This is one of those things I still wonder about. On one hand, if some hypothetical computer could generate the exact same song I'm currently listening to obsessively, then it would seem to be true. At the same time, there's at least some level of connection with the creator that influences my enjoyment. I think it's mostly unconscious but when I really think about it, I think a lot of the music I like has some element of "empathy" with the artist.

I don't mean that I have to directly identify with whatever they're creating but when someone is singing or playing a song, on some level you like to think about what they were feeling when they wrote or performed it. Likewise, something that always made me feel affinity for a band (especially as a teenager who was learning to play music) was the feeling that this was something I could do myself if I spent the time or developed the skills. I was drawn to a lot of punk bands and bedroom experimenters because I heard things that sounded like something I would do if I was more talented or experienced. It's hard to explain but it made things feel more personal. I think machine-generated music could certainly exist and be programmed to be indistinguishable from human-generated music but as soon as I knew it was created solely by algorithms, I'd lose much of the intangible (and irrational) connection I might have shared with the actual art.