For the last week, the music industry has been buzzing over the accusation that Spotify’s playlists are dotted with hundreds of supposedly “fake” artists, with names like Amity Cadet and Lo Mimieux, who are racking up tens of millions of streams yet have no public profile — no Facebook page, no Twitter feed, not even a face.
And:
Peter Sandberg, a 27-year-old composer in Sweden who has created a number of tracks on these playlists, called the term unfair.
“I’m a composer trying to find a way to grow and spread my work,” Mr. Sandberg wrote in an email relayed through an intermediary, “and to be called fake is not something I appreciate.” (Mr. Sandberg, who records music under his own name as well, does have a social media presence, making him a less anonymous figure than many of the other creators of this music.)
This entire story is strange, but when companies like Spotify can get computers to produce hits for their playlists with minimal human involvement, that’s when it gets really weird.