I’m far from opposed to technology in music. Far from it, actually. I fully embrace Kraftwerk’s idea of music as the product of a mechanistic process, and most of the bands that I truly love follow this model to some extent. Give me well-produced music over well-played music any day.
I want these feelings to be clear so that I don’t come off as a complete Luddite when I say that while I love technology’s impact on what we listen to, I have serious misgivings about its impact on how we listen. Perhaps the worst offender is Pandora, the Internet “radio station” which uses an algorithm that they call the Musical Genome to tailor the listening experience completely to an individual’s tastes. Many people will fail to see the issue with giving people what they want, seeing this simply as good business practice. This may be true for a restaurant or auto shop. But at the risk of sounding overly romantic, music isn’t just a commodity, it is an art form.
While defining the nature of art is well beyond the scope of this article, I believe that one important function it serves is to offer a lens through which to see the world. Every song is a look into the artist’s perspective on the world. “The artist” can be a singer, instrumentalist, producer, an entire record label, or (most often) some combination of the above. The beauty in music comes from the combination of so many different visions into a cohesive and unique worldview. Seeing music in this way exposes us to a literally infinite number of perspectives. By sheltering the listener from all worldviews except the ones with which they are comfortable, Pandora-style listening only gives us one perspective.
It's possible that I am being too hard on Pandora. I am certainly not saying that anyone who ever uses it is “wrong.” There are positive aspects of the system. When learning about a new style or sound it is one of the best tools available to a listener. For the most part it is an excellently designed system. The layout is exceptional, allowing the site to be at once easy-to-use, informative, and attractive. And whenever I make a “station” for a sound or band that I like, the results are certainly enjoyable. If it wasn’t so effective I would not be writing this. Pandora is problematic because it works so well that it has engrained itself into our culture and shaped how we view music.
To be fair, catering to listeners’ sensibilities started well before Pandora. Radio stations have been analyzing markets and matching up their playlists with what their audience wants since long before the Internet Age. But Pandora-style listening takes this to a startling level and adds a number of troubling new elements.
One of the most important aspects of music-as-art is the synthesis of words, beats, melody, production, even packaging and distribution, into something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Pandora cares only about the parts. Their explanations for why a certain song is played on a certain station read more like a stock inventory than anything else. By reducing music to so little, Pandora strips it of all meaning. It is for this reason that I am far more critical of Pandora than I am of similar services such as Last.fm, which bases “similar songs” off of user tags rather than a formula. Many of the same problems still exist, but there is at least a human element and the sense of community that music thrives on.
The destruction of this community is another danger of Pandora. Perhaps music’s greatest strength over other forms of art is that it is so public. It pervades our daily life at every turn and can’t be dismissed by simply looking away. I have quite a few musical and ideological problems with punk, but it was excellent at confrontation. The Sex Pistols playing “God Save the Queen” at Elizabeth II’s birthday party is an excellent case. No matter how you feel about the statement made by the Sex Pistols, it couldn’t have been made by any other art form.
Unfortunately, insularity is more and more engrained in our musical culture. We are more capable of and eager to shut out what we find to be unpleasant. While personal music players are much older and more responsible, the effect of Pandora is still significant and perhaps more sinister. While iPods and Walkmen before them allow us to exist in isolation, we do so only temporarily. But with Pandora, each station serves as a miniature musical world that revolves completely around us. Further, we can truly make this world our own; fine-tuning it to encourage certain songs and banish others. If one is dedicated enough, they can make it perfectly mirror their sensibilities. It is exceptionalism at its finest.
This insularity puts music completely in servitude to the listener. Not only does this make for a profoundly dull experience, it simply isn’t how art works. It isn’t even how life works. Consider a world where people go out of their way to interact with music they find repulsive, whether that is bubblegum pop, twangy country, or the blackest metal. Probably it wouldn’t lead to many converts, but it might lead to understanding. At the very least it would help us contextualize just why we like what we do listen to.
Perhaps I’m going too far, but I think that it would also lead to more openness in other aspects of life as well. After all, the problem with Pandora-style listening is the exact same problem with conservatives who get their information exclusively from Fox News. As a whole, our culture is far too prone to sticking its head in the sand when confronted with anything unpleasant. By refusing to challenge ourselves we refuse to grow in any meaningful sense. The instant-gratification and individual-centered nature of Pandora encourages this regression. By refusing to consider anything that upsets our established views, we cheat ourselves both musically and personally.
