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The Hardcore Scene and Hope Among the Algorithms [1]

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Date: 2023-03-13

The other day I read an article about the resurgence of a music scene labeled hardcore. The article was nothing unusual for the genre, a well-written look at a specific music scene on the rise through the prism of a handful of bands, promotors, and producers. It traced the scene's history, influences, primary drivers and projected future. Since it was well-written, I could tell that the music was deeply influenced by the post-punk and alternative music of my misspent youth and thus would contain a lot of acts I would enjoy. Since this is the age of the internet, the author included a Spotify playlist of songs the author considered representative of the scene, proving my intuition correct. I added almost every song on the playlist to my own Spotify library. And therein lies the hope for the humble human creative amongst the forest of algorithms.

I pay for Spotify and use it all the time. I listen to music and podcasts while working, while working out, while driving, while writing. I am listening, in fact, as I type this (the Stars "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" is playing as I type this sentence, for the terminally curious). I listed to playlists I have curated myself, I "like" songs as I encounter them, I let Spotify add songs to my playlists, and react to those songs. My playlists and library are littered with old-school punk, new wave, alternative, and neo-punk bands. Those are not the only things I listen to, but they are a significant portion of my musical accompaniment.

And not a single band from the hardcore scene, despite their obvious connections to those genres, has ever shown up in any of the myriad recommendations Spotify has provided to me. The human who wrote the article could make the connection easily, as could I. It was clear to anyone who knew that corner of the music world that people who liked specific kinds of music from the 80s and 90s would find this music form the late teens and early 20s enjoyable. It has much the same energy, some of the same musical quirks, and shares a way of approaching melodies, beats and tempo that, while not a copy, is certainly an echo. An echo that Spotify's algorithms could not hear, apparently.

I suppose I could claim that my taste is so unique and special that only the finest musical curation could possibly hope to find music good enough for my golden ears. But that would be pretentious nonsense. There is nothing special about me or my taste. The music I listened growing up was played on radio stations and mostly sold in record stores at the local mall. The hardcore scene, while not the largest, is still a scene, large enough to get press in a semi-mainstream outlet. No, this isn't music by and for Yak herders and cave dwelling hermits.

One of two things is going on here. It is possible that Spotify cannot see the obvious connections between these bands. That their algorithms do not notice the similarities that the human collator does. Or perhaps the algorithm isn't trying to find new things for me to hear. Perhaps someone at Spotify has decided or determined that it is better for their bottom line if Spotify merely suggests old favorites or variations on old themes. The closer to what I listen to today, the thinking may be, the more likely I am to come back to the service. They might even have numbers that purport to prove the contention.

Either way, incompetence or malice, the failure of Spotify to make this obvious connection for me highlights the space for human creativity. Spotify is either not capable of making me as happy as I could be with the service or not interested in making me as happy as I could be. A human being is either better at finding music that I would like, or Spotify doesn't care to do so, thinking their bottom line is better served by giving me only the familiar. Spotify is wrong, of course. The new is what keeps me coming back to music -- the old favorites are not enough by themselves. And a human being is still the best way to make those connections, for whatever reason.

This may not always be the case. Spotify may have a change in direction, or, if the fault lies in the math, the math may improve. One of the constants in computer science is that we seldom have any idea what is a hard problem and what is an easy problem. It might be that the problem is easy to solve with more data. Or it might be that the problem is intractable no matter how much information we shovel into Spotify's maw.

But until we know for sure, there is some comfort in the fact that the human ear, at least, still has worth. The math has not made us all redundant yet.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/13/2157396/-The-Hardcore-Scene-and-Hope-Among-the-Algorithms

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