Can we stop overusing the term ‘supergroup’?

Google defines “supergroup” as “a music band or ensemble whose members are already established and highly successful as solo artists or as part of other bands. It functions as a musical "all-star team".

Merriam-Webster defines “supergroup” as:

• “a group made up of very talented, renowned, or expert members. 
• “especially : a musical group made up of established, prominent musicians,” citing true supergroups like Boygenius, Traveling Wilburys or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
• “an extremely successful musical group,” citing the K-Pop megastars BTS.

There seems to be a disconnect between over-enthusiastic music writers and their use of the dictionary. To borrow from sage linguist Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” 

I suppose there’s some wiggle room in Merriam-Webster’s initial definition of “a group made up of very talented, renowned or expert members.” But the dictionary emphasizes “especially” in the second definition to encourage us not to get sloppy in proclaiming anyone “very talented” or “expert.” 

Below are a few examples of why I think music geeks are getting too loose with the term. 

As quoted in the June issue of 5280 magazine, which focuses on Colorado, Indie 102.3 public radio music director Alisha Sweeney proclaims Graveyard Choir as “an up-and-coming supergroup including members of INTHEWHALE and Musuji.” Hmmm. Not that Spotify listenership is the arbiter of popularity, but INTHEWHALE has 2,400 monthly listeners, while Musuji has … 10. Yep, 10.

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Innovations in Media: Steven Johnson, NotebookLM and collaborating on discovery

Steven Johnson is a prolific and thought-provoking creator of books, podcasts and TV series on technology, history and science. He’s also spent the last four years as a Google employee, helping shape the remarkable NotebookLM AI platform. 

I first learned of Johnson by reading his illuminating book, “The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World.” The book, like most all of his projects, deeply examines a topic with immense curiosity, relentlessly pursuing the who, what, when, where, why and how. 

I later enjoyed his terrific PBS series “How We Got to Now,” a history of innovation. 

Steven Johnson's "Adjacent Possible"Put perhaps most notably, I was thrilled to learn he’s been editorial director and a chief architect of NotebookLM, Google’s “AI-powered research assistant and virtual note-taking app.” The “LM” in the platform name stands for “language model,” a probabilistic AI model that builds sentences by predicting words based on the context of preceding text.

As touted by Google, “Unlike standard AI chatbots that draw on vast, sometimes inaccurate internet knowledge, NotebookLM is designed to base all its answers, summaries, and insights solely on the specific documents and media you upload.” 

NotebookLM truly is remarkable, and I’ve been using it for a variety of projects and tasks, including my own book project. It’s remarkably efficient in helping me find

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Innovations in media: 'Works in Progress'

Works in Progress is a 6-year-old “magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world.” 

“Magazine” is used loosely. A bi-monthly print version of the London-based magazine launched only late last year. The first 20 issues of Works In Progress were digital, distributed only on a robust website that includes individual articles (including audio transcriptions of each), videos, a podcast, an email newsletter, events and an archive of past issues. 

All of the digital pieces are free to consume; the print magazine, however, costs $100 a year for six issues. It’s pricey, but beautifully designed on high-gloss paper. Each issue weighs in at more than 120 mostly ad-free pages, with an eclectic mix of content focused on “economic growth, technology, policy, history, metascience, cities, medical research, aesthetics, transport, energy and much more.” Classically liberal and market-oriented themes guide the story mix. 

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