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One of the most highly anticipated recurring events in the streaming era occurred this week as millions of users each flocked to the Spotify app to assess the results of their annual, personalized Spotify Wrapped analysis. The release unsurprisingly evoked various reactions from users, many of which directed criticism toward the gargantuan streaming service regarding its utilization of Artificial Intelligence [AI] in this year’s roundup of statistics.
Many users took to social media to express discontent at the lack of personal genre analysis included in the 2024 Spotify Wrapped cycle. Others leveraged criticism at the artificially generated, podcast-style exchange assigned to each user, which provided a brief overview of the listening habits of individual users throughout the year.
As is the case each year, discourse on Spotify’s effectiveness and viability as a service began to overtake discussions on several social media platforms. One particularly interesting critique offered by users concerned issues regarding the streaming service’s function in assembling personalized playlists and offering music recommendations to its users.
The suspected shift to AI-generated content in crafting such playlists and personal recommendations has been one aspect of coming under fire recently, with the oft-cited issue of “loss of the human touch” being specified as a core problem in this regard and in the streaming era generally. One’s perspectives and beliefs regarding the advent of Artificial Intelligence and the notion of streaming notwithstanding, the implications of the aforementioned critiques are noteworthy, to say the least.
The demographic of note in this instance comprises what appears to be a cross-section of listeners with a healthy concern regarding their own listening and listeners fostering the belief that they should be able to place their trust implicitly in a billion-dollar media conglomerate with regard to the types of art they consume. This has been just one of a litany of dichotomies to emerge throughout, arguably due to, the streaming era.
Generally speaking, one would assume that users who express a certain dependence on the “recommended music” function available through most streaming services would take a more hands-off approach regarding curating their playlists. After all, those with very strong musical preferences and opinions are more likely to have internal systems in place pertaining to where and how to track down previously unheard music. To witness the apparent coalescence of these two decidedly incongruous approaches certainly raises more questions than it ever could answer.
Based on cultural and societal indicators over recent years, one could conclude that a certain learned helplessness has emerged amongst some listeners concerning the curation of their respective music libraries. In fact, not so long ago, any dedicated listener outside the broad sphere of manufactured commercial pop music might scoff at the idea of being influenced in terms of the music of which they are listening. Just as the awareness and fostering of the distinct self is a key component in the creation of emotionally reflective artistic output, it is also an inherent element in the perpetual search for new art and content in which consumers are able to effectively see or hear themselves, so to speak.
All this begs the question: At what point was it deemed a necessity for independently motivated music consumers to be hand-held on their journeys of musical discovery? That isn’t to disqualify the potential merits of the “recommended” system entirely in the streaming era. But an apparent reliance on such systems – which are likely exclusively artificially and/or algorithmically generated – implies an erosion of the musical instincts of listeners with regard to their own tastes and preferences. To critique artificially generated content from a moral or economic perspective could be considered a very reasonable stance. However, criticizing such content precisely due to its inability to suss out the inner workings and personal nuances of a listener’s mind reads as a somewhat lazy assessment from both a music consumer and a general observer of society and culture.
When did the discovery of exciting new creative output become such a chore that users began opting to delegate it to a software function? Most listeners can search for their favorite artists through a streaming interface and gain immediate access to everything they’ve ever recorded, including new releases.
With regard to the discovery of new artists, it is not as though content creators with which one may have been previously unfamiliar are particularly difficult to track down in today’s cultural and technological climate. In fact, more content is being generated currently than ever before. Recent reports indicate that, in the streaming era, more new music is being released in a single day in 2024 than was released in the entirety of the 1989 calendar year. Specifically, it is estimated that roughly 120,000 tracks of new material are being released onto streaming services each day in 2024.
This is to say that there are literally more opportunities than ever before to familiarize oneself with a new artist, song, or album. The immense availability and ease of procuring new content would, in theory, render app functions for artist recommendations and custom playlists nearly obsolete. Never mind that, in the physical world, one could likely hurl a stone in any direction and contact an unknown local artist, creating content twice as unique and envelope-pushing than most of what would be available by streaming services.
Yet users remain disgruntled at the perceived inadequacies of a technology utilized in an attempt to outsource the very notion of determining what the users’ tastes are. They will be moving forward – all this while criticizing the very use of the technology itself that purportedly is failing to meet the expectations of the users who claim to have wanted nothing to do with it to begin with. It’s a convoluted mess of ideas that does not necessarily apply to all users who publicly took issue with the outcome of their 2024 Spotify Wrapped.
For listeners incurring challenges to expanding their tastes through the discovery of new content, one may benefit from assessing their own tastes and preferences and the subsequent exploration of material within the periphery. Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan once noted that, in order to truly understand one’s influences, one must delve into the influences of said influence. A wealth of unheard material from previous decades remains available to most listeners. As recent statistics would indicate, there is absolutely no shortage of new content waiting to be consumed by music aficionados.
While many could agree that the Spotify Wrapped assessments—and music streaming as a whole—can leave much to be desired, listeners’ lack of musical exploration and/or engagement with previously unfamiliar work is a casualty of the modern age for which they should be expected to bear at least partial responsibility.
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Learned Helplessness In The Streaming Era article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2024
About The Author
Cameron B. Gunnoe
Cameron B. Gunnoe is an American writer and musician. He holds a B.A. from Concord University and, in his free time, enjoys live music, nonfiction literature, and collecting vinyl. You can reach Cameron on Twitter at @camerongunnoe and on Instagram at @CamGZA.