A 2002 Porcupine Tree song had prophesized Spotify’s biggest secret

Porcupine Tree's "Sound of Muzak" describes music reduced to a commodity, stripped of soul, engineered for consumption without engagement. Wilson wrote it as a warning. He was watching the early digital compression of music into MP3s and the early signs that the industry valued volume over substance. He extrapolated. He imagined a future where music became sonic wallpaper, and where the machinery producing it optimized for inoffensiveness because inoffensiveness scales and art does not.

In 2026, that future has a market capitalization. Spotify’s recommendation algorithm rewards tracks that retain listeners, and the most reliable way to retain a listener is to never disrupt them. A song with a jarring transition gets skipped. A song with a challenging structure gets skipped. A song that demands attention loses to a song that permits its own ignoring. The algorithm did not set out to destroy ambitious music. It just set out to reduce skips, and reducing skips means promoting music that asks nothing of anyone. The outcome is identical. So the real question to ponder about is: Who decides what sounds like music when the gatekeeper optimizes for the absence of attention?

The full analysis along with all the sources checked is on https://srutiosocial.com/porcupine-tree-sound-of-muzak-spotify-prophecy/

By the way, "Sound of Muzak" is not the only Steven Wilson song which had predicted the music industry landscape in 2026. There were quite a few others. Can you guess which ones?