Writes Will Hodgkinson at "'Your playlist is as long as your skincare regime,' Spotify told me on Spotify Wrapped. Given that my 'skincare regime' lasts for the five seconds it take" (London Times).
Do you even know what "Spotify Wrapped" is? I just found out yesterday, but it's been around since 2016. It's Spotify's "end-of-year algorithmic survey of your personal listening choices." Hodgkinson was told that his "most listened to track" was something he doesn't even remember hearing once.
Actually, I think Spotify does a great job of understanding what I like, perhaps because I show no interest in what's new and currently popular. I suspect that if it "thinks" you want to keep up on the latest things, it will infer that you'll want what they're seeing or predicting will hit big. If, like me, you never play any of that stuff, their choices will look like your choices.
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I created a nine-hour playlist of deliberately non algorithmic picks, jumping between genres, Spotify will never suggest crossover hits, for example, just the kind of music I like to listen to, and it started getting likes, which I didn't even know other people could see it, I quickly took the rest of my playlists private, but this one, I started picking songs thinking about what people would like, and leaving off songs that I genuinely liked, until I said "screw it, let them make their own lists," and now I simply put on whatever I like to hear, and remove stuff if I am tempted to skip them, and I still get new likes. I think that there is an undercurrent of people who really dislike those algorithmic picks. It might take a few seconds to re-orient your listening when a list is eclectic and a song with a different vibe than the last one comes on, but if it's not too eclectic, it's part of the fun.
I have less than zero interest in what my "wrapped" playlist looks like. It's not hard to infer that deals are made with labels to promote certain artists, and politics are of course ever-present. Joni Mitchell wrote a lot of great songs besides the environmentalist anthem "Big Yellow Taxi," for example, but Spotify never could seem to find them. Nah, I will do the work and make my own lists.
It said my favorite artist was Justin Timberlake. It took me a while to figure out the settings on my in car app, so best I can tell Timberlake was first on a playlist that cued every time I turned on Spotify after I started the car.
You don’t know me algorithms….
I had carefully curated playlists of Christmas songs on iTunes- multiple genres and some .wav files from Christmas movies and TV. I made a new one every year and the were glorious.
I lost them all when iTunes went away.
Spotify makes it too hard to replicate something like that. No .wav files as far as I can tell…
Going to the record store and browsing was a big part of the appeal of vinyl. Who would have wanted that part of it to disappear, and replace it with record clubs sending their choices?
Last night I was just listening/watching a video with Rick Beato interviewing Sting and his sideman guitarist, Dominic Miller. The discussion ranged briefly into Spotify and Apple Music and their algorithmic selections. All in all an interesting interview that started almost uncomfortably. Neither guy seemed to take Rick Beato seriously and it seemed as if they were looking at him as an amateur, as if they were wasting their time. But...as it went on they opened up and it got very interesting.
If you're interested: Rick Beato interviews Sting
"The algorithm can't predict me!" is probably the most predictable opinion of the zero self awareness individual.
The problem most people have with these algorithms is not just what they say.
It is that they are surprisingly accurate.
Most people are not what they tell themselves they are.
"The algorithm can't predict me!" is probably the most predictable opinion of the zero self awareness individual.
I reject your contention. It’s something a midwit would say to make themselves sound superior…
I'll second Temujin's recommendation of Rick Beato. A very knowledgeable music guy, and once Sting and his buddy realized that he was the real deal, they opened up.
I never heard of Spotify Wrapped either until a comedian I followed dropped this episode about a battle between Spotify and Apple Music fans:
https://youtu.be/loHqG091NGI
It's short and funny. I've noticed a number of people I follow are doing this genre of comedy in which they're playing all the characters: Trevor Wallace, Alasdair Beckett-King, and Daniel Thrasher.
It amuses me that Wikipedia calls Spotify Wrapped a viral marketing campaign, so all these people who participate in it are cogs letting themselves be used by a service accused of ripping off artists for profit.
I mildly enjoy my end of the year Spotify Wrapped, but the reaction from the younger generation is much more intense. Our three daughters (19-24) were home for Thanksgiving and were actively debating how their stats would come out. They were treating "Wrapped day" like a semi-major holiday for the interregnum between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
"It is that they are surprisingly accurate."
They could be, if they could resist the financial and political temptations to tweak them. But they are simply too narrow, who really wants to hear an endless string of songs that sound each like the other, but "on average" I am sure they are pretty good. Once Pandora finishes with my playlist, and the algorithm takes over, it inevitably trends to top 40 stuff that approximates the genre and the era. Stuff I have heard way too often.
People today may not be tough, but they make up for it by being extra-snarky.
Or maybe it's just the algorithms and machines that are the tough and snarky ones.
Achilles has been off his meds for weeks now. I hope the FBI algorithm is monitoring his lobster seratonin driven comments to insure he is not a threat to himself and others.
If algorithms were so fucking great, why do they always send me advertisements for products I want only after I purchase them?
The algorithm can't predict me, even when I try to tell it exactly what I want. When I used Pandora regularly I tried to build a southern/country rock 'station'. Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, Outlaws, Lynryd Skynrd, etc. It never got it right. As soon as it started picking songs they be way out of whack with what I was looking for. And good luck with figuring out what I want over the course of a year. The last four CDs I played at home were a compilation of 50s & 60s country women singers, Rick Wakeman The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Highway 61 Revisited, and Prokofiev violin sonatas.
I find it creepy that a service would predict what I like from past experience. That's one reason I would not use Spotify. I get that from a wine service that I use, but they only know a part of my wine drinking habits. I buy mostly Napa/Sonoma wine from them because that is their strength. I buy other wines from other sources. I suspect the same thing could be in operation at Spotify. BTW, I suspect that invading Chinese will play our favorite songs as a way to reduce our resistance. They probably get their hands on Spotify files.
One more comment, although the algorithms are terrible the actual human beings at The Whip : Backlandradio.com are great at it. I play that internet radio station and always hear something I like and almost every time I hear a couple of bands I've never heard before but immediately make note of so I can look up their music and add it to my rotation.
I sample a whole lot of things on Spotify which one might politely call "background music" and that was what dominated my "Wrapped" list. It wasn't really me, to be honest.
I am on Spotify a lot and move between classical, jazz and rock. I read the music reviews in the Financial times and Times of London and Spotify almost always already has the new releases. I find the reviews of new rock bands most interesting and have found a lot of very cool young artists and bands that way.
Actually, I think Spotify does a great job of understanding what I like, perhaps because I show no interest in what's new and currently popular... If, like me, you never play any of that stuff, their choices will look like your choices.
Your post prompted me to go open up the Wrapped list, and it looks to me exactly like what I listen to so I think you've hit the nail on the head.
I had to laugh the other day because two people at the café were discussing how the selection of available, Spotify-made playlists wasn't to their liking somehow, although the one was much more silly about it than the other (this was occasioned by the Wrapped playlists' return, I realize after the fact i.e. five minutes ago). I wanted to interrupt to ask if they didn't know that there are about a billion tracks available for the making of their own playlists but held my peace.
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