"25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music Is Going" is an article edited by Nitsuh Abebe.  This article is a long and complicated collage of abstract essays written by 25 different authors.  This article is more like an art exhibit showcasing 25 pieces of work with multiple different outlooks, but Abebe is the curator taking the initiative to display these pieces of work in this journal exhibit of sorts.  These 25 essays concern the musical artists, their public images and their backgrounds, rather than the music itself like the title implies.  Not only is Abebe's title misleading, but his thesis lacks clarity to what his main point of the article is.  After reading this article in its entirety, it's still not clear to me as a reader where music is going.  Abebe's attempt at editing this multimodal article is overall unsuccessful because he lacks organization and structure in the piece.  As a curator of written and visual works, Abebe lacks a clear thesis and connectivity of his main point to his supporting evidence.  

There is hardly any cohesion or connectiveness throughout the article, from its weak thesis all the way to the voice and style of all the different authors.  The biggest problem regarding cohesion was the lack of a strong and clear thesis. Even after reading this multiple times, I'm not sure what Abebe's main point really is.  He implies that it's about identity, but whose identity?  Is it the music’s cultural identity, the artists identity and their background, or the identity of the audience? This is the only clue Abebe provides his readers in the introduction to what the main point really is:

“This is what we talk about now, the music-makers and the music-listeners both. Not the fine details of genre and style — everyone, allegedly, listens to everything now — but the networks of identity that float within them.”

Even though the thesis is not clear enough for formulate an opinion, one thing I am positive of is that this article has nothing to do with where music is going.   Not having a clear thesis brings the credibility of his article down a notch and confuses the reader.  I'm not implying that because Abebe has a weak thesis that his article is altogether awful; there is still some strong evidence present. However, the good parts get lost in the shuffle because he doesn't make the proper connections to clarify his main point whatever it may be. 

Another confusing aspect of this article is how scattered the voices and styles are; this is to be expected when you use so many different authors as examples but it doesn't make it less confusing. This is yet another reason why Abebe needs to provide more of his own voice and style in the piece.  He can achieve this through transition paragraphs and a conclusion, so the reader can have some consistency in the voice and style.

One main structural issue is the lack of transitions between essays. The article jumps from one piece of evidence to the next offering absolutely no flow.  This makes the piece quite confusing and choppy.  By providing transition paragraphs Abebe could connect his evidence together and clarify his main point, which would clear up some of the readers’ confusion.  For example, the ending of the 7th song “One Night” by Lil Yachty and the beginning of the 8th song “Rewind” by Kelela have no transition between them to ease this shift in evidence that the different authors provide.  The last paragraph of the 7th essay written by Jamie Lauren Keiles states:

“It might all be a gimmick, but it doesn’t feel random. If rap music is founded on a process of layering — autobiography with references and samples — then Yachty does the same for the rap career itself, mixing what’s trending with the right group of friends and tying it together with the loose thread of a sound. If it isn’t good rap, then it’s the perfect kind of music for those of us barely treading water in the zeitgeist, who can’t understand new music by ear. Yachty had to do his research, just like the rest of us.”

This paragraph focuses on how Yachty constructs his music through research and meticulous planning, then Abebe completely switches gears to Kelela’s musical aesthetic and public image in the beginning of the 8th essay written by Jenna Wortham:

“The 33-year-old musician Kelela favors the kind of fashion aesthetic that science-fiction films sometimes use to signify characters from the future: gravity-defying materials in iridescent or metallic colors...She raised her hands and gave a hard stare to the crowd. ‘My mission tonight,’ she said, ‘is to show the breadth of R.&B. music. It has influenced every genre, pretty much, so anyone who thinks it is basic or rudimentary has another thing coming.’”

Abebe could improve his article immensely if he just provided his readers transition paragraphs between the essays, connecting the beginning of one essay to the ending of the previous one.  This would not only help him to tie his evidence back to his original thesis and strengthen his argument, but also to shift more smoothly to his next piece of evidence which would help to reduce the overall choppiness and clear up some of the confusion.  To make this clear, Abebe is simply the editor or the curator of this article not the actual author.  So therefore he needs to provide some guidance to his audience in the form of transition paragraphs, like how art exhibits provide the viewers with descriptive plaques explaining what each piece is and the relationship to exhibits theme.    

Another structural problem is how long the article is, and since there are no transitions to connect the pieces together, the main point is completely lost by the end.  Abebe make a big mistake when he provided absolutely no conclusion to finalize and wrap up his ideas.  Instead the piece just abruptly ends leaving the reader quite confused to what just happened.  He could also improve his article by changing the title because the current one is misleading.  Abebe probably used this title to draw readers in but the introduction might have made them stop reading altogether when they realized his main point is actually concerning identity rather than the songs themselves.

Lastly, the multimodality of the article was enjoyable yet still had its problems. One aspect that was thoroughly enjoyable was the accessibility of the music playlist on the side of the page.  It provided all the songs at the tips of the readers fingers, so the reader didn’t have to scroll for hours trying to find a particular song to refer back to.  Abebe also provided the same access at the beginning of each essay.  The song, artist, and the ability to play the song were all displayed, along with the title of the essay and the authors name.

However, even with these few easily accessible parts, the rest of the article was harder to navigate.  For instance, the pictures used are far too big, some even take up the whole screen and you still have to scroll to see the whole picture. The picture of Kelela in the 8th song is a perfect example of this issue.  Another issue is the consistency of the song introductions at the beginning of each essay, some are small and minimal while others color blocked the whole page. The difference can be seen very clearly between the 18th  song “Fade” by Kanye West and the 19th song “Trolley Song” by Cecile McLorin Salvant. One last aspect that is unenjoyable is how the music plays out of nowhere when you scroll through the article, there should be some type of warning for the readers so they don’t receive such a shock.