At Pandora I was told that something like the song “We Are Young” by the band fun., it was kind of sitting there on Pandora for a while as an indie pop song liked by a number of people who like other things in that genre. Not particularly hugely successful; then it was featured in Glee. So they had a lot of Glee fans coming to Pandora to listen to fun.

That was fine but then what do you play them next? Do you want to take them into this indie pop space? Or do you want something more like a Glee space? So it is funny how one product can be viewed so differently either over time or by different demographics. This really is the ultimate elusiveness of taste, I think. If it were purely subjective, we could never agree about anything. And if were purely objective, we wouldn't need human interaction. Netflix could just come out with a very strong algorithm that just measured the quality of a movie the way a Geiger counter measures radiation. So it’s this weird mix of the subjective and the objective that will always leave it, by definition, murky.

Beck: One thing I thought was really interesting is how we forgive the things that we love for their flaws. So once you've decided you like something, it doesn't really matter as much if it's “good” or “bad.” Like, I like fantasy novels so even if the fantasy novel is not super well-written, I might still like it. But you might not. Why do you think that this happens?

Vanderbilt: Our liking for something is not a singular proposition. There are a number of ways into that liking. Some things might just hit kind of a hedonic sweet spot that is a bit of a weakness in us, that forces us to kind of drop our more analytical thinking. Quality doesn't sit out there independently in the world. This sounds a little bit like a flaw in our reasoning, but as I mention in the book, I think this can actually be a good strategy for getting more out of life.

If you look at some of these rating sites [for beer], they have this phrase “lawnmower beer,” which I kind of like. It’s like, it's not the best beer ever but after you've just mowed the lawn, you're hot, you're thirsty, it's going to taste pretty good. That’s just another example of how contextual taste can be. Is this a great restaurant? No, but it is a good restaurant for being in the Port Authority bus station.

Beck: This gets into the tension of people wanting both novelty and familiarity. What always happens to me is I hear a new song and I love it, but then I wish that there were 100 more songs that are both exactly like it and totally different. Is there one that we prefer between novelty and familiarity? How do we reconcile those desires?

Vanderbilt: I think we always lean toward familiarity for some of the reasons we've already discussed. Number one, it’s efficiency. It's just easier for the brain. If you have an apple tree right in front of you, should you just pick an apple and get your sustenance or should you range a little bit further and try to find something else, expending energy for something that might not be out there? Most of us would just go with the apple. Should I go on Spotify right now and find out what the “hottest” indie rock bands are right at this moment or should I just listen to ones that I already know?