Spotify Wrapped has some darker undertones
It's time they started getting the Big Tech treatment
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It's the Christmas break and everyone is winding down after the difficult time over the last 2 years, so I will finish off the year with a less intense piece.
Christmas or early December also means it was time for Spotify's brilliant marketing project, devised by an intern who claims she never got the credit she deserves, Spotify Wrapped. Spotify Wrapped supposedly takes all the music and podcasts you've listened to in the last year and makes some personalised infographic-like cards that you can share with people on social media (it comes out early December, so we don't really know if it includes December?).
If you're on any social media sites on the release day, you either see people proudly showing off their music tastes, or with a faux embarrassment of 'Yes I listen to [Insert embarrassing artist], what am I like, I'm so cringe lmaooo'. Either way, it's another marketing medium for Big Tech to package your data they have on you in a friendly way to show you what makes you, you.
But realistically, how unique is our music taste now? And is there really anything nefarious about tracking our music like this?
We are more influenced by music streaming providers than we think
This is more of a smaller gripe I have with music streaming services in general, and this probably more me being the angry old man screaming at the clouds.
The thing I found about the Spotify Wrapped is that the first year it dropped, in 2017, was by far the most interesting one. I remember comparing with my friends and our music was genuinely different.
But overtime, especially this year, I find that most people's Spotify Wrapped is not that different. Sure everyone has that one standout artist, but in general, I would look at my friends Spotify Wrapped and they all basically looked the same. Maybe back in 2017 it maybe felt different because it was the first time it our music listening habits were displayed to us in such a manner (although I've been using last.fm as my music tracking source for a number of years - judge my taste all you want).
Prior to Spotify and streaming in general, I primarily listened to what my friends around me listened to - with the odd random discover from YouTube. Since streaming, platforms like Spotify, Apple, Tidal, etc. came into the game, they have a large role in the discoverability of music.
When I open Tidal (the music streaming platform I pay for), the music they show and the playlists they've made heavily influence what I will play next. Unless I have a very specific song stuck in my head, I do just pick one of the couple of options shown to me.
But then that begs the question: How much of the recommended music is truly because the streaming platform thinks we will like the song? How much of it is because a specific music label or artist pays the music streaming platform?
Spotify is known to 'boost' a song if the artist was willing to give up royalties - meaning that the song is more likely to come up in your recommended playlists because the artist was paying Spotify. I've written about algorithmic bias in the past - and it has been suggested that there is a gender bias in the algorithm that recommends music in Spotify's algorithm. Spotify has also been accused of having bias against certain music genres, like Caribbean Music. Algorithms for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms have been, or are currently being, scrutinised - however Spotify (and other music platforms) gets away with it.
Due to how much influence platforms like Spotify (remember that horrendous Drake promo?) has on the music we see when we open the application, Spotify has been massively influencing what we've been listening to - and I feel like that's led to the homogenous-ness of everyone's current music listening habits.
This isn't necessarily bad - I have definitely discovered music through these algorithms that I don't think I otherwise would have discovered (although personally nothing beats a personal recommendation from a friend). Being homogenous in our media consumption is definitely the norm at the moment. However I do feel like an element of personality is now lost when it comes to music.
The thing in Spotify Wrapped that bugged me out the most was the idea of 'Audio Aura'. This was Spotify trying to add a mood from your music listening habits. That reaches into the weird part of Big Tech where they analyse your behaviour, and that doesn't sit right with me.
Spotify has advertising roots - and are an ad-selling company
One thing many people do not realise is that the two Spotify founders had nothing to do with the music industry. Spotify was founded by Daniel Ek, who has a background in creating an online advertising company and Martin Lorentzon, who was a co-founder of the online advertising company TradeDoubler.
Yes I know, just because two people once worked in advertising doesn't mean that they can't do anything else in life. But hear me out. Big Tech companies are funded by advertising, and we know that Spotify has a free tier with adverts and a paid version without ads. When something is being funded by advertising, it can mean that your data is being sold off to data brokers - companies who collect lots of data on people, package them, and sell them off to others (I wrote about the dangers of data brokers previously). Spotify is known to work with data brokers, so we know that the data of the free users at the very least, is being sold off to data brokers.
With data brokers, the more hyper specific the information on an individual, the more it is worth. A data broker is more likely to pay more for your information if they knew for sure that you are looking to buy some running shoes than if you might like chocolate. So the more hyper specific information big tech companies like Spotify can provide on you to these data brokers, the more money they can make.
Which probably makes sense why Spotify has been studying on how to determine your personality from the music you listen to. I've already stated earlier that music is part of your personality, but this is slightly different. Using the information of how you organise your music in playlists and the type of music you listen to, Spotify can determine your personality into 5 buckets: Conscientious-ness, Open-ness, Agreeable-ness, Emotional Stability and Extraversion. These 5 groups were the personalities that they used for the study, however that doesn't mean they can't expand the groups of personalities. Imagine pairing this with your current mood? Well Spotify has filed a patent where it listens to you and uses voice recognition to determine what your current mood is. Oh, also Spotify execs have openly said they track where you listen to music to as well, among other things.
With your personality, location and current mood locked down, Spotify has valuable and fairly specific information on you that data brokers will be all over. So when I saw the 'Aura' in the Spotify Wrapped, it was the first window into Spotify normalising the idea of your mood being identified from your music listening habits. Once these things are normalised, it's too late (look at Facebook and Google tracking you online!).
If you consider that Spotify can determine your mood, your personality and can also prompt you/heavily influence what you listen to then what does that mean? If people have a more homogeneous music listening habits due to the music recommendation algorithms, does it make it easier to control their emotions? Do Spotify know how everyone is feeling at any given time? What can they do with that information?
Maybe I am being a bit dramatic (I really can't help myself), but with revelations every other day about how big tech is influencing the way we live our lives and how we feel, it's about time we start scrutinising music streaming platforms like Spotify for what they are; Big Tech companies that should be scrutinised for the information they collect.
Let's be honest though, it's all worth it in the end because artists actually get paid, right? Oh wait, no they definitely do not.
If you have a better idea than I do, if I’ve missed out anything or you think I am talking absolute rubbish, feel free to reach out either by commenting on the post, or by emailing me on tanvirtalks@substack.com
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