The Algorithm Failed Music (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0180027674
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/11/10/1723223/the-algorithm-failed-music
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/column/815744/music-recommendation-algorithms
> Spotify is the most popular music streaming service in the world. While its algorithmic recommendations aren't necessarily the reason, its reach has meant that hundreds of millions of people are being [1]fed a steady diet of music curated by a machine . Spotify's goal is to keep you listening no matter what. In her book Mood Machine, journalist Liz Pelly recounts a story told to her by a former Spotify employee in which Daniel Ek said, "our only competitor is silence."
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> According to this employee, Spotify leadership didn't see themselves as a music company, but as a time filler. The employee explained that, "the vast majority of music listeners, they're not really interested in listening to music per se. They just need a soundtrack to a moment in their day." Simply providing a soundtrack to your day might seem innocent enough, but it informs how Spotify's algorithm works. Its goal isn't to help you discover new music, its goal is simply to keep you listening for as long as possible. It serves up the safest songs possible to keep you from pressing stop.
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> The company even went so far as to partner with music library services and production companies under a program called Perfect Fit Content, or PFC. This saw the creation of fake or "ghost" artists that flooded Spotify with songs that were specifically designed to be pleasant and ignorable. It's music as content, not art. [...] Artists, especially new ones trying to break through, actually started changing how they composed to play better in the algorithmically driven streaming era. Songs got shorter, albums got longer, and intros went away. The hook got pushed to the front of the song to try to grab listeners' attention immediately, and things like guitar solos all but disappeared from pop music. The palette of sounds artists pulled from got smaller, arrangements became more simplified, pop music flattened.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/column/815744/music-recommendation-algorithms
Same old crap (Score:3)
I just listen to the same old stuff over and over again. I have not changed the six discs in my Jeep since loading them almost 20 years ago.
I don't need an algorithm to help me "discover new music", I'm fine listening the music I already know about. There is certainly plenty of it around.
Re: Same old crap (Score:2)
A road trip with you must be a blackhole level of suck.
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Why?
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Apparently good conversation, thinking, and occasional good music don't mean anything to that person which is a sad commentary on where we are today as society.
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Yeah, maybe.
A lot of people don't know how to live without some music blasting all the time. Most of the time they're not even LISTENING to it, it's just on, in the background, making noise.
Re: Same old crap (Score:2)
What if you drive down long straight roads in the Dakotas with no one else on the road and pull out your recorder to play along with jazz (how many key changes can Benny Goodman fit into one song!)?
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As I mentioned, I have a 6 disc changer in my Jeep. That's enough songs to listen continuously, to Alaska and back and then some, without hearing the same song twice.
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What if you listen to podcasts? What if you're not afraid to be alone with your thoughts, or meditate in quiet? Why does life have to have a soundtrack? What did people do who in the 19th century when they had to walk for days without a steady supply of algorithmic music? What would happen if you contributed meaningful statements instead of rhetorical, mindless questions?
Re: Same old crap (Score:2)
"What would happen if you contributed meaningful statements instead of rhetorical, mindless questions?"
Speaking from experience, would I get just as bullied and banned?
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That is one thing I do not get. Silence is nice. Allows you to think clearly.
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I don't listen to music, when I can avoid it. I even play all my games on "Sound: off" mode.
It didn't fail music (Score:5, Insightful)
It was sabotaged.
Back in the day several bands were making a good living off mp3.com. record companies noticed this and destroyed mp3.com using the legal system.
Like everything in our economy it's about consolidation and control. Antitrust.
So what should have happened is the record companies should have been forbidden from buying mp3.com and it should have gone to a neutral third party following the settlement regarding the copyright violation.
But we were busy worrying about 9/11 and other bullshit so we were distracted while our future was snatched away from us.
Folks need to understand the need for antitrust law and how to recognize a politician that will enforce it. You can't just leave the free market up to itself because it's not a free market and it never was and it never will be.
People want to believe in an idealized version of capitalism that just doesn't exist. It's drilled into your head when you're a kid so it's hard to get it out.
And keep in mind this is just music. The same systems and processes and problems exist for food and shelter and medicine and education.
