Ted Gioia rounds up a bunch of smaller music-related items in this post, including more evidence that Spotify continues to use fake artists:
I’ve griped a lot about the fake artists problem at Spotify. It’s like a stone in my shoe, and just gets worse and worse.
I’m especially alarmed by those strange playlists — filled with mysterious artists who may not really exist, or almost identical tracks circulating under dozens of different names.
Here’s a new example — a 20 hour playlist called “Jazz for Reading”.
I’m supposed to be a jazz expert. So why haven’t I heard of these artists? And why is it so hard to find photos of these musicians online?
I listened to twenty different tracks. There’s some superficial variety in the music, but each track I heard had the same piano tone and touch. Even the reverb sounds the same.
But the musicians are allegedly different.
Of course, I haven’t listened to the whole playlist. It feels endless, lasting almost an entire day!
But what’s going on here?
In other fields, this would be a scandal.
Imagine if you ran a medical office with physicians’ names on the door, but patients never got a glimpse of a flesh-and-blood doctor. Or a law firm gave out legal advice, but no lawyers were ever seen in the office.
Maybe Spotify will allay my concerns by putting these “artists” on tour. Why do I doubt that will happen?
