The Business of Aspiration, Episode 5

In this episode, I spoke with Sophie Morice, who is the US Director of Retail at one of the world’s largest luxury watch companies, but who also owned a record store in Paris in mid-90s. Record stores are important taste hubs: they are where music taste is formed and where it evolves, through curation, conversation, and community. In out conversation, Sophie and I leaned into how taste is formed: it is not given or inherited, but it is an activity that evolves with practice and interactions with other people. We also talked about developing an aesthetic sense in music in the situation when this practice is disembodied (e.g. Spotify, iTunes, etc) and in the context of algorithms that amplify already popular content.