🔵 Introducing soundtrackthepage.com
A little pet project I thought you might all enjoy...
Hello all -
Of late, I feel like about 50% of Network Notes communications start with some kind of apology for infrequent publishing, but I’ll add another one here for you to toss on the pile. A combination of exceptionally high volumes of work, coupled with a bit of time off, has generally made it difficult for me to find time to write. Equally, being candid, I struggle at times to find the right kind of things to write about, as I would rather not send you anything at all than post articles just for the sake of sticking to a certain frequency.
Last week saw me grabbing my first time off of the year, which saw me and my family retreating to a log cabin down in Somerset here in the UK to completely disconnect from work and other personal life matters to finally catch some kind of a break. Ironically, that then led me to this pet project I’ve created, which I wanted to share with you all.
The genesis of this idea came when re-reading Harry Sword’s wonderful Monolithic Undertow, which I rate up there in my top three books about music. It’s quite a substantial read, and every chapter is peppered with countless references to albums and tracks, all of which you find yourself trying to find as you read along.
This led me to an idea: could I create a guide of sorts that would live on a website in which every track or work referenced was linked to, such that I could simply have that open whilst reading the book, allowing me to click through and listen to the works as I was reading about them?
This, it turns out, is not a particularly easy undertaking. I took this as my first chance to really get stuck into Claude Code, but AI struggles massively with context around artist names and track or album titles when they’re buried in prose, and so I’ve had to do a fair bit of work to keep refining the process. Ultimately though, I managed to create a Monolithic Undertow guide and used the book’s own jacket design to inform the design of the web pages.
Of course, being the kind of person I am, I couldn’t help but to share this privately with some friends, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In short, I felt like I’d hit on something.
Enter, www.soundtrackthepage.com
The premise here is very simple: I will be adding guides to more and more music books that will allow you to jump off to the media in question as you read along. It is broken up into the same chapters as the books, making it very easy to follow along and check out the music as you go.
What I found was that it made more sense to link to YouTube searches for the works in question for three reasons:
Access to YouTube is open. You don’t need to possess a paid membership in order to stream for it.
A surprising number of works are not available on streaming services. YouTube however, by dint of allowing user uploads, fills every gap without failure. Ergo, it is the best place to send people to hear all of the work in any book. Equally, the intention here was to provide immediate access to music. I take it as a given that if somebody discovered something they found to be truly incredible, they would seek it out on whatever their consumption point of choice would be (i.e., streaming, vinyl, Bandcamp, or wherever else).
Finding unique IDs for releases - particularly when drawing from references in a book - is alarmingly hard if you are looking to create some kind of landing pivot page in the manner of Linkfire or Feature FM. I am sure it’s possible, but frankly the computing power, noting AI’s energy usage among other things, made that an unappealing prospect. The awkward truth is that linking to YouTube is just quicker, easier and infinitely more likely to yield the work in question.
Against every entry in the book, I’ve also included a short quote that gives an element of context as to where the work is mentioned in the chapter. If nothing else, this might also allow you to find references within the books as you require.
I want to be absolutely open about the fact that I am using AI to build and maintain this website. Part of the reason I think it is a good thing to mention is because I feel this is an example of where AI is delivering something I genuinely don’t feel would be achievable by other means.
I wouldn’t say I’m a relentless AI obsessive who burns through tokens whilst messing with random ideas. Quite the opposite, I’ve held a view that I will only engage with AI when I feel it can materially provide a solution that would otherwise not be within reach. Doubtless somebody might argue that I could pay a web developer to make these guides, but my honest response would be that the cost for a human to compile all of this information together would put any such endeavour beyond my fiscal reach.
Something I’m sticking to with AI in general is that one should not use it to create any kind of experience that then requires AI in order to run. In the case of Soundtrack The Page, AI is creating static HTML files, and therefore its output can stand alone, running on a web server without requiring any further AI in order to function.
Equally, though, I feel these guides exist as a generally benevolent thing in that they encourage people to celebrate the books and discover some fantastic writing about music, whilst also driving discovery of the music being written about. For me, that feels like a win-win. Frankly, this feels like the kind of thing publishers should be doing themselves.
That brings me to the next unknown territory of a sort: I have not sought out any of the publishers or the authors to seek consent for doing this. Part of the reason for that is that I do not feel I am undermining or otherwise diminishing sales and engagement with the works in question. Quite the opposite, I feel these guides should hopefully encourage more people to get both the books and the music detailed within. The site is a labour of love, and whilst I am contemplating adding affiliate links to buy the books themselves such that I can underwrite hosting costs etc., I’m not otherwise seeking to monetise it in any way.
It is plausible that a publisher may take issue with any of the guides, and I will keep you posted if I receive some kind of legal threat. Generally, though, I feel that the quotes being used are merely to provide context and are not, in and of themselves, allowing you to read this book without paying for it. Similarly, the works I link to are not owned by the author and therefore should be fine to include. On that level, I see this as being on a par with the videos someone like Rick Beato creates, in that he is not seeking to infringe copyright, and if anything is actively celebrating the works in question. Finally, even with the designs that I have utilised, I feel they are drawing inspiration rather than reproducing in full and hence do not breach copyright. (And frankly if that was flagged as an issue, it would be trivial to create new designs - personally I just like that the guides match the look and feel of the books.)
That’s the theory anyway - let’s see if publishers or authors see it the same way. I sincerely hope so, as this is purely a labour of love and not some attempt to steal sales of any sort.
For now, there are eight guides on the website covering a range of genres. Some of the books are perhaps a little less known, whereas others, such as Simon Reynolds’ Energy Flash, Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler, or David Toop’s Ocean of Sound, are generally considered to be classics in their area.
I’d love to know what you all think of the site. It might be a stretch, but I’m particularly keen to hear from authors and/or publishers as to their thoughts on this concept. Finally, if there are books you feel it would be great to have this kind of guide for, by all means drop me a line. I’m keen to get recommendations.
Have a great day,
D.
🎧 listening to “Musik Von Harmonia” by Harmonia. God I love this record. It’s like an old friend now. A supergroup of sorts comprising Neu’s Michael Rother and Cluster’s Dieter Mobius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, this sounds like drawn-out hallucinatory jams orbiting around some distant speck on the telescope. It’s the drums that make it for me; cranky old drum machines and locked grooves that utterly entrance you. Glorious, every bit of it.
📖 reading Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock”. I stumbled on this in a secondhand book shop in Bristol and the amazing cover grabbed my eye. The book itself is almost worthy of a Network Notes article of its own, however, as it focuses on this idea that the future is arriving too fast and that mankind is not prepared for it. That might see you nodding your head in agreement, but this book was published in 1970!!
📖 playing with my new Xteink X4 Pro e-reader. Annoyingly, I bought the highly affordable X4 only a couple of months ago. It’s one shortcoming? No backlist, meaning reading in dark rooms was tricky. The Pro model, announced a couple of weeks ago, delivers a backlight, but the trade-in is a stupid custom contact charging port setup in place of the previous model’s USB-C. Worth it though? Quite probably yes - that lack of a light is of little use when reading in bed!
Gleefully accepting music recommendations!
I do really enjoy getting suggestions for either existing music or forthcoming releases to check out. So, if there’s something you think I might like, do feel free to get in touch. Always keen to hear the weird and wonderful things going on out there. And, with 6000+ subscribers, I’m happy to spread word on things I’m loving too.
Nice work, Darren.
Superb idea. In an ideal world you’d be able to link it to the streaming service of your choice, but the concept is brilliant.