Have you ever heard of Daniel Ek?
This man used his background in advertising to co-found a major international advertising company called Spotify. Spotify’s original patent was for a free streaming media library funded through advertising, and in early interviews (before he tried to pose as a music lover) Ek described how music would be the “traffic source” of this venture. Now of course, audiobooks and podcasts have also fallen prey to this greedy billionaire.
As someone who truly doesn’t know who they’d be without music, hearing some guy who has exploited music to build a net worth of $9.2 billion describe this art as a “traffic source” is a stab to the heart. Daniel Ek transformed the beloved, sociable art form of music into a hyper-commercialised space, where pre-made playlists direct people’s taste in music and foster a culture of passive listening and disregard for the artist.
The Art of The Perfect Order
When I was studying for the HSC, in an effort to combat my boredom, I played music.
Everybody was telling me that I couldn’t possibly be focused with music like Baby Drummer by Bad Nerves blasting in my ears… Focused? Who said anything about being focused?
Still, I took their seemingly innocent advice and searched up two fateful words in the Spotify search bar… “study playlist”. Knowing what I know now, I should have been charged with heinous crimes against the love of music on the spot. But I wasn’t. Because I was on Spotify. “Chill” pre-made playlists are at the heart of Spotify’s success and they are the cancer spreading passivity across listeners.
Spotify-made playlists have popularised “functional music” for daily “moments” such as studying, sleeping, cleaning, and different “vibes”, while skimping out on paying artists fair royalties, and creating “ghost artists” to increase their profits. These curated playlists encourage passive listening, a term discussed by Liz Pelly in her book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. This causes people to stream music all day as measly background noise, without really listening to or engaging with the art. But Spotify doesn’t care. As Ek once said, “Our only competitor is silence,” not even other streaming services like Apple Music. It’s evident that this anti-silence mindset has trickled down into the public, because in 2023 it was reported that users were listening to a collective 3 million hours of white noise a day.
But, as all capitalist success stories love to do, music streaming sickened us, then sold us the all-in-one cure.
‘Please excuse this quick word from our sponsors.’
Where's my shoe?
A ballad of oh so many parts
Part One: my sixth sense
My shoe came off.
There was nothing I could do.
Sometimes you must accept the inevitable…
I’m going home with one shoe.
Part Two: hope
Someone a few meters away holds up my shoe.
Part Three: “That’s mine!”
I barge through the people.
The arm holding my shoe is pushed further away.
Finally, my beer and dirt covered, falling apart, used-to-be-white Lacoste is mine again.
Part Four: it’s not all easy once you’re reunited
Putting on my shoe in a Dune Rats mosh is difficult – no matter how much we love each other.
Especially when I haven’t been able to untie the laces in about a year and a half.
Part Five: shit
I’ve lost it again.
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‘Now back to your scheduled program.’
These premade “functional playlists” have even gotten into ‘going out’ territory.
I typed “going out playlist” into Spotify and what came up was a playlist with “music picked just for me”, called Hype Getting Ready Mix. Scrolling through the playlist, I noticed most of the songs were already downloaded to my device, meaning the algorithm had simply taken songs that I listened to often and called it “customisation”.
I have two problems with this.
The first: it’s fucking scary!
How does Spotify know the songs I listen to before a night out? I cannot be the only person that thinks it’s weird that an app knows what songs get me into a certain state of mind more than, say, my own brother.
Categorising music through an algorithm diminishes it as a form of self-expression. It reminds me of TikTok and Instagram reels, and the way these apps give you no autonomy over what video you watch next. The Big Brother algorithm notices what you’ve lingered on or interacted with, through likes and comments, but it doesn’t let you choose.
It’s spooky to me how okay everybody is with this. Some people even want it.
Which leads me to the second: limiting choice.
I love talking to people about their music taste and finding artists and albums that are new to me, but this is suppressed by an algorithm jamming the songs I already listen to down my throat.
Music that I love is what boosts my mood, what makes me excited as I’m getting ready. But I don’t like the feeling that I’m being watched and analysed.
Thanks to streaming, have we developed an insatiable need to collate everything we listen to in one place, with no patience to discover anything? Or is streaming only there to fulfil this need for ‘efficiency’?
I think it’s the former.
In the wise words of Rob Gordon (High Fidelity), “The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. And it takes ages longer than it might seem.” In this section of the novel, by Nick Hornby, Gordon is talking about the subtle art and rules behind curating a good mixtape; because like on an album, the order isn’t accidental. This care and love seems to be lost to people’s never ending, anything-you-heard-this-week, 106-hour Spotify playlists. People have lost the appreciation for song orders as an art form. Especially if you’re making them for somebody else; as Rob puts it, “You’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel.”
