How bad is your Spotify?(pudding.cool)
pudding.cool
How bad is your Spotify?
https://pudding.cool/2020/12/judge-my-spotify
618 comments
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. You only listen to Obama-era jams like Nocturne in B-Flat Minor, Op. 9, No. 1 by Frédéric Chopin and Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467: II. Andante by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The output it spitted out while processing was pretty good though.
The output it spitted out while processing was pretty good though.
> oh great another Rise Against stan...
> You've been listening to a lot of Logic lately.
> u okay?
> >Yeah why
> no reason...
> Of course Twenty One Pilots.
Not gonna lie, I'm feeling a bit judged by this AI:)
Not gonna lie, I'm feeling a bit judged by this AI:)
If it's any comfort I got the _exact_ same sequence of comments/questions but with different bands I listened to a lot in 2020..
Hope that didn't ruin the magic.
Hope that didn't ruin the magic.
> You've been listening to a lot of Logic lately. > u okay?
Asked the same thing to me, but about Radiohead.
Asked the same thing to me, but about Radiohead.
Clipping here, which definitely made sense.
I listened to Why Don't We _one time_ to see what they sounded like and now Spotify, and this, thinks I stan.
Asked the same thing to me, but about The Replacements.
For me it was Asking Alexandria, which fit pretty well as they have mostly dark songs.
What's moody about the placemats?
Well, if you consider drunken sprees a mood... :)
On second thought I do think Paul Westerberg has a strong melancholy streak.
At first I had stuff "Waitress in the Sky" or "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" or "Alex Chilton" or whatever in mind, but now that I think about it there's a dark undercurrent to plenty of the songs in the core Replacements canon: "Hold my Life", "Unsatisified", "I Will Dare", "Bastards of Young", "I'll Be You", etc. - not to mention of a handful of slow tempo tracks with obviously dark themes.
I don't normally associate the Replacements with mopey music but in retrospect I'm not sure why. It's kinda all over the place, under a very thin veneer of drunken cynicism.
At first I had stuff "Waitress in the Sky" or "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" or "Alex Chilton" or whatever in mind, but now that I think about it there's a dark undercurrent to plenty of the songs in the core Replacements canon: "Hold my Life", "Unsatisified", "I Will Dare", "Bastards of Young", "I'll Be You", etc. - not to mention of a handful of slow tempo tracks with obviously dark themes.
I don't normally associate the Replacements with mopey music but in retrospect I'm not sure why. It's kinda all over the place, under a very thin veneer of drunken cynicism.
Exactly. To your point, I'm thinking of 'Swingin' Party,' 'Here Comes a Regular,' even the lovely 'Skyway' is melancholy at heart. Read 'Trouble Boys' by Bob Mehr to find out why.
Lol. Mine was LCD Soundsystem.
Same , but with:
- Ryan Caraveo, u okay? - ...of course, K.Flay
- Ryan Caraveo, u okay? - ...of course, K.Flay
12 hours ago was what, 5am London, Midnight East Coast?
Timing is everything. If a tree falls in the forest and 75% of the potential readership are fast asleep, does it make a sound?
(Numbers are fictional - and possibly eurocentric - for the purpose of conversation. I think the point stands with or without their veracity, it's just easier for form a sentence with values)
Timing is everything. If a tree falls in the forest and 75% of the potential readership are fast asleep, does it make a sound?
(Numbers are fictional - and possibly eurocentric - for the purpose of conversation. I think the point stands with or without their veracity, it's just easier for form a sentence with values)
In theory you could account for this, right? HN (and reddit, etc.) could score based on how many typical voters have seen it, or just bias directly based on average active times across a week.
Dang sends email to people suggesting they repost it if he thinks it should have gotten more traction, probably an easier system. I could see reddit doing something like that but hn seems pretty basic
> Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
After it picked the one very popular song I listen to in order to laugh at me for listening to non obscure things, ignoring the piles of weird random crap I normally listen to that nobody ever seems to know. Funny but not very accurate.
Overall all I got a good laugh though.
After it picked the one very popular song I listen to in order to laugh at me for listening to non obscure things, ignoring the piles of weird random crap I normally listen to that nobody ever seems to know. Funny but not very accurate.
Overall all I got a good laugh though.
I think the microtonal stuff I listen to is probably too unpopular to even have reviews to go on.
It picked out Brendan Byrnes as one of my obscure artists, though he is probably one of the more popular microtonal artists. It was able to pick out my own band as one of my "obscure artists", so I don't think "too unpopular" is a thing for it, haha.
Cool...
you ok?
[lol, jk.] [yeah, why?]
you ok?
[lol, jk.] [yeah, why?]
"You are 11% basic. Red Moon Architect and Ahab? Where do you even find this shit?."
Exactly what happened to me also
Curious, I learned something.
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. For you, music's been all downhill since Orden Ogan made The Things We Believe In.
Now I wonder if this is because my account is old, or if I really listen to that much old stuff, or if my favorite bands just don't release that much. Weird.
But I'm entirely fine with the other assments:
> Your spotify was renaissance-faire -too-much-power metal bad.
> Thank your obsessions with medieval rock and power metal (e.g., Sabaton and Dreamtale) for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> hail-satan bad
> You are 0% basic. Ewigheim and Winterstorm? Where do you even find this shit?.
And I think winterstorm and ewigheim aren't even the most obscure bands.
Oh but there is a new stribog album. nice.
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. For you, music's been all downhill since Orden Ogan made The Things We Believe In.
Now I wonder if this is because my account is old, or if I really listen to that much old stuff, or if my favorite bands just don't release that much. Weird.
But I'm entirely fine with the other assments:
> Your spotify was renaissance-faire -too-much-power metal bad.
> Thank your obsessions with medieval rock and power metal (e.g., Sabaton and Dreamtale) for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> hail-satan bad
> You are 0% basic. Ewigheim and Winterstorm? Where do you even find this shit?.
And I think winterstorm and ewigheim aren't even the most obscure bands.
Oh but there is a new stribog album. nice.
>Where do you even find this shit?.
I don't follow the recomendations, I click "Fans also listen to". Here is the rest of my assesment.
> Your spotify was moonshine-renaissance-faire bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Johnny Cash and medieval folk for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> napping-in-your-mancave bad
> Here's what else is going on in your aural trash fire:
You listen to these tracks too much:
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You only listen to Obama-era jams like Ensigns Of Victory by Winterfylleth and Streamline by VNV Nation.
Analysis completed in 4.012 exhausting seconds.
Thanks for letting me see your music I guess.
Shutting down.
I don't follow the recomendations, I click "Fans also listen to". Here is the rest of my assesment.
> Your spotify was moonshine-renaissance-faire bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Johnny Cash and medieval folk for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> napping-in-your-mancave bad
> Here's what else is going on in your aural trash fire:
You listen to these tracks too much:
Enter The Ninja by Die Antwoord
Napalm Sunshine by Lying for Friends
The Lachrymal Sleep by Doom:VS
Thousands Of Bees by In Gowan Ring
The Seer and the Seen by In Gowan Ring
VNV Nation
Winterfylleth
WEH
Rome
Falconer
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You only listen to Obama-era jams like Ensigns Of Victory by Winterfylleth and Streamline by VNV Nation.
