Spotify: Robot or Philosophy?

 Hello.

I started doing a thing on Twitter this year called ‘#1of365in22’. I did a similar thing in 2016, which was simply a way of having something to do on Twitter except trolling Piers Morgan. That in turn was inspired by John Aizlewood (renowned music journalist and all-round brilliant egg), who does his ‘A Song A Day For A Year’.

The difference this time is there’s a philosophical element to it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Let me explain.

Here’s the system (and you’ve got to have a system): I choose an artist on Spotify, I wait for ‘[that artist] Artist’ to appear, and I press ‘Play’.

The idea is that the resulting track is either the average or mean track by that artist. This could be the only philosophical question here: which of the two is it?

To be the mean track, I think everyone pressing ‘Play’, anywhere in the world would have to get the same result.

To be the average track (which is what I’m expecting to be a more obtainable result), everyone pressing ‘Play’ gets a different result but the track isn’t that artist’s biggest hit.

I assumed that any artist chosen needed a large catalogue to increase the ‘sample’, to avoid any “one-hit wonders”.

So for instance, if I press ‘Play’ for New Order (who have a sizeable back catalogue, but for a casual Spotifier might only be known for ‘Blue Monday’) and ‘Blue Monday’ is the first result, the experiment (and it is an experiment) is over.

I haven’t done New Order yet. The ones I’ve done so far have not brought up the ‘Blue Monday constant/variable’: they’ve kinda been album tracks that are still strong, or surprising tracks I hadn’t heard before. (Talking of sample sizes, I’m not a big sample myself as many of the artists I’ll choose will be unfamiliar to me despite their renown. This is a sort of disclaimer I suppose.)

A second element of jeopardy was added: once I knew the track I Googled said track, and the first YouTube result for that track would be the one I posted to Twitter. (The first time this skewed things was for AC/DC: ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ came up on Spotify; a song recorded when the deceased Bon Scott was lead singer. The first YouTube result was a live version of the song recorded much later, when Brian Johnson had taken over.)

As we “speak”, I’ve done 22 of these searches and had one interaction as a result. That one interaction was a comment on the artist I searched on January 1st: The Fall. Unfortunately for this blog, it had absolutely nothing to do with the experiment. Never mind. The Fall do however bring in an extra cubist fourth dimension to the experiment (as well as life itself)...

The Fall existed in a different world to us. They definitely exist beyond this experiment. The song that ‘Play’ called up on January 1st was ‘No Bulbs’ from their ‘The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall’ L.P. I think this is not only an “average/mean” track by The Fall, it may be an average/mean title too. Fans of The Fall love the titles as much as the music, it’s their fourth dimension. I’m digressing here, but if for instance ‘To Nk Roachment: Yarbles’ is the MOST The Fall title (please feel free to correct me The Fall fans, I know you can), and say ‘Lost In Music’ (a cover version I know, but throw me a bone here) is the dullest... ‘No Bulbs’ definitely (in my mind) sits in the middle. Why? Because in itself it’s not a particularly weird title by The Fall’s standards, but when you know Mark E Smith is going to rant on about having no BELTS in his “trash-mount” of a flat, before moving on to bulbs, it’s funnier (and The Fall are funny, apart from all the other fantastic things they were).

I said “are” and “were” above, because unless you saw every concert by The Fall, or you are a surviving molecule of Mark E Smith or his grandmother (bongos), there’s always more to learn.

So to conclude we have ‘Spotify Search’ + ‘YouTube Search’ (Where The Fall titles are variable Yarbles) for the math(s) fans. And I’m willing to admit this is simply someone (let’s face it me) wrestling with a robot (Spotify) because I can’t be bothered to upgrade to ‘Prime’ and lose the adverts.

No pressure, but if you join in on any day, I would love to hear your results.

Why I Can’t Wordle

Wordle is the current big thing. Your Twitter feed will be splattered with grids of squares, signifying that someone has guessed a five-letter word through a process of elimination. Twitter being Twitter, you’re almost as likely to see accounts claiming that they’ve muted the word “Wordle”, so players’ results don’t litter their precious timelines. 

I won’t Wordle, but I won’t hate Wordle. I’m not one of the second group mentioned above because I’m jealous Wordlers (for that must be their name) have found a wholesome way to exercise their minds, and share the experience with others. My problem is with puzzles, and to a lesser extent quizzes, in general.

Taking Wordle specifically, my brain refuses to enjoy trying to work out an answer that someone else already knows. The five-letter word already exists, and whether I can work it out or not is irrelevant. This, as you can imagine, makes all puzzles a problem...

Jigsaws: give me a 5,000-piece jigsaw of a Jackson Pollock and I’ll point to the picture on the box and tell you it’s already finished.

Crosswords: the same problem as Wordle, but multiplied. Someone has already put all the words in the grid; hell, they even give you the answers via a link or in the back of the book. What’s the point? Why not just save time and read the answers first? 

“You’re exercising your brain, and learning new words” is the answer, I know... but a) I’m no good at crosswords (don’t even mention cryptic ones), b) I prefer questions where there is no right answer, and c) the idea that the puzzle-setter is sitting somewhere giggling away at my incompetence makes me unhappy.

Quizzes: Only Connect. The Wall on Only Connect. Not only are there four groups of four random things to arrange, but while you watch the teams try and do it the three members of the team are shouting at each other and smashing buttons... *screams* ... and all along some smug git is rubbing their hands together because no one spotted the “red herrings”. And Lord of The Rings. There are always questions on Lord of The fucking Rings.

Hateful.

University Challenge: the only good thing about University Challenge is that none of the students are old enough to know the cool music you grew up with, so when they hear Sex Pistols or Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and look at each other nonplussed, it’s our turn to be smug.

Enjoy Wordle.