The joy of listening to music I don't like

The brilliant thing about Spotify is it suggests new music that I like. The problem with Spotify is that the stuff it suggests all sounds a bit the same.

The algorithms are great at finding stuff that is similar to the stuff I already listen to. But that’s also the problem. The Discovery Playlist never offers anything that surprises or irritates or shocks or excites or is in anyway different. Its a full on aural experience in confirmation bias.

Except my son has broken it. He has recently got interested in music and keeps ‘borrowing’ my phone to play stuff. What he likes is different to what I like. Heavy drums more rock. And now my discovery play list does offer surprises. New things that are different to the old things. And some surprising throw backs to my past - things I used to listen to and had forgotten about.

It is easy to blame algorithms for sieving out the diversity of perspective and experience. But in effect they are just really really really good at what we tend to do in our own clumsy ways - which is seek and notice and connect to the experiences and people that confirm what we already know and believe and like.

Its become something of a cliche that we need a diversity of voices in our organisations, in our politics, in our institutions and in our lives. And something tends to become a cliche because it does capture a helpful truth. But how we do we actually do this? Letting go of homogeneity whether it is in the music we listen to or the people we work with means embracing the excitement and also running the risk of hearing things we don’t like, things with which we don’t agree, things that challenge past knowledge and experience, things that open our eyes, help us learn, surprise au. And maybe even things that bore us. It means inviting in a less curated and know world

And this is why I have gone back to listening to the radio more and playlists a little less.