Analysis completed in 4.012 exhausting seconds.
Thanks for letting me see your music I guess.
Shutting down.
Try having kids:
> You listen to these tracks too much:
> - Rock-A-Bye Your Bear by The Wiggles
Which, to be fair, is my second favourite Wiggle song!
> You listen to these tracks too much:
> - Rock-A-Bye Your Bear by The Wiggles
Which, to be fair, is my second favourite Wiggle song!
Oh, I have kids. I just give them their own accounts
Heheh love winterfylleth, you're not alone!
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. For you, music's been all downhill since Kalax made Time Lapse.
I got the same thing with a different song. What's funny about this one is it's from 2017.
I got the same thing with a different song. What's funny about this one is it's from 2017.
Yeah I don't see what's wrong with that.
It's complaining about me listening to Eluveitie and Ost+Front too much (and Metalocalypse and Celldweller).
I'm sorry that I went searching for other german industrial metal bands when rammstein took forever to put out another album.
It's complaining about me listening to Eluveitie and Ost+Front too much (and Metalocalypse and Celldweller).
I'm sorry that I went searching for other german industrial metal bands when rammstein took forever to put out another album.
Everyone got the same message about the 2010s it seems. Don’t fail the Turing test. Or the reverse Turing test where an AI makes you question your own humanity. :)
> Now I wonder if this is because my account is old
I made my account this yeah, and i got the same "you're stuck in the early 2010s". I guess I just listen to a lot of music from then.
I made my account this yeah, and i got the same "you're stuck in the early 2010s". I guess I just listen to a lot of music from then.
Interestingly most of the examples it gave me for being stuck in the early 2010s were from the second half of the decade.
That reads like high praise to me.
You are 11% basic. Red Moon Architect and Ahab? Where do you even find this shit?.
this is about how mine went. It's very concerned about where I found Necropanther and Wasteland Riders
> You are 0% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to Mistabishi?.
> > Your spotify was ira-glass-in-your-airpods-manic-pixie-dream-girl bad.
Made me laugh!
> > Your spotify was ira-glass-in-your-airpods-manic-pixie-dream-girl bad.
Made me laugh!
i mean there was him loosing all those bookings after going on racist rants on facebook. i think he used to get banned from dogs on acid a lot for being a dumb asshole too https://mixmag.net/read/drum-n-bass-producer-mistabishi-has-...
*Adds Mistabishi to playlist
> You are 3% basic. MYST and Project One? Where do you even find this shit?.
Hilarious, especially since these are pretty much mainstream artists of my (not so small) niche. I'd love to see how it comes up with those.
Hilarious, especially since these are pretty much mainstream artists of my (not so small) niche. I'd love to see how it comes up with those.
> This same link was posted 11 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25513886 here and is not at all getting the same popularity.
HN allows reposts of an article when earlier submissions haven't gotten attention yet. This is our way of mitigating the randomness of what gets traction off /newest.
It makes for a something of a lottery in terms of which submission ends up with all the attention, but it's on our list to implement some kind of karma sharing across multiple submissions. It's been on our list for years, but we'll get to it eventually!
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
HN allows reposts of an article when earlier submissions haven't gotten attention yet. This is our way of mitigating the randomness of what gets traction off /newest.
It makes for a something of a lottery in terms of which submission ends up with all the attention, but it's on our list to implement some kind of karma sharing across multiple submissions. It's been on our list for years, but we'll get to it eventually!
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
> You are 5% basic. Talpa and Villagers of Ioannina City? Where do you even find this shit?.
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Ratatat's Magnifique.
The last line is definitely something I will mention to my therapist ... :-)
Still, it validated my hipster taste, even though it made fun of it. Suck it bot, I'm cool and your programmers aren't.
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Ratatat's Magnifique.
The last line is definitely something I will mention to my therapist ... :-)
Still, it validated my hipster taste, even though it made fun of it. Suck it bot, I'm cool and your programmers aren't.
Gosh I love Ratatat’s Magnifique.
It's about time for their next album. Got any recommendation? So far, I've found Ratatat are in their own league, nobody comes close to that very specific feeling and genre.
Well, unfortunately no. Ratatat is my lucky find. Heard their 'Gettysburg' while watching some random gaming clip that feature their music! and they're not my usual genre I've listen to. So Google is your best friend...
Other of my fav instrumental band is CHON, but they're more of math rock and not really the same.
Other of my fav instrumental band is CHON, but they're more of math rock and not really the same.
Mine was wonderfully vicious too, though I am noticing we got some of the same synonyms (I was at 17%): "masters-in-creative-writing" instead of "please-read-my-manuscript" and I would much have preferred "walmart-hawaiian-shirt" over "tommy-bahama". That stung.
Hilarious, yes.
> You are 15% basic. Yeah, you've got some obscure artists like VanKatoen, but your real top ones are ultra-mainstream like The Weeknd..
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> dad-rock bad
> neverland-ranch bad
> nineties-dorm-room bad
> studded-leather-jacket bad
> wannabe-tenor-but-probably-a-bass bad
As a rock-listening dad who spent most of the 90s living in a dorm room, I felt spied on.
> You are 15% basic. Yeah, you've got some obscure artists like VanKatoen, but your real top ones are ultra-mainstream like The Weeknd..
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> dad-rock bad
> neverland-ranch bad
> nineties-dorm-room bad
> studded-leather-jacket bad
> wannabe-tenor-but-probably-a-bass bad
As a rock-listening dad who spent most of the 90s living in a dorm room, I felt spied on.
This was so much fun.
> You are 5% basic. Old Man Gloom and Distorted Harmony? Where do you even find this shit?.
I feel called out, but also kinda proud.
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around The Dear Hunter's Act Iv: Rebirth in Reprise.
Early 2010s were amazing era for Prog metal alright.
> You are 5% basic. Old Man Gloom and Distorted Harmony? Where do you even find this shit?.
I feel called out, but also kinda proud.
> You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around The Dear Hunter's Act Iv: Rebirth in Reprise.
Early 2010s were amazing era for Prog metal alright.
Ha! I also got 26% score and it was ridiculing me for listening to Ed Alleyne-Johnson [1] and David Hicken [2] even though they are not even mainstream performers :)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJwAZMq08xA
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHtdqGy3g5Q or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YftAYq1AHiE if you are in a more upbeat mood
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJwAZMq08xA
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHtdqGy3g5Q or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YftAYq1AHiE if you are in a more upbeat mood
>Anyone got ideas?
The Act of HN submission. But broadly speaking US working time zone get a much higher chance of submission being upvoted.
The Act of HN submission. But broadly speaking US working time zone get a much higher chance of submission being upvoted.
6% basic.
AI hates me.
Apparently, Your spotify was overdramatic-instrumental-yoga-studio-heavy-eyeliner-post-punk bad. And this was just the beginning of the insults.
>You're stuck in the early 2010s.
oof, I'm not even angry lol
oof, I'm not even angry lol
The algorithm is more basic than the music it passes judgement on so take the verbiage with a grain of punk-vinyl-you-never-heard-before.
i'm 1% basic, i'm clearly the coolest in da room
I'm guessing 1% is actually common. Mine:
"You are 1% basic. Oh wow Penelope Trappes and Titi Robin! Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
You're too trendy for your own good. You only listen to music made in the last year."