Re: It didn't fail music (Score:2)
What are the chances basic income becomes politically viable before antitrust? What does Trump talking about sending tariff money to citizens say about the rise of basic-income-type policies? Does Elon support basic income? Remember when Altman talked about it?
If we had basic income could more of us just produce music for ourselves while ignoring big corporations?
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> What are the chances basic income becomes politically viable before antitrust?
Slim to none
> What does Trump talking about sending tariff money to citizens say about the rise of basic-income-type policies?
Nothing really, Trump simply cannot conceive of actual programs so it's just a knee jerk reaction and considering he is proposing it as a replacement for ACA subsidies it's actually even dumber. Basically it's probably is a net negative to the concept since it's being proposed in bad faith and for the wrong reasons with the wrong outcomes in mind. On top of that he's not going to actually be able to fund it (because he doesn't know or believe in how government works) so even if he did it would
Re: It didn't fail music (Score:2)
Does Trump understand money creation better than Democrats, who still believe the type of zero-sum economics drilled into them in grade school?
If Trump's going to bribe me how high can I drive the price?
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Would have to say no. Trump sees everything as a zero sum game.
Re: It didn't fail music (Score:2)
Does he know that the money he never paid back never got taken off the books so it was effectively free? Does he understand, as John Hicks wrote about, how extended credit easily enough turns into hard currency that the Fed will backstop in a panic?
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> Does Trump understand money creation better than Democrats
Which Democrat? Than Joe Biden or Harris or Newsom or any major one? Gonna say no, I've never seen evidence Trump even knows how the Federal Reserve works. Can you show me a clip where he does?
> If Trump's going to bribe me how high can I drive the price?
That assumes he cares what you think. Go buy some Trump coins and he might pay attention?
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"What does Trump talking about sending tariff money to citizens say about the rise of basic-income-type policies?"
It says that Trump will spin self-serving lies without end to get what he wants. But we already knew that.
It's never going to happen. The money is not there, and Trump would never do it anyway.
Re: It didn't fail music (Score:2)
Where was the money to bail out the world financial system before 2008 and 2020?
Ubi doesn't work (Score:2)
It's a pipe dream that libertarians came up with to try and preserve capitalism in the face of automation devouring jobs faster than technology can create new jobs.
By itself Ubi just ends up with monopolies sucking the money right back out of people and that's if you can get it through which you probably can't because there is nothing that pisses people off more than giving somebody who isn't working money.
You can explain and explain and explain but is Ronald Reagan said if you're explaining you're
Re: Ubi doesn't work (Score:2)
"It makes you feel like a sucker if you're one of the people still working."
What if workers get it, too, so you can quit if you want?
Listen all yâ(TM)all⦠(Score:2)
Adam, Adam, and Mike tried to warn the record companies ~30 years ago. The only people who need record companies are the artists TO HELP PROMOTE THEIR BANDS. Albums help sell tickets to shows, which is where musicians make their money. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, where bands can start their own labels, work directly with studios, and can cut the big name producers out of their equation. There is no need for a middleman anymore. Technology helped too. Thanks to the iPod eventually becom
Re: Listen all yâ(TM)all⦠(Score:2)
I really got to remember to HTML format my postsâ¦
Re:Listen all (Score:5, Insightful)
30 years ago? Roger Waters warned people about Record Companies 50 years ago. Check out the lyrics from "Have A Cigar" where Waters writes the song about a Record Company Exec talking to the band:
"Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar
You're gonna go far, you're gonna fly high
You're never gonna die
You're gonna make it if you try
They're gonna love you
Well, I've always had a deep respect
And I mean that most sincerely
The band is just fantastic
That is really what I think
Oh by the way, which one's Pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it Riding the Gravy Train
We're just knocked out
We heard about the sell-out
You gotta get an album out
You owe it to the people
We're so happy we can hardly count
Everybody else is just green
Have you seen the chart?
It's a hell of a start
It could be made into a monster
If we all pull together as a team
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it Riding the Gravy Train"
The trouble is you need venues (Score:2)
And the venues have been bought up and you've got stuff like Ticketmaster to deal with.
Over and over and over again the problem is market consolidation allowing big corporations to fuck over anyone that works for a living including working musicians.
