She’s not the only one. It now takes a cipher to be anyone’s fan. You feel, somehow, like you get less out of the work if you don’t know the story behind every lyric. It’s not just a catchy line, it’s an inside joke, and you’re the only one who doesn’t get it.

Thanks to the Spotify algorithm, I know everything about an ex-Disney star’s divorce, what happened in that elevator, how a British rock star fell out of love with an it-girl, and all the tortured details of a love triangle between three people I’d never heard of until one of them wrote a song about getting her driver’s licence.

Maybe my 30s and the cultural decay of late-stage capitalism has turned me cynical, but it’s all suddenly too transparent to enjoy. Gossip isn’t a side effect of fame, it’s a strategy, and some superstars play it better than others. Next time one of them complains about their privacy’s erasure, we all might shrug, point to their streaming numbers, and tell them to take it up with their marketing manager.

The next track plays. The nameless singer from that band I like starts telling a story about attending a wedding and finding himself so heartbroken watching an old flame marry someone else that his only recourse is to vomit in the aisle. It’s unhinged and unbelievable and kind of fantastic: I have no idea who he’s talking about. I hope I never do.

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