Hey it's Michael Lonesger, you're listening to the On the Media Podcast Extra.

Before I landed a job at this show, I worked for a few years on and off at a couple record stores around New York City.

And some of my favorite albums to this day were recommended to me by my coworkers.

Men and women who I consider to be archivists, not just of old formats like vinyl records,

cassettes and CDs, but of underappreciated artists

and niche genres, a knowledge of music history that can only come from a lifetime of obsessive

listening, research, and curation.

Nowadays I pay for Spotify.

I try to learn about music off the app and then save it for later listening on Spotify, but sometimes I find myself just letting its

recommendation algorithm cue up the next track and the next.

And it definitely works.

Spotify has helped me discover great music but it's never been as

revelatory as a personal recommendation from a friend or an expert at a record store

or an independent radio station.

This feeling that I've traded convenience for something deeper is what made me want to

read Filter World, how algorithms flattened culture by Kyle Chaca, a staff writer at the New Yorker.

Chaca says apps like Spotify and TikTok are great at studying user behavior,

but that we should be suspicious of the idea that they can really

know your taste.

The algorithm as your best friend, as the intimate knower of your innermost secrets is definitely.

What Spotify, Facebook, X, Tik-talk,

would love for it to be.

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