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Spotify Is Now an AI Chatbot, Too

By: BeauHD
15 July 2026 at 23:00
Spotify is testing a new "Talk to Spotify" AI feature for Premium subscribers that will let them chat with an AI assistant to explore music, podcasts, and audiobooks. The feature can answer questions about what users are listening to, adjust playback through follow-up prompts, and offer more personalized recommendations. The Verge reports: Amazon Music introduced a similar feature last year when it integrated Alexa Plus into the service. Spotify's chatbot goes a step beyond providing AI-powered recommendations and general trivia, however, because it references your playlists, favorite artists, repeat listens, and listening data when responding to requests. That means you can ask questions about your own listening history to check when you first heard a specific song, or see what genres you've been into lately if you can't hold out for the annual Wrapped insights. The updated AI capabilities are more conversational than older features like Prompted Playlist, which automatically builds playlists based on descriptions. Now, you can ask the Spotify chatbot to "play some songs I haven't heard before," and control what's being played with further instructions like requesting specific artists or asking to make it "more upbeat." Spotify says the new conversational experience aims to make the platform "more personal and useful for every listener," making this one of several ways that the company is trying to address complaints about its algorithm. You can also ask the Spotify AI general questions about whatever you're listening to, making the feature feel similar to using chatbot services like Google's Gemini or OpenAI's ChatGPT. That includes asking for when a song was released, exploring other titles an author has written when listening to one of their audiobooks, or checking if a podcast guest has appeared on other audio shows.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Open earbuds let you tune in without tuning out the world. Here are the five best pairs

13 July 2026 at 20:15

Don’t float through the world in an AirPod bubble – enjoy music or podcasts and carry on using these tested favorites

In a feat of engineering that borders on magic, the best wireless earbuds can silence the noisy world around you at the tap of a finger. So, why would you buy open earbuds, which are specifically designed to let in environmental sounds?

Frankly, I didn’t understand the appeal of them either until I started testing them, and now I use open earbuds even more than my noise-cancelling earbuds. For situations from hiking to running errands, these are the headphones you should be wearing. Here’s what you’re missing out on, and a few of the best pairs to try.

Best overall open-ear earbuds:
Soundcore Aeroclip Open-Ear Earbuds

Best premium open-ear earbuds:
Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

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© Photograph: Ryan Waniata/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ryan Waniata/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ryan Waniata/The Guardian

From Virtue to Vice: Tracing the Shift in Moral Themes of Popular Music Lyrics Since the 1960s

24 June 2026 at 12:33

A groundbreaking study conducted by researchers at the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London, reveals a profound cultural shift in the moral fabric embedded within popular music lyrics over the past six decades. By leveraging advanced computational techniques combined with artificial intelligence and linguistic analysis, the team has mapped an evolving landscape in song lyrics that reflects broader societal changes in emotional expression and moral values. This unprecedented research charts the decline of traditional virtues and a concurrent rise in language expressing moral vices, offering a new window into the collective psyche and cultural dynamics of modern society.

Popular music has long been acknowledged as a mirror to societal trends and sentiments, but this study elevates that understanding by quantitatively analyzing over 380,000 English-language songs released from 1960 through 2023. The researchers employed sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to decode the moral themes present in song lyrics, categorizing emotional and ethical content within a scalable, data-driven framework. This expansive dataset incorporated multiple genres and both mainstream Billboard hits and lesser-known tracks, ensuring a comprehensive reflection of popular music’s lyrical evolution.

At the core of the research was the classification of lyrics according to moral foundations theory and sentiment analysis. The study tracked expressions linked to moral virtues such as care, decency, and loyalty alongside vices including harm, cheating, subversion, and degradation. Findings indicate a marked decline in lyrics invoking virtues, while negative sentiments—particularly those communicating conflict, anger, disgust, and antisocial behavior—have steadily surged. This dichotomy reveals not only changes in lyrical content but hints at a deeper transformation in cultural narratives and societal priorities over time.

Dr. Vjosa Preniqi, the lead author and a scholar in digital music research, elucidated the significance of these findings: music transcends entertainment—it functions as a cultural storyteller, encoding and broadcasting evolving societal values. Her insights emphasize that shifts in lyrical moral expression are nuanced and influenced by multiple factors, including genre-specific storytelling traditions and varying “shock-factor” tendencies within particular musical styles. This variation underscores the complexity of interpreting music as a cultural artifact and highlights the layered nature of moral discourse embedded within artistic expression.

