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New Statesman
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The sounds that shape us
Illustration by Lucy Jones At some point in the unreconstructed noughties, I read an article about the differences in the way men and women listen to music. I recall it very well. It suggested that men listen to melodies and women listen to lyrics; that men had huge record collections and women had fewer albums, which they loved more; that men liked to argue over 'boring things' like time signatures and key changes, while women had a more instinctive connection with the way music made them feel. If I could print that green, puking emoji here, I would. Within these ideas, unmistakable to me then, was the inference that men understood music better, and cared about it more, than women. I was a young rock journalist at the time, in what was still a male-dominated world, and the suggestion that listening was gendered made my cheeks glow in fury. After all, I knew boys who seemed only to feel through music, each millennial whoop their direct line to sentiments apparently unspeakable. What are tribalism and competitiveness, qualities traditionally associated with male music consumers, if not expressions of deep feeling? The first music fan(atic)s were women: the notion that they fell in love with the Beatles because they wanted to be their girlfriends was missing the point: that music was putting them into a state of transcendence. Alice Vincent, once music editor on the arts pages of the Telegraph, spent years of her life 'setting the measure of a pop star's performance in 450 words and a few tiny stars… leaving shows halfway through because I was bored or arrogant'. In the world of music journalism she was 'silently lobbying for access to the boys' club. I still don't know if I ever gained entry'. Vincent was an obsessive music lover who listened to so many records, and went to so many gigs as a teenager, that she damaged her hearing: 'There was a time in my life when sound felt like it was everything to me because it moved my body and it smoothed my brain and elevated my being into higher planes.' In Hark, Vincent has set out to think about listening and gender – but also to answer questions that, like her, haunts so many of us in adulthood. Why do we stop listening in the same way as we get older? Why is our relationship with music, as she puts it, withering? Vincent is viscerally reminded of the intensity of her youthful relationship with sound when, at 35, a sonographer jellies up her belly and plays her baby's heartbeat through an ultrasound. It is the only noise that has properly moved her in a long time. From that point on, in pregnancy, she seeks out experiences of increasing sonic intensity, standing in a sound-bath in the Mojave Desert, and entering an anechoic chamber, a room soundproofed to absorb all echoes in which people are often left hearing nothing more than their own heartbeat – and often freak out. After Vincent's baby is born, she explores other phenomena: phantom crying and the condition misophonia (the acute oversensitivity to sound). The parent's ear is retuned to a child's breathing or distress, usually for a short period but, for an unlucky few, long-term after giving birth: the wail of your own child 'bores' into you from 30 metres away, pumping your blood faster and thicker through your veins, turning your body into a 'kind of emergency'. I recognised Vincent's descriptions of attending gigs as a newish mother and finding it overwhelming on a sensory level. I also recognised her music-loving parents who, when asked what they were listening to in 1985, said, 'Oh, the charts totally passed us by for years because we were busy having you.' The change in our relationship with music as we grow older is about far more, I think, than distraction and the atomisation of your previous listening habits. When adolescents listen to music they are actively seeking an intensity of experience. In adult life there is plenty of that. Ageing parents, encroaching death, the 4am fears for your child's future – these are the big feelings you push away, rather than pull towards you, when you're grown up. After having my daughter five years ago, I couldn't watch TV: even now, I find films 'too much' and sit there reacting as though the people are real, full of outrage when bad things happen ('He wouldn't do that!') and exhausted when the credits roll. The last major musical obsession I had, with the American songwriter Bruce Hornsby, was in 2014. Now, the idea of an intense experience listening to a song in the middle of my average day feels physically daunting, like jumping into a cold lake. These exhilarating moments still happen, but they tend to take place after three pints with the volume turned up too high in the tube carriage, heart racing, then running up the hill towards home when no one is about. It is fascinating to think that feeling this way was the norm, for many of us, for years and years, when we only had ourselves to think about: an adrenalised solitary communion, in many ways incompatible with everyday adult life. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Shortly after the birth of her son, trying to keep her hand in with some music writing, Vincent attends a gig at the Outernet, the modern venue beneath the hellish giant screens on the junction of Charing Cross Road and Oxford Street in Central London, not far from where the Astoria once stood. She watches a singer-songwriter doing a 45-minute set. 