Spotify’s playlists have altered the music industry in unexpected ways

A few years after Spotify’s founding in 2006, executives commissioned a study. It revealed that many listeners were using the streaming service as background accompaniment to the quotidian activities, from workouts to ironing, that filled their days—and nights. (Sleeping playlists boomed.) Rather than use it actively as a digital jukebox, many were happy to outsource to Spotify the work of deciding what to hear next. The company hired editors to build playlists and tweaked its platform to nudge passive listeners towards them. Spotify came to see its only competition as “silence”, according to one insider.

That changed incentives for musicians, too, especially as streaming supplanted other forms of listening: it now accounts for 84% of global recorded-music revenues. The 30-second threshold to trigger royalty payments encouraged “streambait”—music with early hooks designed to stop listeners skipping. (One such song, “Rockstar” by Post Malone, was issued with a remix that consisted of nothing but loops of the catchy chorus.) As playlists became more important, the firm spawned a new genre, which critics dubbed “Spotify-core”: pensive, mid-tempo songs that suit placement on multiple playlists. (Think Billie Eilish, an American singer.)

Popular playlists yank together music from different eras, places and backgrounds in the service of a frictionless “vibe”. This smooths away connection and context, argues Liz Pelly, an American journalist, in her sceptical account of Spotify’s shift from scrappy startup to Goliath with a lust for algorithmic personalisation.

Novelty suffers, too. By one estimate nearly three-quarters of streamed songs are over 18 months old. Compared with the raucous explosion of genres that characterised popular music until the 2000s—hip hop in all its iterations, the innovation of golden-era British dance music—contemporary music can seem oddly flat.

Some musicians have been delighted when an old B-side is added to a favoured playlist, generating a surprise windfall. But others have contorted their efforts to suit human curators or algorithms with impenetrable preferences, to little success. For listeners of a less engaged bent, the lack of friction is the point. “If a user comes to the platform every night for a playlist called ‘Chill Vibes’…it matters very little what is actually found” on it, Ms Pelly writes.

That insight sparked another. Spotify may have revived the fortunes of ailing record labels by persuading users to pay for music, but it was struggling to make money itself. Enter “Perfect Fit Content”, or PFC. In Ms Pelly’s telling, based on accounts from former employees, Spotify commissioned jobbing musicians, often operating under fake names, to produce formulaic fodder at cheap rates, bypassing labels. (“The goal for sure is to be as milquetoast as possible,” explains one musician.) In-house curators were encouraged to replace major-label fare on playlists with cheaper PFC content. Ms Pelly predicts a wave of AI-generated music will be next.

Spotify has already been moving away from curated playlists towards AI-powered personalisation: algorithmically compiled streams of music optimised for the circumstances of the individual listener. Thus bewildering micro-genres present only on Spotify, such as “metropopolis” or “braindance”, flourished. Some listeners, weary of homogeneous, unchallenging streams of music, switch off. But most do not. Spotify now claims over 640m active monthly users worldwide, despite regularly hiking its subscription fees. It has invested deeply in podcasts and is dipping into audiobooks. Last year the company was reportedly on track to turn its first profit; Daniel Ek, its co-founder, has a net worth higher than that of Taylor Swift.

Ms Pelly’s sympathies sit firmly with the indie labels and artists that have struggled to find a footing in the streaming world. Musicians in America and elsewhere have begun to organise against what they regard as Spotify’s punishingly low rates and its growing “pay-to-play” business model, which involves artists and labels accepting lower royalty rates in exchange for inclusion in certain playlists.

If some of Ms Pelly’s allegations of disingenuity against Spotify seem overwrought, she convincingly argues that it has reshaped both the economics of music and the culture of listening. Overlooked, perhaps, is the role of consumer choice. For the casual listener, armed with a smartphone and a cheap subscription, the frictionless convenience of streaming can be unbeatable. Not all have been hoodwinked by Spotify. It may be tough on musicians; it may not be great for musical innovation. But listeners are voting with their ears.

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