This is fucking bleak on Spotify:

[onekind@beige.party]

This is fucking bleak on Spotify:

https://www.theverge.com/column/815744/music-recommendation-algorithms

'The [former Spotify] 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."'

Music changed as a response to this:

'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.'

[hejsna@ruby.social]

@onekind I remember @jwz saying that at some point: if you’re a person who consciously selects the music you want to listen to, you’re in a tiny minority. I really didn’t want to believe it but this is the roaring twenties and everything fucking sucks so why not that, too

[onekind@beige.party]

@hejsna @jwz that part is not new — radio was popular, affordable and portable long before mp3s and algorithms and even then the recorded versions were crafted to get radio play and then sell on vinyl. but artists were still striving to be noticed and listened to, not writing muzak for the soul.

[mikej@mastodon.online]

@onekind @hejsna @jwz In the age of radio, bands needed to appeal to music directors who had varying tastes and had their own set of mostly unwritten algorithms. Never play two female vocals back to back, always play an A record coming out of an ad break, etc.

And of course music directors want to be known as the person who broke that hit by playing it first, but they really hate being the only station in the country playing a particular song.