Ways of Listening is a love letter to music, a sharp analysis of our current cultural reality, and a joyful celebration of the artists who keep creating against all odds.

How has the internet changed the way we listen to, and love, the music that shapes our lives? Award-winning musician Rollie Pemberton (Cadence Weapon) interrogates our current musical landscape.

Music occupies a curious place in modern life, somehow omnipresent and disposable at the same time. Computers have democratized song creation. There is more music being produced now than at any point in human history and streaming platforms are the ultimate distribution model for this vast bounty.

But streaming relies on an algorithmic discovery system that guides the user’s choices and encourages them to listen passively to the company’s curation, while also dissuading the listener from searching for music and developing their own taste. Streamers offer meagre royalties to artists on their platforms, largely devaluing music in the public sphere. And social media companies have taught a whole generation of young listeners to perceive music as merely background noise for content.

This all adds up to a bleak landscape for the true fan, but there’s another way. Pemberton delves deep into his own music discovery process to present a gentle reminder of another path for the contemporary music lover. He explores the obsession with the “mysterious artist” archetype, studies Charli xcx’s groundbreaking Brat album rollout, assesses the magic of demo recordings, breaks down the Kendrick Lamar - Drake beef, and examines AI’s struggle to understand Italo disco’s strange balance of classic and cringe.

Cadence Weapon is Edmonton-born, Hamilton-based writer, rapper, producer, DJ and cultural commentator Rollie Pemberton. He has released six albums, winning Canada’s 2021 Polaris Music Prize for Parallel World. The son of a pioneering hip-hop radio DJ, Pemberton grew up splitting his time between Edmonton’s experimental electronic and underground rap scenes, eventually developing a hybrid of both styles. He has toured extensively, playing festivals like Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Pitchfork Music Festival, Roskilde, and Primavera Sound, and sharing the stage with artists such as Public Enemy, Questlove, De La Soul, and many more. Pemberton served as Poet Laureate of Edmonton from 2009 to 2011. He has guest hosted CBC Q and conducted live interviews for Red Bull Music Academy. His writing has been published in Pitchfork, The Guardian, Wired, The Walrus and Hazlitt. His debut memoir, Bedroom Rapper, was a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year.

Brian Fauteux is Assistant Professor of Popular Music and Media Studies at the University of Alberta. He has recently published on radio, music, and sound in Popular Music and Society, IASPM@Journal, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. He is a co-founder of the Cultural Capital project.