Everyone's looking at the front door, waiting for AI to stride in and write the next Billboard hit. But that's not where the revolution is happening.
Look in the back office.
The new gatekeepers don't have opinions about music - they have metrics about engagement. They're not choosing what's good, they're selecting what hooks. Just like their cousins in social media who amplify outrage because it works, these algorithmic editors are reshaping music by reshaping what gets heard.
Here's the trap: you can play to the algorithm. You can optimise for the first seven seconds, engineer the perfect hook, hit the engagement targets. But at what cost?
When we turn art into optimisation problems, we lose the slow burns, the subtle builds, the quiet spaces between notes. We trade nuance for notifications.
The real opportunity?
It's in understanding the system without being consumed by it. In telling stories that matter more than metrics. In remembering that while algorithms can measure what, they can't understand why.
And why is where the magic lives.
The machine might control the gate, but it can't control what we choose to make.
That part's still up to us.