We might have assumed that music recommended by the service is there for each of us to accept or reject, according to our whim. I actually believe that’s possible, because recommending Drake to all of us wasn’t just silly, it redefined the meaning of the word “recommend.” Or rather, it revealed the very different meaning of the word for Spotify, at least from the way its customers have been understanding it. Rumor has it that the media player will be discontinued completely next year, and its phase-out in favor of Apple Music began as early as 2016-not two years after iTunes’ marketplace dominance was great enough to facilitate what was touted by Apple as the “Biggest Album Release Ever in History - Gifted to Over Half a Billion Music Fans.” Could Spotify end up similarly in need of a radical makeover, just because of a silly overuse of Drake’s face? Look at how easily, in the wake of the U2 debacle, iTunes yielded to streaming. The risk to Spotify from breaking that contract with its users is, I would think, very real. We allow Spotify to mine our personal data, so long as Spotify pretends to care about our individual taste. (It’s not even really about Drake, who-despite breaking single-day streaming records with the strategy-could be swapped with any number of palatable superstars.) Again, even for those who may already feel aware of the streaming service’s primary interests, putting Drake everywhere seems like a violation of a tacit agreement. It’s about them, and the power they gain from our data and wield through their algorithms. Eventually, both Apple and U2 ended up apologizing in the face of substantial pushback Apple even launched a site to help users remove Songs of Innocence from their libraries.įor Spotify, the reveal is that what their playlists and recommendations are really about is not, lo and behold, you.
“This is incredible for us, and incredible for all of our customers-I can’t think of anyone they would like to have music from more,” enthused Apple’s Tim Cook at the launch. The gesture reminded me of nothing so much as when Apple, in September 2014, deposited a free download of U2’s then-new album, Songs of Innocence, in everyone’s iTunes folder, whether we wanted it there or not. Perhaps this decision was driven by profit, or they just thought it was funny, seeing Drake gamely play the poster child for “ Ambient Chill.” Or maybe they realized that they could, so they did. The streaming giant “recommended” his new album, Scorpion, to each one of us, regardless of our usual taste in streaming music, by putting his face on the cover of every playlist-even those not featuring his songs. This weekend, Spotify blanketed its app in Drake.
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