At Radio Days Europe, BBC Radio 1 Music Director Chris Price (right) faced off against Spotify UK Chief David Cooper (below) in a session called ‘Let the Music Play.’

Price made an impassioned defence of humans choosing music for radio stations, and cited the high ratings of BBC Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra as indicators of the success of that policy, with millions of listeners tuning in each week.

Using the recently departed David Bowie as an example, he said, “the tools I will need to find the next David Bowie are passion not data,” urging music directors to get passionate about choosing new music and to trust their gut.

David Cooper on the other hand said data is the best way to predict what people want to hear, citing Spotify as an example of how much more we can know about people’s habits. Many Spotify users apparently name their playlists for their mood or their activities, giving the company a rich mine of information about what people listen to when they are undertaking activity based music listening.