I’m a huge Spotify fan. As a GenX’er, I love ’80s arena rock – Queen, Van Halen, AC/DC, Journey, Yes – you get the picture. Spotify feeds my hard rock nostalgia hunger. Spotify released a new feature earlier this year called DJ that is essentially an AI bot that examines your musical tastes and curates sets based upon them, including new selections it thinks you may like. According to Spotify, “The DJ knows you and your music taste so well that it will scan the latest releases we know you’ll like, or take you back to that nostalgic playlist you had on repeat last year.”
After using DJ for some time, I can attest that it’s pretty good at creating sets of my favorites but pretty bad at selecting new music. For example, I can’t stand Rap, but it keeps setting me up with Rap/Hip-Hop sets which I quickly fast-forward through. DJ doesn’t seem to think fast-forwarding is disapprobation, so after a few songs, I finally get fed up and hit the “DJ” button to explicitly show my displeasure. It makes me wonder if they are selling plays of those artists which would explain why they keep pushing genres that the AI should know I don’t like.
Several weeks ago, DJ selected a Van Halen song from their album 1984. The song was the instrumental first track on the album. Now, I had that record on vinyl when I was a kid. I know every lyric, every note, every riff. So when I heard the instrumental track 1984, I was expecting to also hear the second track on the album, Jump. I’ve always considered 1984 as an instrumental prelude to Jump. This is a “by design” artifact of “album rock” that creates associations and meaning out of the order tracks are set on the album. If you doubt me, take a look at Pink Floyd The Wall. Other examples of instrumental preludes include Yes’ Cinema (followed by Leave It) on their 90125 album and Queen’s We Will Rock You (We Are the Champions) from their album News of the World. Regarding this last example, I always get irritated when radio stations play We Will Rock You by itself. In the 80s and 90s, they would ALWAYS play them together. Somewhere along the road, radio media forgot this tacit knowledge and wisdom.
And here’s the point. When I heard 1984, I let it run expecting Jump to play next, but it never came. Because I let it run, in subsequent weeks, DJ kept serving that song solo, aggravating me all the more. Why didn’t DJ know that those two songs were supposed to be together? Because AI doesn’t understand tacit knowledge. Van Halen had “broken” AI.
AI will never be able to recreate the beautiful complexity of learning through living in the world with all of the experiences – personal, communal, cultural, and national – that come with it. This is why I don’t think AI is as far along as some would have us believe. Some folks agree with me. While AI may be helpful in many contexts, I don’t think it will ever replace the complexity of human reason completely.
This was an extremely interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Another song that comes to mind is Led Zeppelin’s Heartbreaker/ Living Loving Maid. These two songs have to be played together!