Spotify’s 2025 summary reveals something…. Mostly untrue about me.
84 years old? More like 84 decibels minimum, you mean. And Tine Thing Helseth? I bought one of her CDs a number of years ago, but she’s not my favorite trumpeter by any means–and classical is not my favorite genre.
What Spotify’s algorithm does not know is that I favor metal for workouts, and most of my purchases are in the vein; over on YouTube, I let its algorithms (“radio”) run on to see if I will hear something new (not often–it insists on replaying things I’ve seen before to keep me engaged). That my radio presets are to the best of 80s, 90s, and today. That I listen to country whilst mowing the lawn and sometimes whilst dusting the upstairs. That I play a wide variety of genres on the turntable upstairs. My computer tends to stream KCSM or WSIE jazz radio stations for background music all day.
But, Spotify. Which I stream in one circumstance: In the evenings, when I am reading in the common area downstairs. My beautiful wife sometimes reads/works there as well, so she prefers instrumentals. And trumpet. So I stream Jackie Gleason. Or Herb Alpert. Or Chuck Mangione. Or Cindy Bradley. I select an artist or sometimes a genre and let it roll. And, you know what? It tends to fall back on the same things over and over again. No matter what I pick (David Sanborn! Miles Davis! Bert Kaempfert! Freddie Hubbard!) it all circles back to Herb Alpert and Chuck Mangione. Which is why I don’t stream Spotify on the computer to find new music. It ends up back at Amaranthe and Within Temptation all the time. Apparently, I have streamed the Tine Thing Helseth “radio” eleven times last year, because its playlist is probably relatively limited and played this song every time.
Maybe I’m an outlier because so much of my life is outside the reach of data brokers and algorithms, but Spotify does not know me very well. And most companies, except the ones listening to me on phones, don’t, either.