So, what are you feeling? ‘Chill’? ‘Hyped’?
I’m Not a Hoarder, I’m Sentimental
To me, it doesn’t seem like this efficiency was ever a real issue. And I don’t think anyone with a well-kept vinyl collection thinks so either. Records, CDs and cassettes are fun! I enjoy going into the record shop and digging through everything, or ordering an album because it’s my favourite and I want to own it. Seeing the album on my shelf whenever I walk into my room, just the sight of it, makes me happy before even listening to the songs themselves. That’s a love I’ve come to realise a lot of people just don’t understand.
Growing up, my older brother and I were obsessed with So Fresh CDs, and it was quite emotional going through our collection to write this piece, looking at all the songs we loved. I can’t get the vague memories out of my head, of summer afternoons going to the local pool, in the back of the red Holden Commodore station wagon, listening to So Fresh.
Dynamite by Taio Cruz and I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas were the songs my brother and I played the most, and they were the soundtrack of our famous ‘Boot Parties’. From the street out the back of our house, you could see New Year’s fireworks which dotted the horizon. So every New Year’s, my best friend’s family would come over and us kids would camp out in the boot of the good old stationwagon, with Dynamite and I Gotta Feeling on repeat as we played board games well into the night; not falling asleep till after the 9 o’clock festivities.
Money Money Money… not by ABBA
Of course, Spotify’s billionaire co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek would get AI weaponry involved in a music streaming service – they just go hand in hand, don’t they?
Ek has been a billion-dollar investor in German military technology company, Helsing, and is now the company’s chairman. Since Russia’s invasion, Helsing has provided Ukraine with strike drones that use AI systems for target acquisition and navigation. This has prompted many artists to boycott Spotify by taking down their catalogue from the platform. The Aussie band ‘King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’ are among these artists, and have since promoted a demo collection exclusive to Bandcamp, an alternative music distribution platform for artists with independent record labels. As admirable as it is, King Gizz’ are in a unique position. Eric Moore, one of the band’s founding members and ex-drummer, is the founder of Flightless Records, an independent record label that the band have released most of their music through. This means they don’t have the contractual obligations of being on Spotify that many artists with label deals have. King Gizz’ also have the privilege of being a very successful touring band who don’t rely on Spotify royalties.
As explained by Jake Saunders, Joyful Noise Recordings’ label manager, “For developing artists and labels, Spotify is held as a priority across several sectors of the industry. Our only hope is that Spotify becomes so uncool that people start to discover music elsewhere”. Saunders also brings up the crucial component of choice that Spotify is seemingly trying to make us forget about: “We serve the artist, and it’s their right to decide what platforms to sell their music on.”
Fenn Wilson, another Aussie artist to boycott Spotify, said: “I’ve always seen music as a sort of reflection of myself… If it’s available on something that doesn’t reflect who I am, then I don’t think that it has a place there…To corrupt something that somebody has made with beautiful intent that harshly is unforgivable.”
“All my music in one place,” aye, Spotify? I guess other people’s morals didn’t cross your mind.
A Beautiful Metaphor to Conclude
At a Wunderhorse gig I was at last year, at The Enmore, the mosh was fantastic and the band were all so into it that a fan got up on the stage and started thrashing around on the spot. A seccy stormed in from the left, grabbed this guy and started ripping him away. Jacob Slater (the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter) grabbed the guy’s arm and tried to pull him back onto the stage. I know the seccy was just doing his job, but everyone was just having a good time. The seccy left and the guy was fucking ecstatic, jumped all over Slater, gave him a kiss, and they both had the biggest smiles on their faces. It was brilliant to watch.
It was the embodiment of mutual love and appreciation.
How did passive listening become so widespread? All the best art, music included, comes from people who feel so much. People who genuinely care about things which, in turn, makes others feel seen. The Romantics cared, soul singers care, punks care, EDM artists care, rock stars care, emos care, rappers care, showtune artists care – I could go on. Their passion is exciting. Great musicians can make you get up and dance, or sit and bawl your bloody eyes out.
People need art in ways these tech billionaires and passive listeners will never understand. Yes, big corporations will continue to exploit and objectify artists and their music. They will stay in their capitalist lane and expand their hyper-commercialism to people too lazy to really listen. But money isn’t all it’s worth. Maybe the fact that so many don’t appreciate it, makes me love music even more.
Industry greed keeps music pure and special to the people who genuinely care.
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