How The Algorithm Stripped The Soul Out Of Songwriting

Now maybe I can find out what an algorithm is.

The Federalist   Instead of being consumed in its entirety, a song fragment must typically succeed on social media before listeners seek out the full track.

"I'm sure you’ve experienced this ritual: a baby boomer, raised on The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, encounters a viral hit from TikTok and declares it terrible. “Today’s music,” he insists to his Gen Z interlocutor, is less melodic, less introspective, less human. Where, he asks, is the aching release of “Hey Jude,” the slow climb of “Stairway to Heaven,” the sense that a song might reveal something rather than simply repeat itself? 

"The charge is not entirely wrong. Engineering modern mainstream music often involves repeating wide-net choruses between forgettable verses, occasionally throwing in a bridge. Music from the 1960s and ’70s may have followed the same recipe, but there was something soulful about the hits of the past that cemented them as diamonds, still rediscoverable decades later. 

"What has changed is not the presence of emotional expression, but the conditions under which the feeling must be expressed. Music, like language, bends to the medium that carries it. And in the 2020s, that medium is not the radio dial, but the social media algorithm. 

"In the mid-20th century, the journey from artist to audience resembled a procession. Songs were written, recorded with real instruments, and released into a relatively stable system of promotion — labels, radio stations, critics, and live performances. Gatekeepers stood between creation and consumption, and while their power constrained access, it also created coherence. When The Rolling Stones released “Gimme Shelter” or The Doors released “Light My Fire,” those songs did not arrive as 15-second fragments but as complete statements.

"The listener, in turn, was patient. Songs could begin slowly, even experimentally, because they were not competing against the infinite scroll. One hears echoes of this in the structure of the music baby boomers grew up loving, with its extended intros and guitar solos." . . .

. . . "When a culture cannot sit still long enough to reflect on its inability to sit still and reflect, meaningful music will rarely meet the mainstream. The drumbeat of soul-catching music pounds beneath the floorboards of digital platforms, waiting for those who will pause, listen, and dig it out." . . . More...