'Between him leaving the stage and returning for the encore, two QR codes appear on the full-bleed screens he'd stood in front of. We are urged to scan them; they take us to a website to buy his album. I give him three stars.' I recognise the dystopian, sanitised experience of modern gig-going, but a certain detachment from what's on stage goes hand-in-hand with reviewing gigs for a living. Vincent's changing relationship with sound also stems from post-natal depression: after her baby becomes seriously ill she develops a new internal monologue 'that made sense to me, but was increasingly challenging to keep company with': a 'constant soundtrack' to her day. When we are able to listen – and when we can't – is a mysterious process. Generally when something massive happens to you, like a shock bereavement, music is too much. When you're depressed, it is also very difficult, because depression is essentially a broken connection with oneself. Music is, at best, a direct line to the self, so when it fails to move you, it makes the depression more painful. Having a child is a loss of selfhood too, in a way, as one becomes two – though it is a loss you would never reverse. In the course of this meditative book, Vincent learns that she is craving a more participatory version of music and sound, even if this just means singing to her child. She starts to think big – in terms of landscape, ice-fall and waves: she calls up a Cambridge scientist investigating whether the aurora borealis can be heard. I am not sure that listening is gendered – something about me will always bridle at that. But it certainly changes as we grow. Once we have others to care for, we listen to connect – and we work to clear the channel to ourselves. Hark: How Women Listen Alice Vincent Canongate, 320pp, £18.04 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See more: The second birth of JMW Turner] Related
Associated Press
26-03-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Hark Launches Hark Insights to Transform Customer Feedback into Actionable Stories
AI-Powered Platform Amplifies Real Customer Voices, Helping Brands Turn Feedback Into Strategic Decisions LAS VEGAS, March 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- SHOPTALK -- Hark, the leader in video and audio-driven customer feedback, announced the launch of Hark Insights, an AI-powered platform that transforms raw feedback into clear, actionable customer stories. By surfacing key themes instantly, Hark Insights eliminates the need to sift through thousands of data points, making it easier for teams to make decisions and get to the root cause of issues. Traditional survey scores often lack depth and meaningful context, offering only numerical ratings with little insight into why customers feel the way they do. Hark Insights allows teams to see, hear, and share the most relevant customer feedback across their organization. Fran Brzyski, CEO and Co-Founder of Hark, emphasized the impact of this new approach. 'Hark Insights is more than an analytics tool. It is a storytelling engine that brings customer voices to life. Customer feedback is a competitive advantage—if you capture the right information and act on it,' Brzyski said. 'Too often, brands reduce loyalty to a score and miss the real insights hidden in customer experiences. Hark Insights surfaces the stories that matter most by elevating the quality of feedback and making it easier to take action. You can collect all the data in the world, but if no one acts on it, it's worthless.' Hark Insights helps brands move beyond traditional feedback tools, enabling them to hear their customers in their own words, with their real tone, emotion, and experiences.. The platform is especially valuable for technically complex products, drawing on rich, unstructured data, including voice and video feedback, to highlight critical issues and opportunities in real time. While Hark was originally built for customer support, Hark Insights has expanded to provide product teams with insights to refine features and shape future development. Marketing teams can also leverage authentic customer voices to create more compelling and effective ad campaigns. 'We want to share what's breaking news from your customers. What's going on with them, and how is that helpful for your brand? It's information every company needs to know,' said Subbu Balakrishnan, CTO of Hark. Hark Insights continuously surfaces emerging themes and key customer voices. AI pinpoints trends from evolving feedback, helping CX, marketing, and product teams stay ahead of shifting sentiment. Teams can quickly identify new opportunities and concerns, improving responsiveness, refining messaging, and shaping strategic decisions. Users can see, hear, and experience real customer moments through multimedia examples, with insights packaged for easy sharing across the organization. The platform also includes an AI chat feature that allows users to ask questions about customer feedback and receive direct answers. Teams can quickly summarize top concerns, explore detailed responses, and search for specific topics using advanced search. AI identifies key trends and multimedia examples, making it easy to uncover insights that might otherwise be missed. Hark Insights is currently available to Hark clients, including a number of leading direct-to-consumer and e-commerce brands across industries such as skincare, household products, technology, and pet care. Matthew Ring, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Hark, highlighted how Hark Insights sets itself apart from traditional Voice of Customer tools. 'Hark is redefining Voice of Customer. Instead of traditional surveys, text analysis, and dashboards that strip away emotion and real-world context, we bring customers' own words and media, communicated on their own terms, to the forefront. We are invited into their homes, their daily lives, and their unfiltered moments. Hark Insights finds common threads and gets to the heart of what matters to customers, so brands can listen to, understand, and act on feedback in a way that has never been possible before.' To sign up for a free demo, visit About Hark Hark is a New York City-based startup pioneering a new way for customers to communicate with brands through asynchronous video & audio. Hark's solution provides unparalleled context, leading to significant cost savings and operational efficiencies for brands. By gathering customer-generated content on a large scale and providing analysis through its AI-driven platform, Hark provides a fresh perspective on customer insights, reinventing how brands connect with their audience. Hark was founded in 2022 by Fran Brzyski and Matt Ring. For more information, visit .
