You’re happy, and they know it

By David Sumpter

Some music packs a punch the first time you hear it. “Daddy’s Gone”, by the Scottish indie-rock band Glasvegas, came on the radio while I was driving to work a few years ago. I was late for a meeting, just having screamed at my kids in a futile attempt to get them ready for school on time. The tale of a boy without a father in his life, with lyrics about the loss experienced by men who turn their backs on their families, made me realise how ungrateful I was for my own privileged position, and reminded me of the working-class morals of the Scottish town I had left when I was 18. I had to stop the car to cry.

The way we respond to songs is highly personal. My emotions were a result of patterns and connections present only in my own head. So the idea that an algorithm could predict a listener’s emotional reaction to a song might seem rather fanciful. Spotify, the music streaming service, thinks otherwise. Its developers claim to have created an algorithm that can tell the difference between a happy song and a sad one. It’s part of their strategy to create as personalised a listening experience as possible: keeping users on the platform by helping them to discover new favourites is what gives Spotify the edge over competitors including Apple Music and Tidal. The company was quick to realise that classifying music emotionally could result in more satisfying recommendations for its users. If you’re in a happy mood after work on a Friday, you probably don’t want to listen to a gloomy Scottish indie band.