Thomas Hodgson

Ethnomusicologist, UCLA

Music and Data

In 2026 Rujing Stacy Huang (University of Hong Kong) and I launched Music and Data, a peer-reviewed journal published annually and online by UC Press. It looks at how algorithms, streaming platforms, generative AI and big data shape music cultures, and sets out to treat “music and data” as a humanistic field. The first issue, co-edited with Bob L. T. Sturm, Elin Kanhov and André Holzapfel, is on AI Music Studies.

Unruly Intelligences in Music AI

A pilot project at UCLA, funded by DataX, which I lead with Julia Powles, Guang Cheng and Jeff Burke. The project looks at unruly data – that which falls outside of normative classification – to examine what algorithmic and generative AI systems privilege, and what is silenced. We held two workshops in spring 2026 and are working on a website.

Tigmus

Between 2014 and 2018 I co-founded and ran Tigmus (This Is Good Music) with Oli Steadman, Stornoway’s bassist. It used streaming and social media data to help artists work out where and when to play, and grew to represent more than 900 venues and 4,000 artists across the UK and Europe.

Nightshift

I am currently working to secure the deposit of Nightshift – Oxford’s free monthly music magazine, which Ronan Munro published from 1991 until its final issue in 2026 – in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.