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They're Listening to you Listen
-- By CasidheMcClone - 04 Nov 2016 |
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< | In On 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.
"Someone" is singular,
"they" is plural. One doesn't have to use "one ... he"
constructions if she doesn't want to. We don't need to break other
grammar in order to remove default masculine gender from our
language. So let's not.
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.
Ex-cons who perform in
prisons without being explicitly into evangelical religion are
probably not the flavor of many "conservatives," and your statistics
may not be sensitive enough to pick up among them the libertarians
and the boys named Sue. |
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> | On the off-chance you can’t tell someone’s political leaning before she gives you a playlist, you can figure it out using the songs she listens to. A lot of George Strait on there? He's probably a republican. Beatles? Democrat. |
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> | 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 that Johnny Cash is more often listened to by liberals. |
| | Obviously, this data is collected by Facebook and Spotify. |
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< | 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. |
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> | 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. |
| | 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? |
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< | 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, |
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> | Most people 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. |
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< | 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. |
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> | This leads to the other large criticism of Spotify: that it is keeping alive an industry that really does nothing for us. The record industry was more or less saved by Spotify’s streaming service. And much like the record industry of yore, a common complaint among artists is the nominal pay they receive in exchange for the plays of their recordings. Taylor Swift famously pulled her music away from the service, citing low royalties despite the popularity of her tracks… But of course, smaller-time musicians receive far less than she did. |
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< | 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. |
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> | 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. And really, allowing recordings to be available for free isn’t a bad solution. |
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< | In preparation, I’m going to work on remembering names. |
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> | Ex-drummer for Nirvana/current Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl once presented an argument somewhat in support of Spotify, stating that he didn’t care about royalties because he just wanted to play shows. But if we believe him when he says “give it away,” his argument creates some strong support in favor of artists providing free access to their recordings. If you really want to get your music out there, there’s something to be said in favor of handing it out. And if Spotify is only handing out nominal payments to artists, those who opt for providing free music really wouldn’t be giving away that much. |
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> | Soundcloud might come close to providing such a service, but the simplicity of the “upload what you want/add download links if you want to” policies are somewhat complicated by the addition of advertisements and paid-subscription services for uploading account holders. Why don’t we have a platform where artists can just upload whatever they want? Or, conversely, do we need a common platform? Why don’t artists just point fans to a website and say “you can get it for free here?” |
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Spotify is Facebook's attempt to do with the music industry what the King of the Undead, Now Dead accomplished at the earlier stage of the process with iTunes: taking over the industry in the guise of saving it from its own mistakes. |
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> | Such a system might limit participation in music, since those who were in it for the money would have less incentive. Of course, those artists tend to make worse music anyways. The logic isn’t weak: if you don’t want to perform live, maybe you just shouldn’t be performing. |
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< | In my view, although memoir is charming, you could depersonalize the next draft slightly and make it even smarter by incorporating the perspective you now throw in as a disorganized small bundle at the end. If we take for granted that listening behavior is valuable behavior to control, why don't we ask why it should be anybody's property, and if we have any doubt than why should we let a licensee of the (compulsorily-licensable) mechanical reproduction right (or any authorship copyrights) own the listening behavior? If the music industry survives by suppressing our individual right to share and by cooperating with an oligopoly of behavior collectors, why should it survive?
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