Why Are All of Spotify’s Most-Streamed Artists Men? • Page 2

Makes me miss Statler and Waldorf though.

 

Laughed out loud at someone stanning Jordan Fucking Peterson in this thread.

My god.

 

I really love the phrase "virtue signalling" because as soon as someone uses it I know never to interact with them ever again

 

After all, it's a historically proven fact that the only way to solve a problem is by pretending it isn't real. After all, asking the privileged to confront the nuances of their behaviors and impacts of the status quo on less privileged groups is just divisive and mean.

Think of their feelings, y'all. Their FEELINGS.

 

Yeah, let’s all feel bad because mega-rich female artists aren’t on a list, as they’re on their way to the bank cashing million dollar checks. Who gives a shit? If you’re looking for something not ridiculous to let ruin your day, this ain’t it, chief.

 

I also like it when’s it’s made in a public way with multiple “bona fides” listed ... in what coulda just as easily been an email. Those that hate virtue signaling are quite good at signaling the opposite.

 

This thread is weirddddddd.

A good sign though, for the month of December, the most streamed artists are Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez.

 

It's wild how people will come in here, deliberately miss the point and still no doubt walk away feeling like they accomplished something.

Wild.

 

I’ve always found that women I know are more likely to listen to a balance of male and female artists then men. I also feel like women I know are more likely to listen to mainstream music then men.

It’s not really related to the article, but in a broad sense, it seems to be the case even when dealing with a wide variety of ages.

 

The difficulty with things like this is we're often looking for a specific effect without knowing the specific cause because of the way these algorithms work nowadays. They're built and maintained by AI experts and even then neural networks have internal layers where they don't really know wtf is going on - which is kind of the point, and that's a real difficulty that needs to be addressed when attempting to solve problems like these ones. I'd say it's the difficulty that tech companies are going to have to face when looking at these issues when interlaced with AI. Obviously the bigger picture is society as a whole which is what these algorithms are rough mirrors of, but if we're going to let algorithms be cultural taste-makers we should at least use that opportunity to have them do it fairly.

Also, this whole AI/algorithm issue is only going to get more complicated as time goes on so we'll see where this all leads us glhf.

 

Spotify’s recommendation system isn’t *that* complicated.

 

don't know if you mean complicated as in conceptually difficult. if so that's not what I mean. I'm talking about actual available information as to the internals of the network - you don't really see what's happening at any meaningful level within inner layers, but that's just more of an example of part of the difficulty. I think this issue goes beyond just spotify's algorithm too, and I do think that issue is complicated.

 

The main take away from my post was basically that a bunch of tech companies just got a bunch of (relatively) new toys and it seems like every other day we're seeing some unintended(?) consequence of playing with them, and I haven't seen a very clear and concise solution to that problem, at least beyond "hey, maybe stop that" - but I don't see companies just throwing all that away, and this gets complicated because there's an inherent randomness in these algorithms, even if they are rough reflections of societal tastes. So I guess I'd like to see more focus (from tech) on how to tweak these algorithms in a way that puts us back on a better path, especially since this shit will get even more complicated with time. I just haven't seen the conversation lean there as much as it should.

 

So, if I'm reading the article correctly, the author thinks that more male artists are streamed because of an AI program Spotify uses? Am I missing something? This seems like an odd angle to take. Instead of looking at the number of releases or something, the author took the stance that it is because people are given a list and a not enough female artists are on it? How strange.

Again, I'm older, so I guess I'd have to compare this to when I'd go to library and there would be like 10-15 books on display at the entrance picked by (I guess?) the staff. Usually there were themes or whatever (depending on month or holiday/event). I might have glanced at them, but usually I knew what I wanted before I went into the library. Perhaps I would have grabbed a book that I wasn't aware about, but that would have more to do with the art, than if the author was female. But, then again, written word and voices going in your ear hole are a bit different. Are people that use Spotify really so used to being force-fed information that they are compelled to listen to things that they don't want? I'd never just grab a book because someone stuck it on a table I walked by.