"You are 1% basic. Oh wow Penelope Trappes and Titi Robin! Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
You're too trendy for your own good. You only listen to music made in the last year."
Another 1%:
"You are 1% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to DJ Marsta?.
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Mez's Tyrone EP."
"You are 1% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to DJ Marsta?.
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Mez's Tyrone EP."
I got 0%!
But you ARE cool for listening to Kapitan Korsakov!
Huh, I wonder if this is just a mad lib that is being used to gather information about people?
It's sayin stuff like "You know music existed before 2019, right?", but also criticizing me for liking Stan Rogers, who died in 1983, Jay Z, and Trevor Hall, who seemed to peak in the early 2000s.
Maybe I just haven't finished my coffee yet, but I was kindof hoping that this would actually use AI to figure out the musical variety of my listening history and suggest more people to listen to or something like that. Seems like it was just a bunch of mad libbed insults though.
It's sayin stuff like "You know music existed before 2019, right?", but also criticizing me for liking Stan Rogers, who died in 1983, Jay Z, and Trevor Hall, who seemed to peak in the early 2000s.
Maybe I just haven't finished my coffee yet, but I was kindof hoping that this would actually use AI to figure out the musical variety of my listening history and suggest more people to listen to or something like that. Seems like it was just a bunch of mad libbed insults though.
Yeah some of it seemed tailored and accurate, specifically the insults at the end (They pegged my music perfectly with "stoner-frat-bro bad"), but most of it was just pulling most played artists and songs and making vague jokes.
I had the same feeling. It made a spot on joke about how much AC/DC I listen to followed by a funny and relevant comment about too much Slipknot. But then it followed it up by calling me obsessed with two bands I can't even remember listening to in recent years. One of which I never really listened much to.
For me also, the big punchline revolved around a song from the Dirty Dancing movie that I had to actually look up to find out if I've ever heard before. Now I'm a sucker for 80s synth-pop, don't get me wrong, but that specific song I'm 99.9% sure I've never actually played on Spotify. So it kinda seems like they've hard coded some insults with pop culture cross-references. The "AI" be like
select case (person%likes)
case ('80s-synth-pop')
print *, 80s_pop_insult_char
case ('single-specific-artist')
print *, person%likes_artist//'-stan'
! (...)
end selectYeah, it called out Todd Barry as one of the most listened to things, and I haven't listened to comedy on Spotify since I started listening to a weekly stable of podcasts like six years ago.
i did not understand the need for the hostile language.
i regret letting this access my account. i would recommend others to not give this tool access, it is not worth it.
i regret letting this access my account. i would recommend others to not give this tool access, it is not worth it.
Same. I gave it access to my data, it spat out a bunch of vague insults that just... didn’t mean anything.
It called me a “manic pixie dream girl” - I’m male.
It said I was “local-talk-radio-bumper-sticker-bitch“, which isn’t even an adjective.
I revoked access afterwards but like you I felt a bit conned.
It called me a “manic pixie dream girl” - I’m male.
It said I was “local-talk-radio-bumper-sticker-bitch“, which isn’t even an adjective.
I revoked access afterwards but like you I felt a bit conned.
> You know music existed before 2019, right?
It gave me the line about being stuck in 2010. Just an insult machine. It would actually be useful if it gave me songs it thought were more "cool" based on my current lists. Still, I'm getting a perspective by reading other people's amusement with the comments here on HN.
It gave me the line about being stuck in 2010. Just an insult machine. It would actually be useful if it gave me songs it thought were more "cool" based on my current lists. Still, I'm getting a perspective by reading other people's amusement with the comments here on HN.
Anyone that wants to revoke the access this (or any previously used) app had to your spotify account, you can revoke access here: https://www.spotify.com/uk/account/apps/
Yeah, the absolute lack of any privacy statements makes me wary. They get access to my entire music history and personal info, and just say that they won't post anything? Pass.
To be clear, it looks like the oauth scope they're requesting only allows read-only access to your account. So it's not like they could actually post on your behalf without additional express permissions, barring a Spotify API bug (as far as I understand).
That said of course I agree they should have an explicit privacy policy regardless.
That said of course I agree they should have an explicit privacy policy regardless.
The privacy policy is here: https://pudding.cool/privacy/
> The Pudding collects your data so that we can:
> Personalize stories > Create content for stories from reader-generated inputs
Is this clear enough to forbid them from long term storage and passing the data on?
> Personalize stories > Create content for stories from reader-generated inputs
Is this clear enough to forbid them from long term storage and passing the data on?
Only if it is law; and even then, tough to police.
As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success:
I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs.
Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends.
If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recommends and plays is tolerable but not great.
Every now and then (maybe one out of every 20-30 songs) I will discover a shiny new gem of a song that really resonates with me. So I drag that song up and add it to my slowly growing playlist.
This has the effect of subtly changing the recommendation algorithm for that playlist over time.
Eventually I end up with a playlist with about 100 songs on it, and recommendations that at least roughly align with the mood.
I tend to get bored of songs pretty quickly though, so when a playlist gets too stale, I will prune the old and tired songs from it.
This approach has worked pretty well for me so far, but I really wish that there was a way to explicitly tell Spotify that I "dislike" a song and to never recommend it to me again.
I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs.
Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends.
If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recommends and plays is tolerable but not great.
Every now and then (maybe one out of every 20-30 songs) I will discover a shiny new gem of a song that really resonates with me. So I drag that song up and add it to my slowly growing playlist.
This has the effect of subtly changing the recommendation algorithm for that playlist over time.
Eventually I end up with a playlist with about 100 songs on it, and recommendations that at least roughly align with the mood.
I tend to get bored of songs pretty quickly though, so when a playlist gets too stale, I will prune the old and tired songs from it.
This approach has worked pretty well for me so far, but I really wish that there was a way to explicitly tell Spotify that I "dislike" a song and to never recommend it to me again.
I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less.
Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-less bolted on these features later in the product life... and it shows.
The "shuffle" alone on Spotify was enough to send me running. Have a playlist with 200 songs from 80 different artists? Well, we'll just play this one artist - the same album even! - back to back to back until you're annoyed enough to manually select the next song!
I understood people flocking to Spotify back when it was the only game in town that allowed you to play specific songs, make playlists, and "download" songs for offline (airplane) playback. But now Pandora does all this too - and has for the past several years. The two services are even priced about the same...
So, if Spotify is so bad, as would seem evidenced by all these HN threads that pop up from time-to-time, why do people continue to use it?
Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-less bolted on these features later in the product life... and it shows.
The "shuffle" alone on Spotify was enough to send me running. Have a playlist with 200 songs from 80 different artists? Well, we'll just play this one artist - the same album even! - back to back to back until you're annoyed enough to manually select the next song!
I understood people flocking to Spotify back when it was the only game in town that allowed you to play specific songs, make playlists, and "download" songs for offline (airplane) playback. But now Pandora does all this too - and has for the past several years. The two services are even priced about the same...
So, if Spotify is so bad, as would seem evidenced by all these HN threads that pop up from time-to-time, why do people continue to use it?
