Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Rick Beato, Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer) discussed how algorithms tend to shape opinions and music tastes. The frontman says certain facets of pop culture tend to get pushed more and “it’s almost like there’s an absolute mechanism in place to amplify and loop narcissism.”

Keenan said the following while discussing how things get “siloed” by algorithms [transcribed by The PRP]:

“I feel like there’s the physical version of that. Before [it] was, ‘Well, this album, this album’s amazing because it’s the number one on the chart.’ Yeah, but Walmart only sells four albums. They don’t sell all of the albums. They sell these four. So does, you know, this place, and Target, and the radio stations only play the 20. So, yeah, of course, it’s number one, because it’s not being sold. These other [albums] aren’t being sold. Those are the ones being sold.

And I’ve kind of used this analogy with food, right? So if in your mind you’re thinking of your favorite restaurant, somewhere the food’s always great and it’s consistent and just above average, right? I’m not talking about McDonald’s. I’m talking about like, when you go sit down at a restaurant, you have a great food, or, like, a great burger place that you just go to.

Whatever that place is that you’re thinking of right now, on any given day of the week, a Walmart superstore sells more hot food than your favorite restaurant does in a week or a month.

You have to remember that the volume isn’t necessarily a measure of quality. Sometimes it’s unanimous, like, this movie is great, and everybody lines up because this film is great. But a lot of times it’s that natural laziness algorithm that they’re only going to put these up, or they’re only going to serve this, because, you know, they only want chicken tenders and fries anyway. So why have anything else? Why sell anything else?”

He also added the following about the narcissism aspect:

“It’s almost like there’s an absolute mechanism in place to amplify and loop narcissism in all ways. Like I’ve mentioned this before. If I’m going to do a video of something. I pull up my phone and I do a video [in landscape mode] because this is how I watch movies, and this is how life works. But if you do a video like this [in landscape mode] of somebody, there’s not enough of them in the screen. If you turn it this way [portrait mode,] I can get more of my ego in the screen, right?

So TikTok is huge because it’s just narcissism on steroids, because you’re in the screen. And I feel like that’s that loop, and now you’re only going to be fed that one thing that got traction. So, just like the four albums at Walmart, that’s all you’re going to see now. You’re not going to hear a great new band that has a song out unless somebody, literally, grabs you and puts it in your ear.”

He continued after Beato described the “discovery mechanism” of digital service providers as “broken”:

“Yeah I think so people start kind of just becoming tribal. They end up kind of having their own little circle of people that they discover music amongst themselves, and they share it and they get into it, and nobody’s ever heard of it. Then, there’s the ones like you said that have billions of listens, but if I don’t turn on Spotify or Pandora, I’m not gonna hear that.”

He also confirmed that he still uses CDs:

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, it’s called compact discs. It’s a disc. You’ve heard about these? They’re these discs. Have you heard of compact discs? CDs for short. CD. That’s still my medium. I got my new car and I’m like ‘Where do you put the [CD?]’. ‘Come over grandpa, lets get you to bed.’ I’m still listening to CDs. I have my phone and iPads that have downloaded music on. But I’m literally going online and finding my playlists.

‘Cause I won’t use the Spotify or Pandora, because it’s going to shove… I don’t want to hear the new U2 album. I just don’t. Remember that? Back when you got your iPhone, I was also like, ‘Why is U2 on my phone?’ [mimics shaking his phone] Get it out. So I do go through and do a lot of research, because I have multiple public places, restaurants and my academy.

So I’ll go through and I’ll kind of curate playlists for those places [on digital service providers], very specifically. I’ll go through and pick a bunch of songs for it, and remove things that don’t fit, but that way it’s a set playlist. You’re not going to all of a sudden, hear some garbage come through because of the algorithm suggesting something you didn’t want to have in.”

Keenan further addressed modern pop music as well:

“More modern [music,] you mentioned Taylor Swift and I just assumed that… You hear the word Billie Eilish, I don’t know what the f*ck that is. Then I just hear it in the same, I hear it along with like Bruno Mars and Beyoncé. It’s like, I’m the old dude. I don’t know what that is, right? I have no idea. It’s just these words that are spoken.

And then, you know, [‘True Detective: Night Country‘] puts a Billie Eilish song in the title track. And I go, ‘what’s this?’ Because you know her brother, his programming is incredible. I want to know more about that. So that might surprise people. Not all of it.

It’s definitely, uh, pop, TikTok-driven pop songs, but like, there’s some stuff in it that I go ‘I want to hear [that.] I want to know more about that.’ So that might be surprise people, that I actually mentioned the word Billie Eilish. I’m not 100% in. There’s pieces that I like.”