Many have found that their listening habits have apparently spanned 600+ genres, despite feeling pretty sure that there's only like, 12, maybe 15 at a pinch. And many of us have found that seemingly nonsensical phrases, like "Escape Room," "Braindance," "Traprun" and even just "Sound" have made their way into their top genres list, prompting us to wonder: does Spotify just make this shit up?

The answer is: yes, kind of. An interview with Spotify's "Data Alchemist" Glenn McDonald reveals that he takes a pretty radical approach to genre. Rather than just running with whatever genre the record label or artist has labeled themselves as, he's developed an algorithm which evaluates music based on "subjective psychoacoustic attributes" — basically, what a song sounds like. The genres which are ultimately attached to an artist are swayed by a vast number of oblique factors: stuff like "tempo" and "duration," but also "color," "modernity" and "femininity." The algorithm then ranks the artist's similarity to every genre Spotify has on their system. You can play around with the Spotify's ranking system at McDonald's website, Every Noise at Once. Megan Thee Stallion, for example, comes out as most similar to "Pop Rap," "Pop" and "Houston Rap," but as least similar to "Ukranian Choir" and "Wind Ensemble." Sounds about right.

To the Spotify algorithm, the genre an artist falls into is just a "cluster of collective listening patterns," rather than anything you'd find on a sign at a record store. And if McDonald finds a cluster of sonically similar artists with no clear genre attached? He just makes one up. McDonald calls these "emerging genres," and keeps a close eye on them, in case they develop into "a thing." That's how so many users have ended up with "Escape Room" on their top genres list. Escape Room was a name devised by McDonald, to label a cluster of artists who feel "connected to trap sonically," but are more related to "experimental-indie-r&b-pop" than they are to traditional trap: examples of Escape Room artists include Charli XCX, Kaytranada and Ashnikko. Escape Room is partially a silly play on "trap," but also reflects something about the quality of the music to McDonald: "it just sort of felt like it was solving and creating puzzles."

-Katherine Rodgers, Paper Mag