Speaking for myself? Content. Philip Glass has 27 albums on Pandora, 105 on Spotify. Nico Mulhy? 7 vs 14. Maarja Nuut. Only 1 album on Pandora. For her, Pandora makes no recommendations for others to listen to, Spotify lists 20. Pandora has no bio, Spotify does. Third Coast Percussion? 8 vs 10. I'm just randomly clicking in my library and doing a comparison, they aren't artfully chosen examples.
I recognize this isn't mainstream listening, and for all I know the ratios are reversed for more popular music.
I found the Pandora choices of songs annoying. I love Philip Glass; I don't want to listen to a bunch of other people playing triplets against eighths. It's derivative and boring in comparison. I do want to listen to his contemporaries that compose in different ways. Or let's take Nuut again. I came across her recently while surveying contemporary Estonian composers. Pandora doesn't let me do that so far as I can tell. I'm interested in what is going on there compositionally over the last 2 decades, I am not looking for another person that writes something that is very 'similar" (according to the Pandora algorithms).
Finally, I never use shuffle. So much of what i listen to are
I understand my use case is not the only one, but neither is yours! People select different apps because they provide what the person wants.
I recognize this isn't mainstream listening, and for all I know the ratios are reversed for more popular music.
I found the Pandora choices of songs annoying. I love Philip Glass; I don't want to listen to a bunch of other people playing triplets against eighths. It's derivative and boring in comparison. I do want to listen to his contemporaries that compose in different ways. Or let's take Nuut again. I came across her recently while surveying contemporary Estonian composers. Pandora doesn't let me do that so far as I can tell. I'm interested in what is going on there compositionally over the last 2 decades, I am not looking for another person that writes something that is very 'similar" (according to the Pandora algorithms).
Finally, I never use shuffle. So much of what i listen to are
I understand my use case is not the only one, but neither is yours! People select different apps because they provide what the person wants.
If Glass is your thing, I highly recommend Idagio. It is explicitly focused on Classical, and its filtering is focused on what you'd want out of a Classical-focused search.
For instance, with Glass - there are 171 albums on Idagio. And it breaks them down with works, instrumentation, ensembles, soloists, genres (piano solo, chamber, secular vocal. etc.), conductors, and recording date.
If you want to compare the 22 piano solo albums that Jeroen van Veen has recorded of Glass's music - easy to pull all of them up quickly.
Their encoding is also vastly superior to Spotify or (yikes) YouTube Music. If you have a decent signal-chain for listening, high-quality components, and enjoy Classical... Idagio is head-and-shoulders above the rest.
For instance, with Glass - there are 171 albums on Idagio. And it breaks them down with works, instrumentation, ensembles, soloists, genres (piano solo, chamber, secular vocal. etc.), conductors, and recording date.
If you want to compare the 22 piano solo albums that Jeroen van Veen has recorded of Glass's music - easy to pull all of them up quickly.
Their encoding is also vastly superior to Spotify or (yikes) YouTube Music. If you have a decent signal-chain for listening, high-quality components, and enjoy Classical... Idagio is head-and-shoulders above the rest.
You could check out YouTube Music (edit: changed from "music"), which has a long list of Philip Glass titles that may be up there with Spotify.
I gave up on Spotify when they removed the widget functionality on Android. I know they returned it eventually, but not without complete uproar. It burned myself as a decade old (family) premium user though; I used to love them, but that complete disregard completely changed that.
Now, only a 3 month minimum (6 would help) completely free retrial would get me back. Thus far, none has been received.
(On the flip side I absolutely love YouTube Red or Premium or whatever they call it these days.)
I gave up on Spotify when they removed the widget functionality on Android. I know they returned it eventually, but not without complete uproar. It burned myself as a decade old (family) premium user though; I used to love them, but that complete disregard completely changed that.
Now, only a 3 month minimum (6 would help) completely free retrial would get me back. Thus far, none has been received.
(On the flip side I absolutely love YouTube Red or Premium or whatever they call it these days.)
Youtube's organization of music is horrible. It clearly wasn't made for listening to music.
I assume they were talking about Youtube Music (https://music.youtube.com/), which is made for listening to music.
I used Google Music until they discontinued it in favor of Youtube Music, and I ditched that crap immediately, the UI was horrible, the recommendations were BAD (Google Music was somewhat good), and I lost about half my playlist items as "not available". It is so bad, that after years of Google Music, I just ditched my playlists (what little there was) and moved to Spotify.
I find the YT Music recs actually pretty good, though the "recommending a song after I thumbed down" behavior blows my mind in its idiocy. Also, the fact that they don't distinguish between me liking a video on Youtube and liking a song in YT Music is also frustrating.
The UI is the worst I've seen on any music service or player, but I'd found quite a bit of music I like through their recommendations.
The UI is the worst I've seen on any music service or player, but I'd found quite a bit of music I like through their recommendations.
I reported the bug about recommending songs that I had downvoted. Apparently I had more thank 5k downvotes so it didn't consider them all in the filter. The "fix" was bumping the limit.
I used to pay for Google Music and transitioned to YouTube Music but eventually gave up because it has so many issues. I also tried Spotify but didn't like it much so now I don't know what I will use.
I used to pay for Google Music and transitioned to YouTube Music but eventually gave up because it has so many issues. I also tried Spotify but didn't like it much so now I don't know what I will use.
I just tried listening to some uploaded music last night. Except the Artists page seems to be in random order vs alphabetical and there is no apparent sort option. I'm not sure how that decision played out.
And the idea of integration of music and music videos is brilliant. I love listening to music with video on my TV in the morning.
The implementation and mixing music videos with other video content in my Youtube account is horrible on the other way.
The implementation and mixing music videos with other video content in my Youtube account is horrible on the other way.
Yes, thanks.
While Youtube Music is a bag of some great ideas and implementation that went horribly wrong I have started using it over Spotify recently.
Youtube Music implementation of Chromecast is spotless while Spotify every so often interupts with "Your spotify account is used on another device" (Not true just checking my phone). In general Youtube is also tolerant of using two devices with the same account for a few moments.
And no podcasts in the music app... Hurah...
Youtube Music implementation of Chromecast is spotless while Spotify every so often interupts with "Your spotify account is used on another device" (Not true just checking my phone). In general Youtube is also tolerant of using two devices with the same account for a few moments.
And no podcasts in the music app... Hurah...
IME Spotify's recommendations, while not perfect, are way, way better than Pandora's. Spotify is comfortable letting you explore niches; Pandora, when I used it, always seemed to try to hill-climb out of whatever niche you were listening to as fast as it could into whatever music was the most broadly popular at the moment.
Spotify won the same way Dropbox and Slack did. They didn't invent anything magical, they just had a client for every platform that worked when people tried it. Like web apps? Here you go. Linux nerd? Here is a deb repo. Have a smartphone? Cool, we don't care what kind.
Even now I googled "Pandora windows app", clicked a few times, and ended up on some Microsoft Store page. Interestingly enough if I add "mac" to my search terms I just get a download...
Even now I googled "Pandora windows app", clicked a few times, and ended up on some Microsoft Store page. Interestingly enough if I add "mac" to my search terms I just get a download...
What's wrong with Pandora in the web browser?