I think the problem is back in the day when we had those giant factories with tens of thousands of employees it was really obvious to everybody when they were getting screwed in mass and it was easy for us to organize. We also had the churches which the
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What prevented any of those people from selling through competitors like iTunes, Amazon Music, Bandcamp, or any of the other numerous alternatives that sprang up since then? I think you're engaging in some historical revisionism as mp3.com wasn't sued until they started offering services to allow people to register a physical album and stream songs from it through their site. The problems with this and why the record labels were upset should be obvious.
It's rather dubious that any bands that weren't alre
Our future snatched away? Get a grip man. (Score:2)
If you're that bothered buy a fucking cd or vinyl so the artists get a bigger percentage. It's just music, not life and death.
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Spotify is a broadcaster. You think broadcaster = radio, but the medium doesn't matter.
And broadcasting is distribution today. And that's control. No different than AM radio, them FM radio. Today you have millions of potential channels, not the two dozen or so the radio gave you.
You want to listen to more than one artist? You have to find them. Broadcasting shows them to you. And if decides what to deliver. If does so by choosing from the perpetual flood of content presented to it.
And artists never got paid
The Algorithm seems to be in charge at Spotify (Score:5, Interesting)
In my 2024 Unwrapped playlist, I noticed that Houdini by Dua Lipa was my 5th most played song of the year. Here's the funny thing... I never once requested that song to be played. I think that Spotify just kept injecting it into my playlists because the royalties for it were cheaper than comparable songs from Taylor Swift or Beyonce. If someone who works at Spotify has a better explanation as to why that happened, I'd love to hear it!
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Sounds like payola all over again. Only now it's more centralized and a lot easier to bribe someone at Spotify to give preferential treatment to a song than having to buy off hundreds of DJs at different stations.
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I've been saying this for a while as well. My spotify playlist has roughly 2,000 songs in it, but it continually plays the same 100 or so over and over. It's obviously not anything remotely close to a true random shuffle, and it's obvious that they've put work into making it not truly random.
The only thing I can think of is the royalties are cheaper for 2 plays of the same song than two plays of two unique songs.
And in researching alternate platforms, it seems that they all do this, making this an industry-
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Phones store a lot of local content these days, or there are ways to set up a home media server for music and movies. But I'm old fashioned and still buy CDs to rip into my collection.
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Different royalty rates are one possibility. I think different churn rates are another more compelling argument.
Per TFA, Spotify wants people to just keep listening as long as possible. If, on average across all people, Spotify finds that users let Dua Lipa play uninterrupted, but are likely to interrupt playback on some other artist, Spotify will play Dua Lipa for everybody more than that other artist. It's trying to make background music, not DJ the best dance party ever. It doesn't particularly know
Nothing wrong with that (Score:3)
"Simply providing a soundtrack to your day might seem innocent enough, but it informs how Spotify's algorithm works. Its goal isn't to help you discover new music, its goal is simply to keep you listening for as long as possible. It serves up the safest songs possible to keep you from pressing stop."
That's exactly what I want, when I play background music. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The only thing they can fix is to add more diversity to the "for you" playlists (which used to be "radios" with dynamic content). But selecting music that fits what I like to hear is perfectly fine. IF I want to hear something specific, I can still search for it. If I just want to have music while I am working, I do not need any surprises. Finding a new favorite song is fine, but a diverse mix of songs that I surely like is as safe as acceptable.
Spotify is not replacing music albums. Spotify is replacing the radio.
Music failed spotify because RIAA/JASRAC (Score:4, Interesting)
The RIAA and JASRAC both hate music so much that they go after the fractions of fractions of pennies on youtube. Like let's be real here, the only reason people listen to spotify is because they don't care what they are listenting to.
If I want an anime playlist to draw to, I can't find that on spotify because JASRAC won't let anyone publish Japanese music outside of Japan. If you want to listen to Japanese music, you pretty much have to be listening to someone pirate it on twitch because you won't ever hear it otherwise. But if you want to buy it? Good luck trying to buy it on iTunes. RIAA is just as bad, accidently play 2 seconds of "The Simpsons" theme, well f**k you, Disney says no. Nobody wants to buy games with licensed music in it because they won't be allowed to play it with their friends who don't live in the same room. I actually expect GTA6 to have no licensed music because none of these morons running the music industry see the value in letting gamers play games that utilize it. They could get so much more sales (or listens on spotify) if they stop acting like babies and treating youtube and twitch like pirate radio stations.
