What you are talking about (simple statistical aggregation) may be true 10 years ago. Deep learning is truly different.
I'm not saying it is "smart" or listen the way we are. But is not "dumb" either in that it does not just follow prescribed rules.
I personally prefer human curation. But I've heard many many stories of how spotify's AI sometimes surprises people with uncanny magical recommendations (and dumb ones too). And it is just a start.
Deep learning is not statistical aggregation, but still wouldn't solve the very example OP and I are talking about.
Deep learning is not smart nor is able to replace actual ears and understanding of music. Even a random recommendation system would be able to surprise once in a while.
Personally, I think Spotify's system is terrible and gives me a good suggestion every 100 wrong ones.
I'm not saying it is "smart" or listen the way we are. But is not "dumb" either in that it does not just follow prescribed rules.
I personally prefer human curation. But I've heard many many stories of how spotify's AI sometimes surprises people with uncanny magical recommendations (and dumb ones too). And it is just a start.