That is like asking "What is wrong with driving across town to pick up your Amazon purchases?"
If you are in a highly competitive space that is effectively winner take all - you go where your customers want to be, not where your developers think they should be.
If you are in a highly competitive space that is effectively winner take all - you go where your customers want to be, not where your developers think they should be.
I prefer Pandora tab on my browser.
The browsers RAM usage and the challenge of finding it among the often many tabs and windows come to mind.
Eh, does the RAM usage of a single browser window even matter on modern systems?
Anecdata, but I open Pandora in it's own window, then minimize it. This makes it pretty easy to find if you have a hundred+ tabs open at once like I often find myself with.
I currently have 44 tabs open, including Pandora in it's own window, and Chrome is only using ~2GB of RAM - perfectly acceptable to me.
Anecdata, but I open Pandora in it's own window, then minimize it. This makes it pretty easy to find if you have a hundred+ tabs open at once like I often find myself with.
I currently have 44 tabs open, including Pandora in it's own window, and Chrome is only using ~2GB of RAM - perfectly acceptable to me.
If it's like YTM in browser then no control with keyboard keys.
Can you control pandora in the web browser with your keyboard?
can you jump to pandora in the web browser with a single keyboard shortcut?
Nothing is wrong with Pandora in the web browser, other people just like to install spyware and root kits so let them.
> Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing
That's exactly what I'm not looking for; I'm perfectly fine with making my own music choices. I know what I like, have an extensive "library" on Spotify, and play from just that.
The biggest thing I'm missing from Spotify (or indeed, most players, except the one I wrote myself years ago) is the ability to say "play random album from my collection". Play random track is too biased towards albums with 60 tracks vs. albums with just one track.
That's exactly what I'm not looking for; I'm perfectly fine with making my own music choices. I know what I like, have an extensive "library" on Spotify, and play from just that.
The biggest thing I'm missing from Spotify (or indeed, most players, except the one I wrote myself years ago) is the ability to say "play random album from my collection". Play random track is too biased towards albums with 60 tracks vs. albums with just one track.
> "play random album from my collection"
Quod Libet (https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) lets you do exactly that.
Quod Libet (https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) lets you do exactly that.
Pandora allows you to shuffle playlists. Might allow you to sort of achieve what you're after.
foobar2k wins again ;)
Does it have this ability out of the box? I don't remember it being there years ago (I looked for it), but that was 3+ years ago.
It's still the best music player I know of though, even when running with Wine on Linux.
It's still the best music player I know of though, even when running with Wine on Linux.
AFAIK, I didn't have to add any plugins to achieve that feature. I believe you can set the order to be Shuffle Tracks or Shuffle Albums out of the box, but I might be misremembering if I needed to do anything for that to be there.
see: https://i.imgur.com/zL0oZsx.png
You can customize this feature in Advanced Preferences. Then, go to Playback -> Shuffle -> Album grouping pattern.
See: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=113035.0
see: https://i.imgur.com/zL0oZsx.png
You can customize this feature in Advanced Preferences. Then, go to Playback -> Shuffle -> Album grouping pattern.
See: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=113035.0
How great is fb2k for music discovery? Also their macOS player is kind of...bad. I'd recommend Cog for local files.
So does cmus :-)
mostly the same for me, but I would love to be able to browse record labels on spotify; it does not have the concept of a record label (!) though.
It does. At least some time ago on desktop version every album had a copyright (record label) listed on the bottom. Clicking it would search you all of the stuff released under that label.
None of them are links: https://i.imgur.com/IikFCNt.png
> Pandora is only available in the U.S. right now – but we are working on bringing our music service to other parts of the world.
I guess Spotify is still the only game in town :(
I guess Spotify is still the only game in town :(
I didn't realize Pandora was region locked - what a bummer!
The rest of the comment still stands for all US based users, however.
The rest of the comment still stands for all US based users, however.
I last used Pandora's radio in Canada around 2005. I'm questioning what it is they're "working on" for so long.
Probably license agreements with the labels... but that's pure speculation. Spotify seems to have solved that problem by throwing tons of cash at them.
You can see here[1] that Spotify has made agreements with specific labels for international rights. What a thing... only licensed to stream a song in some select set of countries... absurd in 2020/2021 and being an internet based service - but that's record labels for you.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203324/spotify-warner-ag...
You can see here[1] that Spotify has made agreements with specific labels for international rights. What a thing... only licensed to stream a song in some select set of countries... absurd in 2020/2021 and being an internet based service - but that's record labels for you.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203324/spotify-warner-ag...
Spotify is too, just not as drastically. I opened an account in Prague and found when I got to the US that it wouldn't play anything. Curious how they knew I wasn't in CZ anymore, yet instead of just letting me play the US version, it wouldn't let me play anything.
This isn't true, may be got to do with specific set of songs? I've an US account, which I use in UK, India and Japan.
Spotify is great, people on HN like to complain.
Aside from having nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free, their recommendations have helped me find a lot of great songs. I don't personally listen to the curated playlists but many of my friends love them.
Aside from having nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free, their recommendations have helped me find a lot of great songs. I don't personally listen to the curated playlists but many of my friends love them.
Spotify objectively sucks compared to plenty of other services. Is it possible you haven't tried those other services? Having access to lots of music is certainly better than not but we've had services that do that since the early 2000s.
I subscribed to Rhapsody in 2004. It gave me access to "nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free". As 2 examples of things it did better, instead of using a shitty recommendation system that when I pick some electro swing band it recommends death metal, instead for every artist it showed their lists of who influenced them and who they influenced. I found tons of great bands that way. Way more than i've found on Spotify's crappy system
And that's just one example. The now dead Google Play Music's recommendation system actually worked where Spotify's does not.
I subscribed to Rhapsody in 2004. It gave me access to "nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free". As 2 examples of things it did better, instead of using a shitty recommendation system that when I pick some electro swing band it recommends death metal, instead for every artist it showed their lists of who influenced them and who they influenced. I found tons of great bands that way. Way more than i've found on Spotify's crappy system
And that's just one example. The now dead Google Play Music's recommendation system actually worked where Spotify's does not.
>Spotify objectively sucks compared to plenty of other services. Is it possible you haven't tried those other services?
It's just your personal experience that is different. Same for the other guy, same for me.
I've been on a paid accounts for Apple Music, Google Music, Yandex Music and even Youtube's adhoc solution for music. At least 1 year each (almost for entire time since the launch of Yandex music).
Spotify beats them all. Both recommendations and content (though we have to agree that content part can vary based on your location). Never had a chance to try Rhapsody.
>that when I pick some electro swing band it recommends death metal
That's how Google Music worked for me though, not Spotify.
Yandex had best UI but worst recommendation system (and lack of content).
Apple's recommendations are about as bad as Google's. Better UI but again - did not have music I wanted.
It's just your personal experience that is different. Same for the other guy, same for me.
I've been on a paid accounts for Apple Music, Google Music, Yandex Music and even Youtube's adhoc solution for music. At least 1 year each (almost for entire time since the launch of Yandex music).
Spotify beats them all. Both recommendations and content (though we have to agree that content part can vary based on your location). Never had a chance to try Rhapsody.
>that when I pick some electro swing band it recommends death metal
That's how Google Music worked for me though, not Spotify.
