but now I have to cut 1500 words and make it more logically coherent, and I am no longer feeling the white-hot fury that motivated me to write the draft. Now it's more of a tired resignation.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

DoorDash spent $1.4M trying to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor. This week's historic $131.5M enforcement action against DoorDash for underpaying NYC delivery workers shows why. Yet another reminder that the only thing that can beat organized money is organized people.

theintercept.com

DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.

In a wage-theft settlement, DoorDash now has to pay its workers around 100 times what it spent trying to beat Zohran Mam

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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

A crowded broadsheet with way too many fonts. It says:
Forget ChatGPT Flyers
Say it with
Broadsheets
Unlimited fonts
Stretch them
Or cram a really long sentence into one line for no good reason
No whitespace
Mix capital and lowercase
Pointing hands
(They're called manicules!)
Don't be left behind
Broadsheets are the future

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

New on the pod, a look at Louis Armstrong's complex reception history ethanhein.substack.com/p/was-louis-...

ethanhein.substack.com

Was Louis Armstrong a revolutionary?

It’s complicated

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Mychal Threets @mychal3ts.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Happy Give Like Dolly Day! Dolly’s Day 🦋💜 Dolly Parton spent a lifetime inspiring kids to read, inspiring us. Now it’s our turn! Support your local imagination library program. Give like Dolly, help like Dolly. Let’s make her proud ✨

Smiling Dolly Parton in colorful butterfly dress

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barbylon @barbylon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Pour yourself a cup of ambition: it’s Dolly Parton Day (US date notation)!

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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

One of my pop history students was surprised to find out that Benny Goodman wasn't black; I bet Benny would have been delighted by that

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David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's too depressing and obnoxious to write about, but virtually all of the doomy/horny AI hyperventilating is transparently displaced anxiety about our fucked climate and political situation. Even rich idiots know it's bad and being permitted to get worse. They're trying to write their own ending.

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