The Choice We Don't Make
How the Age of Infinite Music Became an Age of Passive Listening
There was a time when music was scarce.
You listened to what was played on the radio, what records you could afford, what cassettes you copied from a friend. If you were lucky, you had access to a record store with a deep selection, a college radio station pushing boundaries, a local scene where new sounds were emerging. But for the vast majority, the music they heard was dictated by availability, by geography, by the decisions of record executives and radio programmers.
And then, suddenly, that world ended.
We entered an era where all music is available, everywhere, all the time. Every genre, every country, every experiment. From polished pop to underground noise. From billion-dollar productions to a 14-year-old's bedroom masterpiece.
Music became a choice.
And most people choose not to choose.
The Death of Scarcity and the Rise of the Passive Listener
Scarcity created value. It made the act of finding music an adventure. You had to seek out new sounds. You had to listen with intention. When you bought an album, you didn’t skim through a few tracks and move on. You listened again and again, until the layers revealed themselves.
Now, the landscape is different. The best music ever made, and the worst music ever made, are sitting side by side, equally accessible. But instead of engaging with this limitless world, most people drift along the path of least resistance.
- The algorithm picks for you.
- The playlist auto-loads.
- The background noise continues.
Music is everywhere. But music is also nowhere.
It's played in stores, in cars, in headphones at work, in bars, on TikTok clips, on gym playlists, on hold music. It is present, but rarely experienced.
And that is the true loss: not that music has declined, but that our engagement with it has diminished.
The Illusion of Choice: How Algorithms Control Taste
If you ask most people whether they have complete freedom in their music choices, they will say yes. After all, they can listen to anything, at any time.
But the reality is more complicated.
The vast majority of people do not actively search for music. They listen to what they are given. And what they are given is no longer decided by humans—it's decided by algorithms.
- Spotify’s "Discover Weekly" is not discovery; it's refinement. It feeds you more of what you already like, keeping you comfortable.
- TikTok does not push music because it's good; it pushes music because it triggers engagement metrics.
- Radio still exists, but it's even more controlled than before—shorter rotations, safer playlists, tighter formatting.
The great irony of unlimited access is that it has not led to unlimited curiosity. It has led to narrower taste. Playlists full of songs that sound the same. Viral hits that disappear within weeks. A culture of music that is consumed, not explored.
We mistake convenience for choice.
The Difference Between What Exists and What is Heard
Right now, somewhere in the world, an artist is making music that could change your life.
You will probably never hear it.
Not because it is unavailable, but because it will not be pushed to you.
The best music—the truly groundbreaking, the deeply personal, the weird, the genre-bending, the experimental, the beautiful—does not fit neatly into an algorithm. It does not generate immediate engagement. It requires patience. It requires ears that are willing to listen, not just consume.
Most people are not willing.
Not because they do not love music, but because they have been trained to accept passivity. They have been trained to believe that music finds them, rather than them finding music.
Music is a Choice. But Only If You Make It.
Every day, people complain that "music today isn’t as good as it used to be."
That is false.
Music today is more varied, more diverse, more boundary-pushing, more exciting, and more available than at any other point in human history.
The problem is not music. The problem is how we engage with it.
- Do you search for music, or do you let playlists feed you?
- Do you listen to full albums, or just skip through singles?
- Do you take time with new sounds, or reject them if they don’t immediately click?
- Do you actively support independent artists, or do you only consume what is already popular?
Music is not worse.
Music is not declining.
We are simply choosing to engage with it differently.
The Responsibility of the Listener
In the past, we could blame labels. We could blame radio. We could blame the industry for controlling what we heard.
That excuse is gone.
If you are listening to bad music, it's because you chose to listen to bad music. If you are bored by music, it is because you chose not to seek out anything different.
The most powerful force in music today is not an artist, a label, or an algorithm.
It's you.
What you play.
What you share.
What you support.
What you dig for, beyond the surface.
What you choose.
Music has never had more potential. But potential means nothing if it's ignored.
So the real question is not: "Is music still good?"
The real question is: "Will you take the time to find out?"
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Thanks!
B
Music isn’t worse. We just stopped choosing.
The best music ever made is out there, underground, independent, outside the algorithm. But most people take what they’re fed.
If music feels stale, it’s not the industry. It’s you. Go looking.
PS -