Yandex had best UI but worst recommendation system (and lack of content).
Apple's recommendations are about as bad as Google's. Better UI but again - did not have music I wanted.
Haha that's funny, I guess I haven't experienced any of recommendations personally. Usually they're very good in my experience.
Pandora has good algorithms, but as a product is objectively terrible.
It is literally impossible for you to just sort the list of stations you have created. If you have 120 stations, you have to s l o w l y scroll through them in random order until you find the one you want. And even though there are thumbnails next to them (presumably to make them easier to identify), the thumbnails change. There's a hundred different usability problems, and as far as I can tell, all of them minor features that could have been implemented years ago.
If you don't pay for the premium version, it's a nightmare of pop-ups to prompt you to pay, to the point that you develop reflexes to pass the prompts. Then there's the actual ads, which sometimes seem to disappear for a while, only to barrage you intermittently for a half hour.
The whole thing annoyed me so much, and I complained on their support channels so often, that I dropped them and just started buying music. And of course I then had to pirate the same music I purchased because there's no way to just buy some MP3s so you can move the music around.
It is literally impossible for you to just sort the list of stations you have created. If you have 120 stations, you have to s l o w l y scroll through them in random order until you find the one you want. And even though there are thumbnails next to them (presumably to make them easier to identify), the thumbnails change. There's a hundred different usability problems, and as far as I can tell, all of them minor features that could have been implemented years ago.
If you don't pay for the premium version, it's a nightmare of pop-ups to prompt you to pay, to the point that you develop reflexes to pass the prompts. Then there's the actual ads, which sometimes seem to disappear for a while, only to barrage you intermittently for a half hour.
The whole thing annoyed me so much, and I complained on their support channels so often, that I dropped them and just started buying music. And of course I then had to pirate the same music I purchased because there's no way to just buy some MP3s so you can move the music around.
Imagine thinking recomendations can be objectively better than others. Personally I don't care for pandora recommendations one bit and love my spotify mixes.
Why can't they?
It can easily be proven they can, posit three systems:
1. Spotify
2. Pandora
3. No matter what, rickroll you on the next song
Cleary 3 is far superior to the other two! ;)
So if something can be objectively WORSE, there must be the possibility of something being objectively better.
1. Spotify
2. Pandora
3. No matter what, rickroll you on the next song
Cleary 3 is far superior to the other two! ;)
So if something can be objectively WORSE, there must be the possibility of something being objectively better.
Pandora isn't available outside the US, so it doesn't really matter how good it is compared to Spotify I can't use it anyway.
It doesn't matter how good the tech is if business/legal can't keep up with the competition.
It doesn't matter how good the tech is if business/legal can't keep up with the competition.
For one, it's US-only. And the recommendations from Spotify so far are good enough for my needs and my whole family is on it so the work required to migrate from one platform to another isn't null so unless there's a major irritant I don't plan on switching.
> So, if Spotify is so bad, as would seem evidenced by all these HN threads that pop up from time-to-time, why do people continue to use it?
Aside from amount of content (which wasn't an issue earlier), I suspect the primary reason is that Pandora isn't available in Europe. I loved it so much (>5 years ago?) that I used as VPN, but this didn't quite work on my phone and ended up being too much of a bother.
Spotify's big advantage, like most monopoly-focused 'startups' is their monopoly. Not actually providing the best to their customers.
I can use Spotify without a VPN, it has a lot of stuff Pandora doesn't have, and I can share stuff with friends because everyone else also uses Spotify. It's difficult to compete with that.
Aside from amount of content (which wasn't an issue earlier), I suspect the primary reason is that Pandora isn't available in Europe. I loved it so much (>5 years ago?) that I used as VPN, but this didn't quite work on my phone and ended up being too much of a bother.
Spotify's big advantage, like most monopoly-focused 'startups' is their monopoly. Not actually providing the best to their customers.
I can use Spotify without a VPN, it has a lot of stuff Pandora doesn't have, and I can share stuff with friends because everyone else also uses Spotify. It's difficult to compete with that.
Oh how the world would have been different if Rdio hadn't been acquired and killed by Pandora. It's recommendations were perfect.
Rdio went bankrupt, and sold assets to Pandora as part of that process. It wasn’t bought and killed.
Fuck they were the ones killed it. I don’t remember how the recommendations compared but Rdio’s UX was miles ahead. Pandora really should have abandoned their frontend and went all in on Rdio.
When I try to open pandora.com from Australia I get an empty page with the sentence "Whoops! You weren't supposed to end up here."[1]
[1] https://ibb.co/YNxhbkH
[1] https://ibb.co/YNxhbkH
Pandora restricted access for me when I was living in the UK years a go and I could no longer access it. (I don’t know if this is the case) Spotify won for me by default, as I can actually access it.
> Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior
IIRC, these algos were part of a project called ~Muse which later forked, and there was a schism between the algos and clickstream data or the personal data and anonymized cohort data. Will have to review / re-search.
The trove of our searches, listens, and skips Pandora has / had did a good job informing recommendations and was an effective moat for my use.
IIRC, these algos were part of a project called ~Muse which later forked, and there was a schism between the algos and clickstream data or the personal data and anonymized cohort data. Will have to review / re-search.
The trove of our searches, listens, and skips Pandora has / had did a good job informing recommendations and was an effective moat for my use.
A big part of the algos was the "Music Genome Project"[1] as well. This allowed their recommendations to be about the music itself instead of just what other people also listened to, leading to some amazing music recommendations/discoveries.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project
Thank you this helps -- the "Music Genome Project" was part of this fork & schism. Pandora says little about it[0], and the open portions[1] were last updated in 2014.
At least someone's still at it, and all this helps me find my notes from that time.
https://github.com/LDugar/MusicGenome/raw/master/Decoding-th...
[0]http://www.pandora.com/about/mgp [1]https://github.com/omgDB
At least someone's still at it, and all this helps me find my notes from that time.
https://github.com/LDugar/MusicGenome/raw/master/Decoding-th...
[0]http://www.pandora.com/about/mgp [1]https://github.com/omgDB
My guessing is a lot of it went proprietary once competition started popping up trying to also make good music recommendations. "Secret sauce" and all...
I use the "radio station" features on both because I'm not a curator. It does seems like Pandora's version is a bit better but not drastically so. Then again I'm not a music monster, I listen to what the algorithms tell me until they push me too far :)
I'm going to check out Pandora, but out of the large ones (Apple Music, Deezer) Spotify has by far the best algorithmic recommendations.
[deleted]
Pandora decided a few years back to block international users. I don’t know if they’ve changed this - I haven’t bothered to go back.
Did they ever allow for international users?
Yeah, way back when (early 2000s?) it was a streaming personalised radio and it worked fine, at least in the UK.
Pandora is also US only unless you use a VPN.
I bit the bullet and just subscribe to both. Pandora for discovery and radio and Spotify for specific listening.
> Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-less bolted on these features later in the product life... and it shows.
Pandora wants to get rid of those features. All their advertising now is "if you pay for a premium account, you can play whatever music you want, on demand".