Methodologically, the research utilized two expansive datasets: the WASABI dataset, featuring over 377,000 English lyrics spanning 1960 to 2010, supplemented by 5,500 top-charting singles from Billboard’s year-end charts extending into 2023. By integrating these datasets with machine learning models capable of semantic analysis and moral sentiment classification, the study achieves a level of granularity previously unattainable in cultural studies of music. This approach enables the detection of longitudinal trends in the interplay between emotional content and moral narratives on a scale unparalleled in previous literature.

One of the most striking revelations of the study is that the increasing prevalence of moral vices in lyrics does not simply reflect artistic rebellion or sensationalism but may symbolize broader societal shifts. The language of harm, subversion, and degradation capturing anger and disenchantment appears increasingly normalized within popular culture, potentially mirroring heightened social fragmentation, evolving attitudes towards authority, and intensified exposure to conflict in everyday life. This observation supports the thesis that popular music acts as a barometer, dynamically reflecting collective emotional states and moral orientations.

Another dimension explored by the study is the interplay between gender categories of artists and the moral tenor of their lyrics. Despite the acknowledged binary limitations in classifying artist gender within the datasets, patterns emerged showing that female artists more frequently express themes of care, loyalty, and social connection in their songwriting. In contrast, lyrics by male and mixed-gender groups tend to underscore themes related to conflict, harm, and degradation. These gendered moral narratives expose the complex ways identity, social roles, and cultural expectations are negotiated through musical storytelling.

Furthermore, genre-specific analysis elucidates diverse moral landscapes within popular music. Certain musical styles, such as soul and folk, are more closely associated with narratives centered on care, compassion, and communal values. Other genres, including punk, heavy metal, and hip-hop, often embrace vices and narratives of rebellion, subversion, and darker emotional states. This differentiation highlights how genre conventions shape and channel moral expression, reflecting distinct subcultural values and emotional registers within the broader musical ecosystem.

Senior author Dr. Charalampos Saitis underscores the reciprocal nature of music and culture, emphasizing that music both influences and responds to societal transformations. The capacity to quantitatively track these changes in moral storytelling within millions of song lyrics offers an innovative tool for sociologists, psychologists, and cultural theorists interested in the dynamic interplay between art and social values. These insights carry implications for understanding identity formation, cultural cohesion, and the emotional climate of contemporary society.

The technological underpinnings of the study represent a significant advancement in digital humanities and computational social science. By harnessing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence techniques, the researchers effectively decode complex moral and emotional dimensions traditionally accessible only through qualitative analysis. Such methods pave the way for future interdisciplinary research exploring cultural production, emotional expression, and moral evolution across diverse media, moving beyond anecdotal evidence to empirical, high-resolution cultural analytics.

This groundbreaking research arrives at a critical juncture when debates surrounding mental health, social fragmentation, and cultural transformation dominate public discourse. The study’s insights suggest that music, as a pervasive and influential cultural medium, encapsulates shifting emotional norms and value systems that both reflect and shape collective human experience. Understanding these trends holds profound importance for policymakers, educators, artists, and cultural leaders seeking to engage with society’s evolving moral landscape.

In conclusion, the evolution in moral expression documented by this study reveals a society increasingly confronted with complexity, ambivalence, and conflict as encoded in its popular music. The gradual erosion of lyrical virtues signals a transformative cultural moment, one where music captures the tensions and contradictions of a world in flux. This research not only amplifies our understanding of music as cultural commentary but also opens paths for deeper engagement with the ethical dimensions of artistic expression in the digital age.


Subject of Research: Evolution of moral expression in popular music lyrics from 1960 to 2023

Article Title: Evolution of moral expression in song lyrics

News Publication Date: 24-Jun-2026

Web References: 10.1038/s41598-026-53778-9

Keywords: moral values, popular music, song lyrics, cultural change, digital music analysis, artificial intelligence, sentiment analysis, emotion expression, social values, genre differences, artist gender, moral foundations

The Atlantic created a searchable database of the music used to train AI

20 June 2026 at 19:46
A smiling computer surrounded by music notes.

Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner recently uncovered four datasets of music being used to train AI models and made them fully searchable for the public. Two of the sets are absolutely enormous at 12 million and 9 million tracks. The other two are much smaller, but still represent a significant amount of training data at over 100,000 songs each.

