They're Listening to you Listen

In the off-chance you can’t tell someone’s political leaning before they give you a playlist, you can figure it out using the songs they listen to. A lot of George Strait on there? They’re probably a republican. Beatles? Democrat.

Of course, those are obvious examples, and we don’t need data science to come to those conclusions. But because we have it, we can spot behavioral trends in less obvious spots. Like how conservatives tend to have less diverse taste in music, or (somehow I did not see this coming) that Johnny Cash is more often listened to by liberals.

Obviously, this data is collected by Facebook and Spotify.

I dropped off of Facebook around a month ago. Despite my mom calling to ask if I was ok, the consequences have been pretty mild: I read a little more and I get a little more anxious when I forget someone’s name. Hopefully that will help me remember names better. But one thing did catch me off guard: I lost my Spotify account.

In retrospect, that should have been obvious. Of course all our apps are connected. And when I signed up for Spotify, I just clicked on “sign up with Facebook.” Why would I spend the energy typing my email when I can just point and grunt? The relationship between music media and social media wasn’t exactly hidden. I noticed years ago that Facebook was displaying my Spotify activity, although I did take steps to turn it off (I consider crying along to Nickle Creek to be “me time”).

But beyond the consumer symptoms, its pretty easy to see where Spotify’s interests lie. As of 2011, Facebook and Spotify are formal partners. Sean Parker, Facebook’s ex-president, has invested over $15 million in Spotify and served on Spotify’s board. Further, Echo Nest CEO Brian Whitman is pretty upfront when he tells us that Spotify is making note of listener’s Facebook activity. And the goal isn’t just to factor in what bands you “like.” They want to consider your relationship status as well.

Putting aside the argument that making your own break-up playlist is part of the healing process, things are getting a little creepy. On one hand, taste in music is considered by many to be a very social part of their preferences, something they want to show other people. But on the other hand, music can impact each of us very deeply. Giving away data about what you listen to is essentially handing away the keys to your own emotions.

Music’s effectiveness is largely situational. Even if “the four right chords can make [you] cry,” chances are that doesn’t work all the time. One of the most important factors to playing good music is changing it to match your audience, perceiving where they want the music to take them. The best musicians can do that, but it isn’t a very conscious process. At least not entirely. There’s too many individual factors to run through, so they have to “feel” it. They have to empathize with their audience. But if data on all of those factors was collected- heart-rate, preference, relationship status, ect- I bet a computer could read the crowd just fine. Maybe it can’t compose the right music, but it could certainly pick the right recordings.

How long then, before campaign ads play background music tailored to your sympathies? Before Gillette sends their suave, clean-shaven model to strut around town along to the playlist you titled “Swagger”? Or, conversely, before liquor companies purchase rights to influence your Echo Nest recommendations, skewing the music to a rowdier set that they hope will make you drink more?

Its not that there’s no value in letting an algorithm provide music recommendations. As the algorithms get better, those recommendations are more likely to be spot on and it becomes much easier to find new music that you like. I’ll be the first to admit that the “Discover Weekly” list of recommended songs was one of my go-to playlists; its success rate was high enough that I found myself saving a majority of the songs for later listening. But all this comes at a cost. Music is more powerful than we realize, and there are few better ways of influencing the feelings of others. Sharing our preferences with those close to us is one thing, because we trust those people to influence our emotions anyways. But giving the auditory keys to “the agent” is probably less than safe.

Which is a shame, because I love hearing new music and learning about new musicians. Maybe the best way to do that is still to discuss music with friends and family, sharing favorite artists and songs. Or, conversely, go to a live show- and get your music at the source, where the cost of production isn’t zero.

Speaking of costs,

I should add that there’s a healthy bit of industry criticism here that I didn’t dive into. Many artists hate the record industry, and Spotify is a big part of that industry. It’s arguably the reason the industry isn’t quite dead yet.

If we assume Thom Yorke is right, and Spotify really is “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse,” then we might be moving in the direction of musical localization. There’s a strong argument to make that many small time musicians would be better off giving away recordings of their music for free, without ads. No, not like Bono did it- just by making it free to download for anyone who wants it. Sharing then becomes a matter of who you know and what they like.

In preparation, I’m going to work on remembering names.

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