This reminds me really strongly of how eBay decided that (1) customers prefer to buy things at a fixed price [completely correct]; so that (2) they should try to prevent people from listing ordinary auctions, because customers don't like those. [No!] Instead, the goal was to just be the place where people would go if they wanted to buy something online.
Except of course that that completely undermines the concept of eBay. They were an established auction site that intentionally drove auctions away. And then they complained that people preferred to buy things from Amazon.
In both cases, it looks like a popular company with an established brand sees a rival that's even more popular, and concludes that the only path forward must be to implement features the rival offers while discontinuing or discouraging any features where they're doing better than the rival is. How does this make sense?
Pandora wants to get rid of those features. All their advertising now is "if you pay for a premium account, you can play whatever music you want, on demand".
This reminds me really strongly of how eBay decided that (1) customers prefer to buy things at a fixed price [completely correct]; so that (2) they should try to prevent people from listing ordinary auctions, because customers don't like those. [No!] Instead, the goal was to just be the place where people would go if they wanted to buy something online.
Except of course that that completely undermines the concept of eBay. They were an established auction site that intentionally drove auctions away. And then they complained that people preferred to buy things from Amazon.
In both cases, it looks like a popular company with an established brand sees a rival that's even more popular, and concludes that the only path forward must be to implement features the rival offers while discontinuing or discouraging any features where they're doing better than the rival is. How does this make sense?
Pandoras was better but is now much much worse. Spotifys recommendations are the fold standard.
I did search for 5 random bands I listen to on Pandora, found a total of 0 albums and 0 songs.
Pandora's suggestion algorithm is much better than Spotify's. What you describe is what I used to do with Pandora. I migrated to Spotify several years ago.
Spotify generates some decent genre based playlists based on my listening history. Not as good as Pandora was.
Lately with the pandemic, I've created a super-chill, ambient play list (I started with Moby's Long Ambients and expanded from there) to relax before bedtime. This has been really helpful for unwinding in these stressful times.
However, an unintended consequence is that Spotify now thinks I listen to soothing ambient more than 50% of the time. My year in music is all ambient and my suggested play lists are all wishy-washy now. Apparently there is no "ignore this playlist when tracking usage." You can only manually disable tracking under "Settings > Social" and it times out after every session.
Spotify generates some decent genre based playlists based on my listening history. Not as good as Pandora was.
Lately with the pandemic, I've created a super-chill, ambient play list (I started with Moby's Long Ambients and expanded from there) to relax before bedtime. This has been really helpful for unwinding in these stressful times.
However, an unintended consequence is that Spotify now thinks I listen to soothing ambient more than 50% of the time. My year in music is all ambient and my suggested play lists are all wishy-washy now. Apparently there is no "ignore this playlist when tracking usage." You can only manually disable tracking under "Settings > Social" and it times out after every session.
I haven't used Pandora in a decade, but when I did, it strongly preferred to play mainstream artists, and within artists, only a handful of specific tracks. They weren't bad choices, but I got pretty bored of them.
Spotify takes a lot more risks and I think its highly preferable.
Spotify takes a lot more risks and I think its highly preferable.
A decade is a long, long time. The catalog is definitely on-par with any service out there today.
I would believe they've improved over time. But my comment wasn't that pandora had a poor catalog. It was that they wanted to play mainstream songs instead. Perhaps not even mainstream, but just very specific songs. They had a lot of artist's whole discographies but only a subset would ever come on. I can still remember a few of them for me:
royksopp - this must be it
trapt - headstrong
ladytron - destroy everything you touch
Some sort of remix of the hand that feeds by Nine Inch Nails (I think it was the photek remix or something)
I got these songs a lot on many stations, and nothing else by those artists ever, haha.
I don't hold a grudge from 10 years ago though
royksopp - this must be it
trapt - headstrong
ladytron - destroy everything you touch
Some sort of remix of the hand that feeds by Nine Inch Nails (I think it was the photek remix or something)
I got these songs a lot on many stations, and nothing else by those artists ever, haha.
I don't hold a grudge from 10 years ago though
I loved Pandora back when they were experimenting, but then they stopped providing service where I live and Spotify is the only game in town :(
Yeah, I hate this too. I use citypop and synthwave when exercising, and they then “pollute” everything else.
My "philosophy" with listening to music while programming has been that if I can tell I like the song, then i'm probably focusing too much on it rather than the task at hand.
+1 I do something similar. As a general rule, I prefer to listen to songs I don't already know while working. If I'm humming or singing along, I'm doing it wrong.
I've actually discovered some of my favorite bands/songs this way.
Programming along, with background music playing - when suddenly I become "aware" of the song playing and how good it is. That's when I give it the "Thumbs Up" in Pandora, then go back to work. Might happen once a session if I'm lucky.
Programming along, with background music playing - when suddenly I become "aware" of the song playing and how good it is. That's when I give it the "Thumbs Up" in Pandora, then go back to work. Might happen once a session if I'm lucky.
I do this too. It works well.
In addition I have several playlists, as a song might suit the current playlist, and another song might fit playlist B instead. So any playlist might be seeding several other playlists at a time.
Sometimes I go through many, many recommendations, listen to a song in short pieces quickly by skipping most of it. It sounds weird but that way I can pretty accurately tell if the song is shit or not (read: if I end up liking it). If the song passes my filter, I put it to some playlist. I just do this quickly and finally go back and listen to the new ones.
As for "dislike", there isn't one per song but there is a "Don't play this" per artist. I sometimes play children's songs or pop as requested, and after some time the recommendations include music I truly never want to hear again in any recommendations (Marcus & Martinus I'm looking at you).
Also, it feels like only the first songs in a playlist actually matter for the recommendations. I don't know if this is really the case. I'd hope the recommendation engine took a random sampling of the entire playlist and recommended based on those.
Edit: there's a "hide" for a track.
In addition I have several playlists, as a song might suit the current playlist, and another song might fit playlist B instead. So any playlist might be seeding several other playlists at a time.
Sometimes I go through many, many recommendations, listen to a song in short pieces quickly by skipping most of it. It sounds weird but that way I can pretty accurately tell if the song is shit or not (read: if I end up liking it). If the song passes my filter, I put it to some playlist. I just do this quickly and finally go back and listen to the new ones.
As for "dislike", there isn't one per song but there is a "Don't play this" per artist. I sometimes play children's songs or pop as requested, and after some time the recommendations include music I truly never want to hear again in any recommendations (Marcus & Martinus I'm looking at you).
Also, it feels like only the first songs in a playlist actually matter for the recommendations. I don't know if this is really the case. I'd hope the recommendation engine took a random sampling of the entire playlist and recommended based on those.
Edit: there's a "hide" for a track.
> I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words) ... what it recommends and plays is tolerable but not great. ... (maybe one out of every 20-30 songs) I will discover a shiny new gem of a song that really resonates with me.
SoundCloud Weekly[0] recommendations have been solid for months specifically with ambient: ~85% Good tracks with ~30% Resonating enough to Favorite. My other contexts / use cases include listening by Album and Artist, Genre, Mood- and Mind-Setting, and Discovery.
Spotify works well for Albums and Artists. HypeMachine is my go-to for Discovery and Genre. SoundCloud and BandCamp work well for diving into artists and labels discovered. Playlists and Favorites across these are best for Mood- and Mind-Setting, as are "special purpose" options like Brain.fm and Ragya.
