Connor Ball, the 23-year-old bassist of the British pop band the Vamps, was in the shower when he realized something was up. The song he was listening to on Spotify, by the American singer Lauv, had suddenly stopped.

“That’s a shame,” Mr. Ball remembered thinking. (He couldn’t start it again; he was still showering.) Then another song started playing. The music was odd, like nothing he would choose to play for himself.

“It was atmospheric, almost like massage music,” he said.

He soon realized that he had been hacked. The music was playing on Google Chrome, a web browser that Mr. Ball does not use. Weeks later, he has not yet changed his password, he said, because of “laziness.” So he has continued to endure his hackers’ strange taste.

Asked how he pictured the person choosing the songs, he said, “I’m imagining a 70-year-old bald man in a rocking chair.”