Why do I feel a little bad? Well, as my wife can testify, I totally obsess and get annoyingly compulsive about my music. My minor in college was in radio/tv, and my time working on radio stations back when the DJ actually picked and played the songs himself or herself meant that choosing music became an art form. Seriously, the flow of music matters. A good DJ could keep you going and a bad song choice could ruin the whole show. You had to figure out the best order to play the songs you chose, not just worry about what songs should or shouldn't be played. One station I worked at played three different genres of music. Morning and early afternoon meant jazz. Then came The Bridge. The Bridge was simply a four hour block of music designed to help take the listener from jazz to the hard alternative played in the evenings. The Bridge was a tightrope. No one could define it well. But if you played pop or rock that was too hard too early it didn't work. It stuck out and felt jarring. The same song might work great an hour later though when a more mellow song had already lost its relevance. But at the same time the music needed to gradually build from mellow to hard, and that meant mixing the two. What made for a great mix? I couldn't tell you then, and I can't tell you now, but I sure knew when I or another DJ missed it. Oh man they shouldn't have played that song there!
Pandora suffers with this problem on a massive and much larger scale than any local DJ ever had to worry about. The algorithm uses factors to help pull in music that works and cull music that doesn't. The problem is that the longer the show lasts (the longer a station exists) the harder it is to find new music to play without getting away from the core qualities of the music used to create the station in the first place. It gets harder and harder to stay on format without playing the same songs over and over and over and over, and let's face it, most people who don't mind repetition aren't obsessing with Pandora. They're listening to Top 20 and Top 40 stations where if they heard part of a song they can keep listening and know with glee that they'll hear that same song in it's entirety in an hour or less. Ugh.
Part of the problem begins with dealing with...well, us, the users. You know the old adage, you can't please all the people all of the time? Of course we all realize that they can't make everyone happy, but we also all, in our selfishness, want them to make us happy regardless of everyone else. The idea is close to well you can't please everyone so you might as well just do it the way I prefer and let the others adjust, if we would get honest.
Take the Thumbs down factor for example. What does it mean or what should it mean? One group of users, this is the group that my wife belongs to, only thumbs down a song if they hate it. I mean hate it. I don't ever want to hear this stupid song ever again. EVER. So they give it the old gladiator death sign and move on to more acceptable music. A week or so later, they're listening to a different station and here comes that same stupid song, back from the dead. WHAT! How dare Pandora play that again! Doesn't my thumbs down mean anything!?! Stupid app!
Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum are nuts like me who go look, I don't care if they all have long hair, but Kenny G and Stryper should never be on the same station. EVER. Period. Never. No, not even Honestly and Songbird together. No. Just don't Pandora. So when some mathematical formula from a computer program that can never understand the art of music makes a mistake like that, I use the thumbs down to fix it. No that doesn't go on this station. Wrong format. But that doesn't mean I never want to hear that song on the station it should be played on. So you have folks like me going, why did you quit playing Fade To Black on my guitar riff station just because I thumbs downed it when it came on my Punk Rock station?
So I feel bad for them. They're in a difficult spot. On the other hand sometimes I just want to scream at them for being inconsistent. Why is it, for example, that I can create a station of Christian country music, use five songs as seeds that are all gospel or similar themed like an old hymn or the secular but not song like The Bible And A Gun with all five artists being secular artists and get nothing on that station but Christian songs and music; no crying in your beer, no cheating, no lost my dog songs, just blessed assurance of the sweet by and by..and yet, at the same time, I can create a Christian Hair Band Station with Stryper, Guardian, White Cross, X-Sinner and other 80s and 90s Christian bands as seeds, and have to thumbs down multiple songs in a row as Pandora throws out some very unChristian music for me to listen to? I have secular stations. All my seeds on this station are Christians because this is NOT a secular station, thank you very much.
Or hey, not a single song seed on my classic station was released less than 30 years ago, so how about we don't start the session off with a song that came out last week? The point of all this rambling is that as good as it is, an algorithm can't always get it right. Not even with regular input to adjust by. And we can't please God or figure out the formula for righteousness either. We can't come up with a list of if a then b type inputs to always know what to do or what not to do to please God. We can not know what is always the next best thing because our understanding is flawed and limited. Yes, reading scripture increases understanding, but there are still times when for some reason it will make sense to us to do something that from God's perspective is as out of place as a Jeremy Camp song on a Country Station.
Yes, in a way there is a simple algorithm to walking with and pleasing God. Do things that bring you closer to Him and help others. Love God and love people. Don't do things that cause distance between us and Daddy, and don't do things that will cause distance between Him and others either. Other than that, play your song. But sometimes, on our own understanding and evaluation, we will still do things that only after they fail will we understand didn't work. And sadly, in spiritual matters, that often means there is damage done to ourselves or others. Thank God for forgiveness.
But imagine if you will that Pandora was able to tailor individual algorithms to each user. Imagine it included the ability to explain each choice you make so that sometimes you could thumbs up a song in certain situations without O.K.ing all the time or say no to a song in such a way that they also know yes, this song might be good in another situation or station or no, never ever, this song sucks. They could do a much better job with making us happy right? If we could say, listen Pandora, I love Skillet and want to listen to them when I'm in a mood for alternative music but not when I want to listen to hair band stuff!
We have that option with Daddy because of the Holy Spirit. We can communicate with and hear from God on a moment by moment, situation by situation, song by song basis. Before we make a choice we can get input that says, no, not in this instance. I know you think this is a good idea, but it's really not. Or I know this doesn't make sense to you, but if you could see beyond the surface into that person's heart you would know that what I'm asking you to do will fit perfectly in the concert of their life and yours. If we just go through our days and lives with some religious formula of these things are good and these are bad and this is OK to do and this is not, we will get off format, sometimes badly. But it we stay in tune with the Spirit and let Him guide our choices and actions we will discover some beautiful and interesting music we would never had thought existed, while at the same time, never getting off track. Today, let us allow the Holy Spirit free reign over all the songs our life plays.
Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
June 25, 2016.
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