There’s definitely something weird going on, let me write (to explain) what happened to me yesterday.

First, read that tweet I made and I’ll explain below:

As I usually do, almost on daily basis while I’m exercising, I pick a favorite or a new song and go to Spotify and listen to it. Then I usually choose a radio according to this track, to keep me company while exercising, as I realized, the last years that I use Spotify, that the algorithm will not fail me.

But, yesterday it did! And guess what, it failed me with all new Taylor Swift songs.

Let me explain it better. I chose to listen to a radio based on the new Jamie XX song, with Honey Dijon “Baddy on the floor”. Neither of the above artists have anything to do with Taylor Swift, her sound or anything at all. But the playlist that appeared (in my thinking and used to what those lists sound like, it would be something between electronic sounds and house music) contained not one but 5 Taylor Swift songs from her new ‘Tortured’ album. And if the algorithm chooses tunes similar to my tastes and downloads, Taylor is not in them. I appreciate the artist and everything she does, but it is not my taste of music to listen to, moreover not while I take my bicycle for a 30km run.

That was really awkward! I should have kept screenshots! Because this morning as I opened the above list (that I tweeted about) all those 5 songs were missing and they were replaced by Jungle tunes (i have their Volcano album downloaded on Spotify). This whole incident left me wondering what the fuck is going on? Of course this list based on Jamie XX wasn’t exactly what I was looking for (as it contained other Pop singles like Beyonce, Artemas etc., singles that I have listened to and artists that I support more than Taylor) but it was really weird that 5 songs appeared on a Spotify made list. Based on Jamie XX? The algorithm does not fail like this! And they were removed to Jungle songs because I have their album downloaded within hours? Please….

So, in conclusion, this whole Spotify set up, left me wondering if it’s the algorithm that had a glitch or they force me to listen to whatever they want to? Because the billion streams don’t just happen in a week. It reminded me of the older U2 incident where their album appeared on all Apple music and iTunes subscibers , cause the company paid for it to appear on everyone’s account. And guess what, it is the same record company. Think about it for a while.

It’s not that I’m against the artist, but lately as I keep track of things and what is happening in the music and record company industry it appears that all those streaming music services impose on what people choose to listen to. It’s like they’re messing with our brain, our music taste, everything we like that they want to alter. Is this the new era? Is this how we are going to consume music from now on? I mean, we went to those audio streaming services to listen to our favorite music, to discover new artists and everything else in between, and now they will insert whatever they want to inside our paid services? That is definitely not what we paid for.