Write, record, optimize? How musicians reflect on music optimization strategies in the creative production process

Abstract

Musicians are believed to increasingly “optimize” their music to positively influence discoverability and engagement on music and social media platforms. Common examples of such optimization strategies are skipping intros, quickly moving to the chorus, or inserting danceable “hooks.” But to what extent are optimization strategies actively considered in the creative production process? And, if so, in what stage of production? In this article, we explore how professional musicians reflect on the opportunities and constraints that optimization strategies offer in the creative music production process. Based on 20 in-depth interviews with early to mid-career professional musicians and songwriters, we identify four different positions between “pure” artistic autonomy and “pure” commercialism that musicians typically take on in relation to these optimization strategies. We demonstrate that musicians are aware that sonically “working towards” platforms may bring economic success, while simultaneously maintaining a general reluctance towards outright commercial, “full optimization” ideologies.