Love and Algorhythms – Madeline Rosene (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Whilst we live in an age when social platforms and technology, AI-generated content, and streaming are mainly free to access, such creations have not always improved our lives. I’m not one of those anti-technology Luddites advocating we return to the past, but it does seem that many of the very things that make us human – social, tactile interaction, honesty and authenticity, artistic expression, creativity, empathy and emotion – can no longer compete with the cold, heartless artifces of the online world.

I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way, as Madeline Rosene has written a song that expresses the same sentiment.“It’s about the weird grief of being known by an algorithm,” Rosene says. “Is it going to start feeling like Instagram or TikTok understands you better than your partner? Is that already happening? It’s creepy. And kind of sad.”

As the song runs along on gentle, slightly melancholic indie-pop vibes, a blend of delicacy and seductive groove, chiming understatement and spacious atmospherics, she expresses her concern that the algorithms and bots of the digital world seem to understand people better than we know ourselves. But, of course, they don’t, how could they? It is all a con, a system that is essentially just telling us what we want to hear, making us feel how we want to feel, a bitter-sweet pill to block out the real world.

And the video makes a brilliant point too. This claymation story, a process based entirely on long hours of human crafting, is the antithesis of slick AI creations and airbrushed, augmented art, and without saying so directly, it reminds us that without a human mind, imagination, and intent behind it, does art mean anything at all?

This delicate slice of indie-pop is actually a powerful broadcast, one that aims to call us back to the real world, one that tells us to put those screens down, stop scrolling, stop being sucked in to the machinations of the machine realm and join the real world once more, a place of real light and genuine love, the human touch and the human heart.

Before it’s too late!

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