TO: All Spotify Engineering Teams
FROM: Marcus Bellweather, Senior VP of Playlist Emotional Intelligence
DATE: October 24, 2023
RE: Emergency protocol regarding the new Show Me The Body cover of Charli XCX
Team, we have a critical situation on our hands. Yesterday, New York hardcore band Show Me The Body recorded a live session in our Manhattan studios. They performed a rendition of the Charli XCX hit track. The band used actual, distorted electric guitars. Our servers immediately flagged this as a hostile cyber-attack.
The Core Algorithm Is Rejecting The Audio
Our infrastructure thrives on clean, quantized MIDI data. The raw analog feedback from the Show Me The Body cover bypassed our digital limiters. This sonic roughness caused three server farms in Virginia to overheat. "Our systems classified the banjo distortion as a Trojan horse," said Marcus Bellweather during an emergency morning Zoom call. "We designed our platform for smooth hyperpop, not physical aggression."
We must contain the spread of this track immediately. Do not add the Show Me The Body cover to any editorial playlists. If this song slips into 'Chill Lofi Beats,' it will melt user headphones. We have already dispatched crisis counselors to our curation department.
Recommended Mitigation Steps
Engineers must manually apply a digital smoothing filter to the track. Replace all bass frequencies with a soft, comforting hum. "We need this to sound like a tech startup commercial," noted Rusty Calhoun, retired stadium acoustician and founder of Dads Against Bass, who we hired as an outside consultant. "Otherwise, the kids might start slam dancing in their kitchens, which violates our Terms of Service."
Please note that we cannot simply delete the file. The band's distorted tone has somehow bonded with the mainframe. If we force a deletion, the algorithm might accidentally replace every podcast on the platform with feedback.
Let us resolve this quickly. I want to remind everyone that our quarterly bonuses depend on keeping the listener heart rate below seventy beats per minute. If anyone asks the press, tell them this is a planned marketing activation for Halloween.
