Automatic curation wasn’t very good. Pandora and other tools tried to do it, and they had some success, but it wasn’t like having a friend who would say “oh, you like X, you should really listen to Y”.
Pandora and similar tools would say “oh, you listened to X, you must like music with distortion on the guitar, a lead female singer…”. But, that kind of soul-less take on music often meant the suggestions were really bad. Yes, in n-dimensional space, it was able to find music that was a short distance from other music. But, that’s not why people like what they like.
So, discovery really was (and still is) a problem that needs solving. But, the bigger issue is money.
A lot of people want to make money from music. Even musicians sometimes care about money. But, honestly, a lot of them would be making music regardless of the money, as long as they could afford to feed themselves.
The real people who care about money are the companies that own the IP for the music. They want you to listen to their music because when you do that they get paid. That means their goal isn’t for you to find something you enjoy listening to, it’s for you to select something that they make money from. That also means they want to interfere with anything that might make good suggestions for you because it might direct you away from what makes them money.
So, now on one side you have companies that want to sell you a tool that exactly meets your music desires, by believably simulating emotion, playing ability, and everything else, but one that can only interpolate from what it has been trained on, and can never innovate. On the other side are the companies that want you to choose anything you want, as long as it’s from their catalogue and they make some money from it, and if it’s not from their catalogue they’d prefer you never hear it. Everyone sucks here.
I’m not so sure automated curation is “not very good”.
The #1 response I see from people about leaving Spotify and other services in favor of directly buying from artists is… Discoverbility of new music.
While I personally prefer music discovery through friends, local venues, Tiny Desk Concerts, KEXP, and other human led experiences; I will not discount how valuable and the usefulness of the Music Genome Project and Pandora, or Spotify/Tidal/etc music discovery tools. And I’ll also AIT that some of my favorite music has come through these automated tools.
The #1 response I see from people about leaving Spotify and other services in favor of directly buying from artists is… Discoverbility of new music.
I’m not sure if this sentence is saying people are leaving Spotify because it’s bad for discoverability, or not leaving because other methods are bad for discoverability, or what.
But, assuming you’re saying that people keep using Spotify because it helps them discover new music. Sure, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m just saying it’s not very good, and it’s not a solved problem. It’s better than nothing, and if you directly buy from artists what you’re left with is basically nothing.
Personally, I’ve never found any new artist I care about via a tool. I found Too Many Zoos through viral social media. I love their stuff. I don’t remember how I heard about Khruangbin, but it also have been social media. I don’t think a tool would have found either of those for me because I wasn’t listening to anything that sounded like them.
So, now on one side you have companies that want to sell you a tool that exactly meets your music desires, by believably simulating emotion, playing ability, and everything else, but one that can only interpolate from what it has been trained on, and can never innovate.
Well, it also stretched the preception of authenticity to near breaking point.
Many don’t really think about it, but a reason why many listen to music is the assumption that it’s someone expressing authentic ideas, whether its the lyrics or the beat or something else. Music is a story. It moves lisateners because they connect it to something in their lives, however trivial it may be.
Songs completely, automatically artifically generated are neat if you don’t know that, and many listeners don’t. But that ignorance is not sustainable. Beyond “background music” or some Tiktok-like ephemeral dopamine, what’s the point of music where the whole story is a lie?
FYI I’m not coming at this from the pure “anti-AI angle,” and I think machine learning as a tool for artists (especially small artists) is interesting.
What I’m asserting is that “generated music” path is completely unsustainable. It’s self destructive, in the short term, and it will lose attention to other forms of media. And I think that makes it completely from the “broken IP hoarding” music model. As dysfunctional as it is, it has endured forever.
Automatic curation wasn’t very good. Pandora and other tools tried to do it, and they had some success, but it wasn’t like having a friend who would say “oh, you like X, you should really listen to Y”.
Pandora and similar tools would say “oh, you listened to X, you must like music with distortion on the guitar, a lead female singer…”. But, that kind of soul-less take on music often meant the suggestions were really bad. Yes, in n-dimensional space, it was able to find music that was a short distance from other music. But, that’s not why people like what they like.
So, discovery really was (and still is) a problem that needs solving. But, the bigger issue is money.
A lot of people want to make money from music. Even musicians sometimes care about money. But, honestly, a lot of them would be making music regardless of the money, as long as they could afford to feed themselves.
The real people who care about money are the companies that own the IP for the music. They want you to listen to their music because when you do that they get paid. That means their goal isn’t for you to find something you enjoy listening to, it’s for you to select something that they make money from. That also means they want to interfere with anything that might make good suggestions for you because it might direct you away from what makes them money.
So, now on one side you have companies that want to sell you a tool that exactly meets your music desires, by believably simulating emotion, playing ability, and everything else, but one that can only interpolate from what it has been trained on, and can never innovate. On the other side are the companies that want you to choose anything you want, as long as it’s from their catalogue and they make some money from it, and if it’s not from their catalogue they’d prefer you never hear it. Everyone sucks here.
I’m not so sure automated curation is “not very good”.
The #1 response I see from people about leaving Spotify and other services in favor of directly buying from artists is… Discoverbility of new music.
While I personally prefer music discovery through friends, local venues, Tiny Desk Concerts, KEXP, and other human led experiences; I will not discount how valuable and the usefulness of the Music Genome Project and Pandora, or Spotify/Tidal/etc music discovery tools. And I’ll also AIT that some of my favorite music has come through these automated tools.
I’m not sure if this sentence is saying people are leaving Spotify because it’s bad for discoverability, or not leaving because other methods are bad for discoverability, or what.
But, assuming you’re saying that people keep using Spotify because it helps them discover new music. Sure, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m just saying it’s not very good, and it’s not a solved problem. It’s better than nothing, and if you directly buy from artists what you’re left with is basically nothing.
Personally, I’ve never found any new artist I care about via a tool. I found Too Many Zoos through viral social media. I love their stuff. I don’t remember how I heard about Khruangbin, but it also have been social media. I don’t think a tool would have found either of those for me because I wasn’t listening to anything that sounded like them.
Well, it also stretched the preception of authenticity to near breaking point.
Many don’t really think about it, but a reason why many listen to music is the assumption that it’s someone expressing authentic ideas, whether its the lyrics or the beat or something else. Music is a story. It moves lisateners because they connect it to something in their lives, however trivial it may be.
Songs completely, automatically artifically generated are neat if you don’t know that, and many listeners don’t. But that ignorance is not sustainable. Beyond “background music” or some Tiktok-like ephemeral dopamine, what’s the point of music where the whole story is a lie?
FYI I’m not coming at this from the pure “anti-AI angle,” and I think machine learning as a tool for artists (especially small artists) is interesting.
What I’m asserting is that “generated music” path is completely unsustainable. It’s self destructive, in the short term, and it will lose attention to other forms of media. And I think that makes it completely from the “broken IP hoarding” music model. As dysfunctional as it is, it has endured forever.