The DJ and the Machine

So, it seems that the big three music streaming companies – Google Play, Spotify, and Apple Music – are planning to alter how we choose our songs. Not in little ways, either. All three companies have hired a team of “music experts” to decide which songs should populate which playlists, and which songs should just disappear into the sunset.

With literally millions of people worldwide signed up for each company’s music streaming service, there’s no denying that they’re offering something that people want. If it were simply the fact that each company offers every song ever recorded in one handy place, then that would be fine. That aspect of the service allows us to listen to whatever we want whenever we want. That’s a huge improvement over radio where producers decide what song should be played when and how many times throughout the course of the day.

Wait a minute … that’s what these streaming companies do, too. That’s what the team of music experts was, in fact, hired to do. These people create playlists based on what the algorithms show about us. They consider everything from our age to the song we last listened to. Every bit of personal information – gender, geographical location, sexual orientation, time of day you listen, food preferences (ok, maybe not the last one) – is analyzed until a computer knows more about you than you do yourself. That information tells the music experts what kind of music they should introduce you to.

Don’t you think it’s all too Blade Runner or Terminator? What do you love about music streaming services? Should they back off on choosing music for us?

Read the whole article here.