Earlier today, Spotify announced a fun new innovation in streaming technology: A song that you can only hear if it’s raining outside. Produced in conjunction with outerwear company The North Face, the song is called “No Nee Ta Slode Aln” and comes from Austin-based experimental psych rockers White Denim; the basic idea is that the streaming service will use geotargeting technology to push out the song only into markets where there’s measurable rainfall at any given moment. Here’s a snippet from the song that appeared in a recent North Face commercial:
If you were going to be a spoilsport about it, you could find it disconcerting that mass surveillance in the age of smartphones has become so normalized that a music company knowing not only where you live, but what the weather’s like outside at any given moment, is a cute marketing gimmick and not cause for alarm. You’d probably be better off just putting on a Negativland record and staring out the window for a while in that case, though.