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John Washington is a journalism senior and opinion columnist for Mustang News. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
Too often, I learn that people I know find all of the music they listen to through streaming algorithms and social media. This disappoints me, and I can’t help but wonder why people would so carelessly cede control of the art they interact with. Listening to music is one of the great joys of life, something we can do every single day. Shouldn’t we want to be intentional with how we go about it?
Sure, some just don’t like music enough to care to seek out more and more of it. And although I find that slightly offensive, I can let it slide. What irks me beyond belief is when I’m in the car with someone who claims to live and breathe music, only for them to turn on Spotify’s daylist or AI DJ, playlists algorithmically created based on your listening history. Certain things deflate my hope in humanity every day, but somehow, this tactic has proved the most successful in doing so.
So much of the joy I find in listening to music is in the discovery — going to local shows, liking an opening act I hadn’t previously heard of, finding a funny-looking CD in the $1 section, even my older brother listing some of the repulsive names of metal bands he listens to.
It’s a lot more rewarding and interesting when you discover artists through a tunnel of your own curiosity, or through people whose opinion you trust. Music deserves to be thought about. It’s meant to do more than just wash over people who have no regard for it.
Now, I make it a point to inquire with friends of mine about how they discover new music, wanting not only to understand why they let a robot decide what they like, but to go a step further and convince them to think of music with more care and attention. Going forward, I might just have to send them a link to this article, knowing how low my patience runs on any topic involving the word algorithm.
It’s ironic that in the age of music streaming, where more people are allowed to access more music with more ease than ever before, those streaming platforms have produced a feedback loop that discourages listeners from exploring different music.
Algorithms are well capable of feeding us music we will like, but they will continue to spit out music with a similar feeling until it all starts to sound the same and you’re buried forever in indie surf rock (a punishment nobody deserves).
We’re conditioned to rely on algorithms in enough facets of life now, whether it be in our news, shopping or social media use; it shouldn’t be the case in art.
When everything becomes specially curated “for you,” you become pedestrian in this relationship. You never escape your comfort zone. Anyway, even if you ended up wanting to experiment, you wouldn’t know where to start. An overreliance on algorithms making choices for you leaves you a little less independent.
Perhaps most importantly, people should start listening to music in its intended form again. Somewhere in the process of letting users customize every part of their online experience, people stopped listening to albums. What’s worse is some have attention spans so malnourished that playing an album front-to-back is unthinkable.
In albums, songs live in full context. Often, there is a broader story associated with a song. You start to notice themes. You start to understand what you’re listening to better. When you listen to a record multiple times, you will likely appreciate different songs than you did the first time — songs you would have eternally skipped if you didn’t give them another try. If you’ve become reliant on everything being curated for you, listen to an album! The artist themselves curated it for you.
My brother lives across the country, so I only see him once or twice a year. We wouldn’t keep in touch very well, if not for our habit of sending each other new artists and albums to listen to. About once a week, one of us will text the other something in the form of: This one is probably not your style, but I think you’ll appreciate the drumming. It’s the best type of text to receive.
Music listening can be extremely personal, but it’s better when it’s also social. I’m bound to care more in my evaluation of music recommended to me by a real person I know because I want to figure out what they see in it.
A lot of young people need more intent behind their music listening if they want to get the most possible joy and fulfillment out of the form. Right now, it seems like many are okay just coasting with what they’re handed and letting it drone on in the background. Music is art and deserves to be appreciated as such.
Some would call the relationship I have with music obsessive. I’m okay with that, as long as I can take solace in the fact that it’s more meaningful than the one Spotify would have chosen for me.
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