For music, I like punk-rock stuff and to be honest, there just aren't many female voices that I particularly like for that style. Open City is a semi-recent exception and then medium old Blatz and then super old Avengers. For acoustic type stuff, I don't really see a difference between how a female or male voice sounds, I think stuff that Julien Baker does could not really be done as well by a male (listen to that Death Cab song she made her own) but then again, I think Blake Schwarzenbach songs (who Julien covered) don't really sound right unless he is singing them. I don't use Spotify, so maybe I'm just missing the point, but I'm not going to blindly listen (or not listen) to something because it's suggested.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I enjoy certain types of voices for certain types of music just because that is what I'm used to hearing, like had I heard more female punk singers from that start or had it been more equal earlier on in my life, perhaps I wouldn't even have a preference. I mean, in terms of guitar, bass, drums, song writing, I couldn't give a fuk who wrote it, if I like it, I like it and I'd like to hear more, so I have no issue with who is playing/recording/writing the music, but the voice is something I have a preference for. But, if the computer program told me to adjust my preferences to make me more diverse, I'm not sure I'd listen.

 

I mean short answer, yes, it's obviously more complicated than that, but she addresses that and is focused on this specific problem where there's a gap between collective tastes and exposure (exposure granted by the algorithm). The main problem with that is that exposure is one of the main driving forces in forming collective tastes, if not the most important, so these things snowball into absurd situations where men are collectively receiving vastly more streams even when we're experiencing years with extremely successful female artists. Something is off there, that doesn't add up - arguments like "there are just more male artists" are bunk (not that you said that but I hear it a lot).

The nature of the issue here is the nature of these algorithms, i.e. it's not human staff picking the songs (though they do do that too that's not the issue). As far as being force-fed information, the nature of information is that you have a lot more control over what info you put out vs. what you take in aka how ads basically work. More than that, a lot of people actually like the recommendations as a way of exploring music, not because they're lazy and just want to be force-fed whatever music comes their way. That being said, it's a psychological fact that the more you become exposed to something, even unfamiliar at first, the more you'll come to like it (Mere-exposure effect) - that has direct consequences here.

This is mostly anecdotal tbh. This doesn't have to do with personal taste.

 

Side tangent, I’d like to point out that conversations like “can algorithms even be sexist” are basically immaterial philosophical debates on intent and a distraction from the point that regardless, they have material effects on peoples’ lives. And yes, application of language is inevitably important but priorities

 

I don’t have Spotify or anything like that because I like to choose my own music. People getting upset Skynet is weird to me because I think it’s a function that can easily be avoided. I still discover my new music by recommendation or research. So many bands have music online, and sites this one,
Chorus, have music suggestion and discssiuon constantly. And it’s pretty diverse. I’d rather sample new artists to me off the top 50 albums list, the let Spotify just keep spitting out music.

 

I took a good while and typed up a couple of paragraphs but I'm too nervous for my thoughts to be misinterpreted on the internet so I'll just say:

I do hope something meaningful can be done to help with fair representation of all types of artists on streaming platforms

but

I think this article could be better written.

 

I think common sense gets lost on n a lot of these situations.

The “why” factor gets thrown out when people look at these things. Sometimes they look towards fairness and equality and sometimes they turn a blind eye to it.

If you care about the music you listen to, dig in and find find what you relate to genre wise, stylistically, vocally, whatever you enjoy and relate to.

If music is just fun filler, then turn on the radio, or let Spotify pick what you’re going to listen to. In the old days of radio, whoever had the contacts and the money paid to have their songs played.

The best usually have a way of sticking around for a very long time. I get exposure helps and we all want equal opportunity, but if you look back to the when punk took off in the mainstream it’s because they guys were working hard and were DIY. It required more work to get their shot, and they had to take advantage of a opportunity (grunge and Nirvana taking off), but if it weren’t for Epitaph/Bad Religion lots of bands would have missed an opportunity.

 

This is a good summary of how it feels to comment on articles in 2018. Being nervous that your thoughts will be misinterpreted tends to dissuade people from engaging in conversations because comment sections have mainly turned into a competition to see who is the most "woke" and "enlightened" rather than engaging in relevant and constructive conversation.

 

damn dudes are wildin in this thread huh

 

Yeah I should have bowed out after my first post my b

 

no tbh i skimmed your posts but from what i got from them i was not talking about you

 

Yeah just don’t want to pollute other voices in here. I do personally find this specific topic really interesting, if that’s the right word, it’s important.

 

It’s really funny when people think they can’t comment because it will be misinterpreted when in reality you probably just have a shitty take and it’s getting interpreted exactly how you said it.