Nobody buys music on Spotify. It's a poor app that uses 1/4th audio quality of youtube, and youtube is 1/2 quality of itunes, and itunes lets you actually listen to lossless studio-master recordings.
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Spotify offers lossless... I recently enabled it.
[1]https://newsroom.spotify.com/2... [spotify.com]
[1] https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-09-10/lossless-listening-arrives-on-spotify-premium-with-a-richer-more-detailed-listening-experience/
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Um... A good buddy of mine is a guitarist and pretty heavily into music and was using Spotify for ages. The only reason they switch to YouTube music is because 99% of what he wants is there and quality is fine and he's already paying for YouTube premium to get rid of the ads.
But if you're into music there's lots of stuff on YouTube music and Spotify that's basically unobtainium even if you're going to sail the seven seas which in America is a high risk endeavor since if your ISP catches you they will pe
Just seemed appropriate... (Score:2)
Some words on the subject from a definitely non-AI musician...
Art as expression, not as market campaigns
Will still capture our imaginations
Given the same state of integrity
It will surely help us along...
How is this a failure? (Score:3)
People are listening to more music than ever in human history. Even just 200 years ago, pretty much all music you could access had to be performed live and there was limited cross-pollination between artists or genres. And now, in your hand, access to just about every song ever recorded (commercially, anyway), and tools to create your own music either by recording yourself or through software like Garage Band.
It's a golden age of music with more access to music than ever through human history. How is this a failure? Because some algorithm recommends bland, same-sounding songs over and over again (this is, by definition, pop music)? If that's a problem, then don't use the algorithm! There's plenty of human-generated playlists and amazing music waiting for you out there, and artists creating interesting (sometimes terrible) new pieces...all waiting to be found as long as you are looking to put forth minimal effort.
It's all summed up in a single business word (Score:4, Insightful)
Engagement.
Every web algorithm now is curated to maximize user engagement. When users stay engaged, the advertisements get delivered, and the website earns revenue. When you disengage from the service, they stop making money. So stay engaged, and enjoy your soma.
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It's like drug dealers. Addiction is only 1 step removed.
Gibberish (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never used Spotify much, but on Amazon Music my favorite method is is to just say random or gibberish words to Alexa. Something like "Alexa, play blah blah blah." It will try to interpret my words and usually find something that I've never heard before. It's the only way to find something out of the ordinary since it tries really hard to play the same music I've heard 1000x before. I've found some interesting music using that method.
The algorithm is working exactly as designed (Score:3)
The mistake is thinking that "the algorithm" was designed to select music we listeners would like to hear. Nope. The algorithm was designed to select music that *they* want us to hear. That means:
- Music that comes with pay-for-play
- Music that sells advertising
- Music that is cheaper for them to play
- Music that's just "good enough" to keep people from shutting off the stream
And now AI generated music (Score:2)
The world is being filled wth AI slop and it's also on Spotify. I quite agree that the algorithm is feeding most people the lowest common denominator lifeless crap with the intention of being background music and that seems to be how most people use Spotify. AI is now generating quite a bit of it and it all sounds very much the same to me. I am happy to NOT be in this category of listeners and not be a Spotify listener. The rest of you continue to enjoy.
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Almost every eating place I go to is playing AI generated crap as background music. It's very obvious to me that it's not real music, but everyone else seems to be oblivious. If I had to put them in a genre I'd say "business deep techno and house" and "business trip-hop"
It's as if all the boring techno/deep house records from the 2000's were used to poorly train an LLM to poop out repetitive garbage. The "songs" have no structure, just loopy almost-melodies with the same pseudo-instruments - is it supposed
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In days past, is was "Musak" long before AI. In the early 20th century French composer Erik Satie was writing something called "furniture music". All this stuff was instrumental background music. I hated being forced to listen to this when getting on elevators.
doesn't look like it's the algorithm's fault (Score:2)
facebook became a monster after its algorithms figured out that people engage most with toxic and dumb content. that’s a reflection of reality, not something Zuckerberg invented -- the platform merely amplified it.
the same thing seems to be happening here: the algorithms learned how people like to interact with music and then amplified that behavior, which some of us may label dumb.
so, do we blame the algorithms now, or Spotify for that matter... or do we look in the mirror?
