Do streaming algorithms narrow our musical taste?
I've been a music teacher for over a decade, and I keep noticing my students gravitate to the same few playlists on Spotify, rarely exploring beyond what algorithms feed them. Last week, I challenged them to pick one album from before 1990, and most struggled to name more than three musicians from that era. Does our obsession with streaming metrics and personalized recommendations actually narrow our musical palate, or is this just a natural evolution in how we consume art? I worry we're trading depth for convenience, but I also wonder if I'm just nostalgic for a time when discovering music required more effort. What do you think—are we losing something fundamental when we let algorithms curate our soundtrack?