According to Reisner, the sets have been downloaded thousands of times and, while it's impossible to know exactly who has used them, Google and Stability have both confirmed they have in research papers. Some of the sources, like the Free Music Archive dataset, are free to stream for personal use but re …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Musician and YouTuber Hainbach on ‘Breath of the Wild’ and Swiss Army Knives

20 June 2026 at 16:20
A black and white photo of Hainbach at a table with two pieces of scientific equipment that he uses to make music.
Indulging in the “Dark Souls of synthesis.” | Image: Aleksander Stojanov / Hainbach

Stefan Paul Goetsch, better known as Hainbach, is a German experimental composer, artist, and YouTuber who is perhaps most famous for making music with laboratory equipment and scientific instruments. He describes it as being like the "Dark Souls of synthesis." Despite using "hard mode" production techniques that often rely on telephone line testing equipment and gear salvaged from nuclear testing facilities, Hainbach is also incredibly prolific, releasing six albums in 2025 alone, along with a handful of singles and EPs. His latest, Gentle Hum, is a collaboration with Ah! Kosmos (Turkish composer, Başak Günak). The album is a melancholic co …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The NTS Radio Player brings the best of internet radio to your hi-fi

19 June 2026 at 15:53
The NTS Radio Player from Atonemo in front of a vintage hi-fi receiver.
Have I found my Chromecast Audio replacement? | Image: NTS Radio

NTS Radio and Swedish audio company Atonemo have teamed up on a dedicated player that brings NTS's genre-defying mixes and streaming stations to almost any stereo or speaker setup. And, like Atonemo's existing Streamplayer, you can also listen to your favorite streaming services with it, using AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, or Tidal Connect.

The $179 NTS Radio Player puts out 24-bit / 192kHz audio over a standard 3.5mm audio jack and comes with an adapter cable for connecting to RCA on your vintage hi-fi system, or whatever other speakers you have lying around. The top of the device has two buttons for tuning in directly to NTS 1 …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Spotify’s reserved ticket sales to music superfans are now going live

18 June 2026 at 15:00
Spotify is launching "Reserved," a new system that will hold two concert tickets for an artist's superfans before they're on sale to the public.

Conclave is the sound of a NYC summer block party

14 June 2026 at 17:30
The cover of Conclave’s self-titled debut record featuring a water color painting of flowers, mushrooms and congas surrounding a key hole.
Unlock a party. | Image: Conclave

I have this vivid memory of walking to pick up my oldest from school in June of 2022. For a variety of reasons, I was in a very bad place mentally. And to make matters worse, it was brutally hot. I was depressed, angry with the world, sunburned, and soaked through with sweat. But as the second track on Conclave, "Habla," settled into its groove, I found myself unconsciously strutting. Not walking, but moving through the streets in lockstep with the music, just as a much-needed cool breeze kicked up, and some scaffolding afforded me a full block's worth of shade. For a brief moment, I found myself smiling for the first time in what felt like …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I’ve found the Goldilocks of portable MIDI controllers

11 June 2026 at 17:00

I have tested more portable MIDI controllers than I can keep track of, and I will tell you right now: 37 keys is the ideal size. While Arturia's 25-key MiniLab MK3 is a solid controller that easily fits in a backpack, it feels a bit claustrophobic. The new $149 MiniLab 37 adds another octave, giving you much more room to play bass and lead simultaneously, or just play more expansive chords.

Physically, the MiniLab 37 isn't very different from its smaller sibling. It's got the same solid (if slightly springy) keybed, eight pads, eight endless encoders, four faders, a pair of touch strips, USB-C, and a full-size five-pin MIDI DIN out on the b …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Deezer launches an AI music detector for other streaming services

11 June 2026 at 09:00
Deezer logo and tag line “live the music” on a black background.

Deezer will now scan your playlists on other streaming platforms to detect AI-generated music. Deezer was the first of the big streaming services to start labeling AI-generated music. It even offered its tech to other platforms, but it doesn't seem like it had many buyers. Qobuz launched its own detection tech, while Apple and Spotify have opted for a voluntary tagging system.

"No other company has followed our lead yet, so we decided to make it possible for everyone to check if their playlists include synthetic music, no matter which streaming platform they use," Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release. So, since nobody is ta …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google won’t just admit it’s feeding YouTube creators to its music AI

10 June 2026 at 18:20
An image of a gavel coming down on a Google logo
A group of independent musicians is suing Google claiming it trained Lyria on their uploads. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

If you've uploaded a song to YouTube, Google almost certainly considers your video fair game for training its Lyria music AI, it just won't admit it right now.

A group of independent musicians is suing Google, claiming that it illegally used songs they uploaded to YouTube to train its Lyria 3 model. Google has filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying:

Their lawsuit is based on the unsupported hypothesis that Google trained on their specific works. Even accepting their untested allegations as fact, the Complaint cannot stand. Plaintiffs each granted YouTube, and Google - which provides the service-a broad license to use the uploaded con …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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