AI, Spotify, and the Death of Commitment in Music

And How To Change It

It’s easy to fall into an absolute state of defeat when hearing about Artificial Intelligence taking over the creative space. Over the past few days, there must have been a hundred videos released talking about the new totally AI-generated band on Spotify that’s generating half a million monthly listeners. It can be very depressing for a music artist to see this and wonder: is there any room left for me in the art space?

However, I want to turn this thing around for a second. It's true that for an artist trying to create a vibey, low-effort track and hoping to get it placed on a background music playlist and rack up millions of streams, creating passive income—those days are numbered. In fact, one of the fears is that Spotify itself will begin to create AI-generated music, and many claim that it is already doing so, placing individual AI-generated tracks in its playlists.

But let’s talk about you, the consumer. Fifteen years ago, when I was a young man, the primary way to find new music was to download songs individually—legally, illegally, that’s not the point. Already there was lots of criticism about the death of the album. For fifty years, artists would release ten-track albums containing several hit songs, a couple of deep cuts, and, dare I say, occasional fillers. This all changed with the internet’s ability to download individual songs and disregard the rest.

To me, this was the golden age of music consumption. Whenever I would get into a new artist—John Mayer, Coldplay, etc.—I would google various lists, trying to figure out what are the most beloved songs by this artist. Then I would download the songs. The songs downloaded on my phone were the songs I listened to, over and over.

Then came Spotify with its false promise of putting the entire music discography of all time at the tip of my fingers. No more downloading, no more storage. If you ever want to hear any song, just ask and it’ll be available to you—like an all-you-can-eat buffet containing all the food in the world that is open 24 hours.

Except that no one needs that. My experience with music streaming is that having access to everything is somewhat the same as having nothing. These days, I spend as much time listening to podcasts as I do music. Podcasts numb my thoughts better, respond to current events faster, and hold my attention for longer. Spotify loves podcasts, as we can all remember when they made their monster deal with Joe Rogan.

Many times I put on an album and try to mentally commit myself to listening through it. Ninety percent of the time, I end up faltering and switching to a different artist or podcast only three songs in. Why is that? You can make the argument that if artists made more compelling art, no one would want to turn it off. But that isn’t true.

What’s true is that streaming services robbed us of the experience of committing to a piece of art before consuming it—and that commitment is crucial to actually sticking around to have the experience you intended to have.

In the past, you had to go to a record store to buy a record to spin at home—commitment. You also had radio that you could simply turn on and off at your convenience—no cost, no commitment. You had to download songs on iTunes—commitment. Today, we still buy tickets and physically attend shows—commitment.

Here’s the point: by not having a ritual that precedes the consumption of music, the user robs themselves of the ability to commit to a piece of art. Instead, we continue to live in the illusion that the entire music library of the world is available to us, and we simply need to learn to focus better.

No. The medium is crap. As users, we are worse off than we were fifteen years ago. And as long as we continue to rely on streaming and passivity to feed our drive to consume good entertainment, we will continue to be fed lower and lower quality goods—while occasionally grumbling that we don’t even like what we hear that much.

Put it this way: complaining about streaming is like complaining that you don’t like a song on the radio. You don’t like it? Change the channel—or even better, turn it off.

So what does this mean practically?

If you are a music connoisseur, stop relying on Spotify to tell you what’s available and what’s good. If you like an artist, buy the physical album or even merch—not because they need your money, but because you’d like to actually establish a connection with the artist that goes beyond a stream. Your physical commitment to the artist you love is what will subconsciously encourage you to continue to listen to them more and more. A good artist puts their entire being into their art, and the deeper you go, and the more you commit, the more benefit you will get as a consumer.

And the same goes for artists. Think twice before judging your success based on number of streams. Ask yourself: when was the last time someone DMed you saying your new song made their day? If never, are you still working on your craft and finding your sound, or are you intentionally making impersonal, mass-produced slop hoping to get on an anonymous playlist—where you’ll anyway be replaced by AI in the next three months?

The thing that AI can’t do is replace human connection. Spotify may have promised us a direct line to all the world’s human artists—but they were lying. They just wanted your fifteen dollars a month. We don’t need their digital product. We need human connection.

In the future, I’d love to see indie labels creating their own app that only has the music made under their label. Think about it: even Netflix doesn’t claim to give you access to every piece of video content. It’s precisely the curation of Netflix that gives it character and allows the user to decide whether or not their taste aligns with Netflix’s vision. Music consumption can be the same—or even better.

Again, I’m not expecting any massive changes. But hopefully my wordshelped you see how you, as a user, can enrich your own experience with the music and artists you actually love by looking for ways to connect with their art.

Start slowly. Maybe go on your favorite artist’s website and buy their CD, vinyl, or T-shirt. Look up which of your favorite artists are playing a show near you this month.

Take power back from big tech. Choose connection over convenience. Choose depth over distraction. Go find the artists who move you—and show them you’re listening. Make your life better.