The digital archiving of music at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation

History, ideals, taxonomy

Abstract

This article offers a history of the digital music archive at the Danish Broadcasting
Corporation (DR). By looking into archival documents, reviewing interviews and
analyzing interfaces, the article examines visions and strategies behind the digital
music archive and its in-house platform, /Diskoteket, and based on this the article
assesses whether or not DR’s archival strategies play an active role in creating an
institutionalized understanding of music history. The article considers how music
metadata are operationalized in the digital music archive’s database, and from this
it casts light on the ways that /Diskoteket balances several, and somewhat
opposing, music histories. The processes of music archiving at DR are viewed as a
continuous production of a causal history side by side with non-linear
chronologies that follow a relational perspective, and it is argued that the digital
music archive hints at a promise of thinking anew of recorded music’s pasts. In
conclusion, the article speculates on DR’s options for carving out a position of
relevance in the field of music communication in the future that relies on a
strengthening of the operationalized metadata, which ought to be made available
to the public.