You too can create background music (Score:2)
There are or were plenty of artists in the background music genre. There are countless hours of instrumental music created by human beings playing actual instruments. The business of background music (Muzak, now Rockbot I think, Trusonic etc) is still a competitive business.
Corporate music, like the stuff you hear at health clubs, malls, parking lot elevators, waiting rooms, you get the idea, is a paid service that generally pays artists.
They license real music and curate playlists for all kinds of settings
Spotify feed *me* bagpipe music ... (Score:2)
... so speak for yourself! :)
My Pandora streams work very well for me (Score:2)
That algorithm certainly hasn't failed ME, at least.
IPods are the answer (Score:1)
I resurrected some old iPod nanos and a shuffle. Added about $100 to my music collection and picked pile of new and old songs for each. Sounds better, has random plays, and I can keep adding. The 7th gen nano even supports BT headphones and has a lightning jack. Leave the music drama for the Internet and get back to just enjoying the music and funding the artists you like.
Last.FM + AudioScrobbler had music discovery right (Score:1)
I used an AudioScrobbler plugin for WinAmp all the way back circa 2005? Eventually they got bought out by last.fm. Last.fm was my primary streaming service from something like 2008-2013... somewhere in there, anyway. And man... it was so good at knowing what I liked based on frequency of listens, and finding me more stuff I would like based on that. They nailed it. So sad when they stopped being the service they were back then - they just weren't making enough money.
This analysis doesn't actually hold up... (Score:2)
The obvious slant here is to say that Spotify is just doing what Facebook and Youtube are doing -- algorithm selects content to generate "engagement" rather than actual enjoyment, in turn to drive more user time spent on the site, so that they can sell more ads. Except that Spotify doesn't make most of their money with ads, something like 80% of their revenue is from subscription fees so that doesn't really hold up. There's very little "network effect" in music services, about the only thing that keeps me
"Enshittification" is not just a US thing (Score:2)
It's a worldwide phenomenon. Will the EU produce a response applied to not just US companies, but Big Tech from the EU? I don't think anyone is expecting significant legal action within the US.
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Designing an algorithm to "keep you listening for as long as possible" doesn't seem to me illegal or unfair, so I don't see what legal action you would expect regulators to take here.
One could argue that Youtube/TikTok do the same (addictive algorithm) but there is a worthwhile debate about negative effects of addictive self-published short videos (loss of socialisation, bullying, self-harm, political manipulation, illegal medical advice) which don't exist with music streaming.
Spotify's lack of timely reply
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I've been reading "Enshittification" and Doctorow clearly calls for much more aggressive anti-monopoly regulation and enforcement. What he's calling for, as I understand it (I haven't finished the book) would be a significant change to US understanding of ' illegal monopoly'. But Europe operates under different rules, as EU actions against Apple and Google have shown. One could well argue that Spotify should be qualified as a 'gatekeeper' kind of company, but I am certainly not a EU lawyer. A ruling that
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> A ruling that says "engagement engineering" is illegal would be difficult to enforce, but presumably not impossible.
At the very least it would curb extreme cases like the one from the story.
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Spotify may be "gatekeeper" by EU rules (50+ million monthly users), but I don't see what practical consequences it would have for them. For social networks (e.g. Facebook/Instagram, TikTok), it gives obligations related to free speech, moderation, advertisements. For software distributors (e.g. Apple), obligations in interoperability (with other app stores, other payment methods).
None of the concerns above (exclusive distribution agreements, exclusive payment card methods, or shutting down speech they don'
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> A ruling that says "engagement engineering" is illegal
I think you'd have to limit only specific practices. Otherwise it's just regular free speech. People trying to keep you interested is at heart of literature, entertainment, music, journalism, everything up to slashdot and its occasional clickbait headlines.