In a sweeping third round of layoffs at Spotify in December, 17% of its employees, including Glenn McDonald, the data alchemist responsible for the beloved website Every Noise at Once (EveryNoise), were let go. EveryNoise, an encyclopedic music discovery resource, ceased functioning as McDonald no longer had access to internal Spotify data to maintain it. Created while McDonald worked at The Echo Nest, a music intelligence firm that Spotify acquired in 2013, EveryNoise hosts a map of over 6,000 music genres, allowing users to explore diverse genres through sample clips.
McDonald’s layoff triggered an outpouring of complaints from fans, expressing their frustration on community forums, Reddit, and tweets. EveryNoise had become a pivotal resource for music enthusiasts, providing a unique platform for tracking new releases and discovering more about their favorite genres. Fans lamented the loss of a valuable resource and questioned Spotify’s decision to let McDonald go, expressing concerns about the impact on music self-discovery and the absence of a similar feature within Spotify’s offerings.
EveryNoise’s meticulous categorization of music genres, created by McDonald, became the foundation of Spotify’s genre system. The project’s extensive genre map powers features like “Fans also like” and contributes to Spotify’s personalized “Daily Mix.” Even features not directly tied to EveryNoise bear McDonald’s influence, as the project’s comprehensive categorization informs various aspects of Spotify’s offerings, such as the viral Daylist and statistics on Spotify Wrapped.
While Spotify’s API for developers exists, it lacks the depth of internal data McDonald accessed as a Spotify employee. The absence of such data hinders developers’ ability to create comprehensive lists of popular new releases or organize them by genre, a feature EveryNoise excelled at. Fans bemoaned the loss of EveryNoise’s New Releases feature, emphasizing Spotify’s limitations in supporting natural and user-guided music discovery.
Despite the public appearance of EveryNoise, it now offers only a static snapshot of its final state before McDonald’s layoff, with many of its best features no longer operational. McDonald, expressing continued interest in solving the problem, highlighted the potential revival of specific features if Spotify could make certain changes. Fans’ frustrations stem not just from the loss of EveryNoise but also from a broader concern about Spotify’s commitment to supporting music enthusiasts and its handling of valuable resources created by laid-off employees.
