‘Bop Spotter’ Is a Secret Phone Eavesdropping on the Mission’s Music Tastes

If we ever needed quantifiable evidence of Mission residents’ marriage to blasting tunes around the clock, Bop Spotter is already providing it. On the first day, Sept. 29, 34 tracks were captured between 2:02 p.m. and 9:24 p.m. On day two that number rose to 101, the first track — “Worthy” by Elevation Worship, a Christian North Carolina band — being picked up at 3:12 a.m. Despite this being the very earliest days of the project, Walz says he’s already been surprised a few times by people’s musical choices and the times they play them.

“Yesterday morning, someone played ‘Me So Horny’ at like, 9 a.m.,” he laughs. “That was pretty funny. Then at 1 o’clock this morning, I guess some guy found the box and played ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by the Rickroll guy, Rick Astley.”

“Ass Like That” by Eminem also showed up at 6:14 a.m., sandwiched between Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar. Bay Area hip-hop has been captured too, via rappers like J. Stalin, Keak da Sneak and G-Eazy. If there is a favorite genre of the Mission, however, it might just be reggaeton, with entire blocks showing up by artists like Zion & Lennox, Bad Gyal, Tony Dize, Eddie Dee, Peso Pluma and La Factoria.

Walz is hoping Bop Spotter will run for long enough to capture a true reflection of Mission tastes.

“Hopefully, this will be up for years and we can log some trends,” he says. “There’s not much that could go wrong. The solar panel that powers [the phone] is pretty stable, it’s high up so people can’t really grab it. The only thing that could maybe jeopardize it is if the phone crashes or if the WiFi I’m using goes out or changes. Or if someone decides to go and take it down.”

That, Walz says, is a possibility because of clues to the box’s location that live on Bop Spotter. Twenty second previews of street noise can be heard by hovering over each track listed on the website. Muni, street sounds and small hangouts of various groups are clearly audible — which is probably how he got Rickrolled.

“How many places could that be?” Walz asks. “I think if you’re determined enough, you could probably find it.”