The core question isn't "teaching an agent to understand music." It's how to take something deeply subjective, ambiguous, and impossible to fully articulate — taste — and slowly turn it into observable, recordable, iterable machine signals.

The agent doesn't just know which song won. It decomposes why: syncopated rhythm, female alto, asymmetrical three-line chorus, male-female duet — positive signals.

Taste isn't rules. Taste is residuals. It's not "female vocals are always better." It's "this particular female vocal, in this particular syncopated rhythm, paired with this asymmetrical structure — that's what makes me stop."

Real domestication isn't obedience. It's taste. When I say "not bad," I don't mean satisfied. When I say "that's interesting," that's the real vein of ore.