Ghost artists on Spotify

This article is fascinating. But what's on display here is less of a nefarious plan from Spotify to replace famous Katy Perry with AI - instead we get to see something much more specific: a behind-the-scenes of how those endless chill/lo-fi/ambient playlists get created.

Which is something I've always wondered! How does the Lofi Girl channel on Youtube always have so much new music from artists I have never heard from?

The answer is surprising: real people and real instruments! (At least at the time of writing). Third-party stock music ("muzak") companies hiring underemployed jazz musicians to crank out a few dozen derivative songs every day to hack the algorithm.

> “Honestly, for most of this stuff, I just write out charts while lying on my back on the couch,” he explained. “And then once we have a critical mass, they organize a session and we play them. And it’s usually just like, one take, one take, one take, one take. You knock out like fifteen in an hour or two.” With the jazz musician’s particular group, the session typically includes a pianist, a bassist, and a drummer. An engineer from the studio will be there, and usually someone from the PFC partner company will come along, too—acting as a producer, giving light feedback, at times inching the musicians in a more playlist-friendly direction.”

I think there's an easy and obvious thing we can do - stop listening to playlists! Seek out named jazz artists. Listen to your local jazz station. Go to jazz shows.

I’m not even mad about it. It’s background music and clearly people are enjoying it. Just because they smashed out 15 tracks in a single session doesn’t make it unfit for purpose. That’s just how Jazz music is.

Kenny G might deserve your comment. But Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus...

I think some people may have a misunderstanding about what jazz is. I know one friend of mine did. Some jazz may be easy listening, but it's not made for easy listening, it's made to bend the boundaries of music theory. And also a lot of "easy listening" that sounds like jazz isn't really jazz.

So what is jazz

It is an approach to music (more than a genre) that relies on elaborate harmonic structures, freedom of interpretation of melody and personalising the harmony, interesting rhythms and time signatures and a general approach of trying to push the boundaries of music making. It is meant to be listened actively as opposed to having it as background music. The capitalisation of music has led us to the commoditisation of music and treating it as audio content as opposed to art.

> It is meant to be listened actively as opposed to having it as background music.

The masterpiece hanging in the museum was fully intended to be actively appreciated. The background on the box of cereal is ... just a background on a box of cereal. It's still art though.