The hit charade

Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify and other music companies have started using algorithms that will create a playlist. Pandora has employed music experts to tag songs with hundreds of characteristics, such as the genre, the types of instruments used, and even the melodic phrasing and tonality. When users give Pandora a band, composer, or song as a starting point, it creates a radio station of music with similar attributes. Spotify does employ humans to make some of its playlists. But it also collects as much data as possible on a user's listening behavior, and then compares it with data collected from other users. The idea behind this technique, known as collaborative filtering, is that users will probably like a song that someone with similar tastes has already discovered and enjoyed.