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Comment by spiderice | Hacker News Reader

> A “secret” composer who has released music under hundreds of different names has been identified as Sweden’s most-listened-to artist on Spotify – pulling in more plays than Britney Spears or Abba.

Wow.. this is sketchy as hell.

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He's basically SEOing Spotify. Search for "peaceful piano" or whatever, and you'll likely find the guy's tracks.

At home, whenever we eat X, we have a habit of asking Spotify to play X. We've made some great discoveries this way (Cornflakes 3D is an Israeli psytrance group, while The Dumplings is a Czech indie band), but these days almost all the searches have been hijacked by "playlist called Italian Restaurant Music" etc.

The Dumplings is a polish band :)

Whoops, I stand corrected!

> At home, whenever we eat X, we have a habit of asking Spotify to play X.

I love this idea! It's a shame it doesn't work so well any more, but I love finding new ways to find music that you'd just never listen to normally. It reminds me of the guy who made it is mission to listen to every album that was made in 2016 specifically, and now has hundreds of albums with so much variety, just by picking some specific theme and going wild with it.

I've recently been pointed at the 1001 album generator[1] I just started on thursday and so far it has shown me Rage against the Machine, and some Jazz 20 years older than I am. Quite the experience.

1: https://1001albumsgenerator.com/

You sound like a fun parent/partner.

The only thing that's sketchy is Spotify directing everyone to the same content, making stuff that appeals to the audience isn't against the rules.

He seems to be essentially releasing content PURELY to make the algorithms light up, though, not out of any sort of "honest" artistic intention.

Like all those "$bandname for kids" releases that are just midis played through xylophone, marimba patches, or occasionally strings. Credited to legitimate sounding "artists" like the "Vitamin Quartet".

He's just playing within the system given. People should stop subscribing to services like these and then people like him won't exist.

> He seems to be essentially releasing content PURELY to make the algorithms light up

That’s art.

Wait, isnt that sort of the exact opposite?

I think what parent meant was, all poplar art tries to sarisfy some “algorithm”. (Algorithm of what will masses listen to)

20 years ago that was trying to pick good ratios of bass, haircut, and marketing to get into mtv top ten.

I'm reminded of The Manual:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual

Maybe if it's intentional. Making a statement by hitting the algo buttons.

And I'm not saying he's not.

But do we call it art if it's fraud?

Isn't a lot of HN readers against AI generated spam and SEO spun content?

I don't call those art, and I'm not sure yet what to call thos composer.

Does art need to “make a statement”?

I think:

- It is subjective.

- if you enjoy it, then it is art.

Doing music for profit is not a new concept, just look at pop music (and especially “boy bands”)

But if end result sounds good to a lot of people, how is that not an art?

What's the fraud if people like it?

You are entering into the hundreds year old "what is art" debate.

When there is no human in the performance loop at all, that's flirting very close to selling a cheap blend as as 18-year old single malt.

Where does Spotify say "our music is 100% organic human sourced, no algos involved"?

But that’s basically the same that the big music companies do with mainstream music.

Agree. Actually I’m feed quite feed up with Spotify, and this week decided to get a proper HiRes audio and buy music from places like BandCamp or the CD edition and ripping it.

I miss curating my collection and playlists. It seems that the convenience of having almost all music available in a couple of clicks is making the listening experience less valuable.

I did this 6 months ago.

I’m now using a service called Roon to stream my local library, any other track I don’t own gets streamed from Tidal via Roon.

I know it's a hipster thing, but if you feel like this, consider getting a record player if you haven't.

I still use Spotify for background music but when I cook or am in another situation where I want to appreciate the music, I put on a record and it feels a lot better. There are a number of psychological effects in play there, like the fact that I am forced to listen to the tracks in the set order, that I've made a commitment by purchasing the record and that it adds atmosphere to the room to have a visibly rotating disc.

Yes, I own one already and I’m building my record collection slowly. Also the large artworks are wonderful.

You can just listen to albums and not be a diva about it.

This is what I do. I have a solid vinyl and cassette collection and huge digital collection all from cd rips or flac (mostly from Bandcamp)

I also have navidrome set up so I can easily stream it from anywhere (my server is internal + WireGuard to access it remotely)

I would assume this is part of Spotify's business model. If 10% of the music played is from their "preferred" artists, who get say 5% of the commission that Brittney Spears gets, they make more money. Right? That the guy is based in Stockholm is even more evidence this is the case.

They don't need to collude to do this - if Spotify and the guy follow self-interest, you get this outcome.

I am more bothered by the part with having over 650 different artist names that hide their link to each other (unlike Prince/TAFKAP, Kanye/Ye, etc).

I mean: your gripe is basically Spotify's entire raison d'etre. On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason to hide your true identity to such an extent, except to be able to act as your own competition.

That is, I think this person knows very well that by using different artist names, he will get Spotify revenue the listeners think is going to different artists.

Isn't that basically what many authors do? Many authors are afraid of diluting their brand so when they write books in a different genre or style they create a new pen name to keep the works distinct from their main name. For example Stephen King used to write additional books under the name of Richard Bachman, before that identity was linked to him, and the late Samuel Youd used to write under a half-dozen names, most famously as John Christopher (of Tripods and No Blade of Grass fame).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bachman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christopher

Sure, but the extent differs greatly. Imagine someone doing this to enter an additional genre unburdened by their well-known works - so not "quit the band, band reformed under new name" stuff. In how many genres can a very prolific and competent artist deliver quality works concurrently? 10? 20?

How many profitable genres are there even on Spotify? 100? 200? Where is the line between "revenue-generating label" and "relegated-to-obscurity-by-your-own-choice label"?

I believe an artist can believably perform decently in several genres, but not in hundreds of genres. Moreover, I can understand being cautious when entering a radically new main genre from your usual fare, but I think there are plenty of adjacent genres where there is no significant taint (eg, sword&sorcery / high fantasy / urban fantasy).

As such, to me, there's a crossover point/zone somewhere beyond "several" and before "hundreds" where you're no longer doing it for separating your output along clearly distinct categories where such separation is expected/needed/warranted, but faking an abundance of choice to increase profit.

To me, 650 pseudonyms falls into the latter category - as another comment put it: SEO'ing Spotify to maximise profits. I dislike that, because it has nothing to do with competing on artistic merit.

Is that actually sketchy though?

- Each artist has different royalties, some are more expensive than others.

- appearantly people do listen to ”cheaper” artists, in right circumstances

- consumers prefer that cost of subscription would be lower

- I assume scenario in the article saves money for spotify, and in turn allows to remain profitable without increasing subscription prices.

Seems it aligns well with interest of consumers in the long run.

Some transparency around it would be nice, without the need for investigative journalism.

Can’t argue on that. More transparency is always good for end user.

Maybe, this is what people actually want to listen to and the algorithm is just doing what it's supposed to. I see people listening to these no name artists, the most boring unimaginative generic contemporary music. Maybe this guy just really knows what the average listener likes. In my opinion Spotify's algorithm is the best in knowing what I will like and probably will replay, I don't think it would work this well if they were manually directing us towards artists.

I feel like Spotify'a recommendations want to funnel me into a cohort whose music taste I supposedly share, but I actually don't. Last.fm seemed to both consider my likes more directly and more creatively. 15% or so of duds are fine, it's better than "oh you liked that dark techno track, it's mini-popular right now so have 20 more".

By the way, last.fm radio exists again, though YouTube is the music source these days.

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