a designer
a wonderer
“our resident art historian”
based in Los Angeles and Oakland, California.
[about]
He is currently studying at
UCLA
pursuing a B.A. in Design | Media Arts & Art History and typed this text in the third person. This site is constantly under construction.
© 2025 Calvin McClure - All Rights Reserved
SPOTIFY COMMENT*ARYSPRING 2025
WHAT IF SPOTIFY HAD A COMMENTS SECTION?
Spotify UI recreated from scratch in Figma with the addition of a hypothetical ‘comments’ feature.
Maybe it’s a consequence of TikTok group-think, but sometimes I listen to a song and I wish I could see what other people are thinking. After all, music is a prolific medium of expression and interpersonal connection in our contemporary, digital era. For better or worse, streaming services like Spotify sit at the forefront of its consumption as we’ve phased out more costly— though arguably more intimate and authentic— methods of listening like vinyls and CDs.
SPOTIFY COMMENT*ARY seeks to shed a spotlight on the social dynamics of today’s music consumption in how we relate to music, artists, and eachother. In other words, what if Spotify had a comments section?
FRANK OCEAN - NIGHTS
Exploring the parasocial and conceivably entitled sentiment revolving music artists, particularly enigmatic ones like Frank Ocean, the comments section for Nights is presented. The parasocial attitude of the first commenter is contrasted by a far more genuine comment from Tyler, The Creator— a friend and artistic peer. In other words, someone he actually knows.
PLAYBOI CARTI - RATHER LIE
The polarizing, morally questionable persona of Playboi Carti continues to be a hot topic in the world of music. His newest album release, ‘I AM MUSIC’, thrusts this debate into the cultural foreground—putting fanatics and skeptics at odds in the comments section of RATHER LIE.
BEABADOOBEE - REAL MAN
Understanding music’s invaluable role in today’s social climate, it’s natural that its place in relationships extends beyond platonic friendships.
A young woman’s comment on Beabadoobee’s Real Man serves as an entry point for 99+ commenters to pursue her. This puts into question, too, the authenticity of these commenters’ music taste. Is it romantic performativism or genuine expression?
Considering the amount of TikToks of men joking about being an attractive height and “dropping [their] feminist literature books” as they listen to a traditionally female-audienced musical artist, it seems the only person who gets to decide the validity of these comments is the receiver of this tantalized affection.
KANYE WEST - FLASHING LIGHTS
The one artist easily more controversial than Playboi Carti is Kanye ‘Ye’ West. Discourse in the comments section of Flashing Lights is plentifully variant, with the age-old debate of separating the art versus the artist taking hold (as it always does).