[0]https://soundcloud.com/discover/sets/weekly::[username] [1]https://www.ragya.com/
SoundCloud Weekly[0] recommendations have been solid for months specifically with ambient: ~85% Good tracks with ~30% Resonating enough to Favorite. My other contexts / use cases include listening by Album and Artist, Genre, Mood- and Mind-Setting, and Discovery.
Spotify works well for Albums and Artists. HypeMachine is my go-to for Discovery and Genre. SoundCloud and BandCamp work well for diving into artists and labels discovered. Playlists and Favorites across these are best for Mood- and Mind-Setting, as are "special purpose" options like Brain.fm and Ragya.
[0]https://soundcloud.com/discover/sets/weekly::[username] [1]https://www.ragya.com/
> Every now and then (maybe one out of every 20-30 songs) I will discover a shiny new gem of a song that really resonates with me. So I drag that song up and add it to my slowly growing playlist.
I take a similar approach, but I've found that the recommendation algorithm is pretty bad, so as an extra step I click on the artist and spend a bit of time listening to their other songs (and add those too, in the hopes it'll affect the algorithm).
> This approach has worked pretty well for me so far, but I really wish that there was a way to explicitly tell Spotify that I "dislike" a song and to never recommend it to me again.
That's one of my main issues with the 'recommended' algorithm. 90% of it is stuff I already have in other playlists, or stuff I keep skipping. I really wish the algorithm did a bit more with all the data it has, but I imagine they optimize for sales (to us or promoting artists/labels) over our actual desires.
I take a similar approach, but I've found that the recommendation algorithm is pretty bad, so as an extra step I click on the artist and spend a bit of time listening to their other songs (and add those too, in the hopes it'll affect the algorithm).
> This approach has worked pretty well for me so far, but I really wish that there was a way to explicitly tell Spotify that I "dislike" a song and to never recommend it to me again.
That's one of my main issues with the 'recommended' algorithm. 90% of it is stuff I already have in other playlists, or stuff I keep skipping. I really wish the algorithm did a bit more with all the data it has, but I imagine they optimize for sales (to us or promoting artists/labels) over our actual desires.
This is what I do, except using a general playlist. At ~ 300 songs almost all recommendations I didn't like. At current ~ 400 songs all recommendations I don't like and Spotify gave up with a passive-aggressive message sort of "I give up, add more songs if you want better recommendations". (Note that I have a wide variety of styles in the playlist; too lazy to break up in genres and also I kind of like the "surprise" factor)
The secret to my success to spotify is be a free user with adblock. On desktop browsers, there's no forced shuffle / variance. It just plays the album from start to finish, and, of course, no ads. Pick something manually you like. When you're done, pick a an artist from their list of similar artists. Play entire albums at a time. If you're not immediately dissatisfied, you'll probably feel good about the next half hour of music.
I do the same thing now, but the recommended section leaves a lot to be desired on mobile.
There's no way to prevent songs from getting suggested (other than maybe blocking a song entirely?). My recommendeds don't seem to get updated until the playlist has changed dramatically. And repeat songs get added to the section even if I haven't added it the umpteen times it was suggested prior.
Is the experience different on desktop or am I doing something wrong?
There's no way to prevent songs from getting suggested (other than maybe blocking a song entirely?). My recommendeds don't seem to get updated until the playlist has changed dramatically. And repeat songs get added to the section even if I haven't added it the umpteen times it was suggested prior.
Is the experience different on desktop or am I doing something wrong?
>I really wish that there was a way to explicitly tell Spotify that I "dislike" a song and to never recommend it to me again.
You can at least for radio playlists. You can specifically say to never play this song or artist again. They used to let you thumb up or down on tracks which I think was a much easier UI.
Skipping songs doesn't seem to do enough for songs in your playlists so you have to go through the whole right click -> never play again workflow. I really wish I could just downvote individual songs as they play and tailor it that way since sometimes I'm just tired of a particular song, but maybe I like the song or the artist and don't want to click on 'never hear this again'. It just seems to repeat certain songs way too much based on your listening history.
You can at least for radio playlists. You can specifically say to never play this song or artist again. They used to let you thumb up or down on tracks which I think was a much easier UI.
Skipping songs doesn't seem to do enough for songs in your playlists so you have to go through the whole right click -> never play again workflow. I really wish I could just downvote individual songs as they play and tailor it that way since sometimes I'm just tired of a particular song, but maybe I like the song or the artist and don't want to click on 'never hear this again'. It just seems to repeat certain songs way too much based on your listening history.
My solution to me getting tired of tracks in my work playlist was to keep adding more. It's currently at 2885 songs, or 5.2 days of music. It's mostly video game music, since a lot of video game music is written to not be too distracting.
Though maybe I should say the majority of the playlist consists of songs I've imported into iTunes. Apple does a decent job at letting you seamlessly integrate your personal library with stuff from their streaming catalog.
Though maybe I should say the majority of the playlist consists of songs I've imported into iTunes. Apple does a decent job at letting you seamlessly integrate your personal library with stuff from their streaming catalog.
I mostly use this approach as well but my experience with multiple services is that I eventually (and sooner, rather than later) end up hearing same 100 or so recommended songs. Maybe I'm too picky, but I just don't have great luck with recommendation engines anywhere I go.
I recommend the app Mick Tagger for the drag process. Makes it easier and keeps you in the zone with programming instead of having to fiddle with a song and playlist.
Thank you for saying this. I've been trying to use Spotify for a year now and it leaves so much to be desired on process. You're doing gods work
I've had trouble with this. It seems no matter what I play, Spotify just wants to recommend three songs by Pavement on repeat.
> If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard.
Which button is that?
Which button is that?
Share an electronica playlist and prove it ;).
Do share your playlist , if its public
Music preferences are subjective, because familiarity is a huge part of appreciation. Sharing my particular fingerprint of music appreciation with other people doesn't do me any good, because they will only criticize my preferences as they are not their own.
I have to give huge applause for the quality of writing. I genuinely can't tell how expansive the responses are, which is huge for AI.
It definitely has the UX feel of being a bit creepy on how well it responds.
It definitely has the UX feel of being a bit creepy on how well it responds.
My friends and I all did it, the punchlines all seem to be the same. I think it feels “creepy” if you attach emotion to songs (I certainly do!) and then listen to them often, but it’s really not all that hard to pick out your top tracks/artists to do that with. Anyway it’s still fun, I liked it
Exactly, I love the wittiness in writing. But wonder if the AI responds similarly to other users.
It looks like the API is overloaded.
With regards to taste, you usually need to find a suitable gateway into an unpopular genre to begin appreciating it. I always hated jazz until I turned 30, when I heard the melodic jazz of Avishai Cohen [1] and Phronesis [2], which led me to Eric Dolphy [3] and ultimately to free jazz outfits like Alexander von Schlippenbach and Peter Brotzmann. Having grown bored of everything else also helps.
I recently cancelled my paid subscription to Spotify after 10 years and I use Youtube a lot now. The Spotify web app is not great and Youtube recommendations are a lot better in my opinion.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6KYbpDditU
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEw0swsmqYk
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln8naZpOJ0o
With regards to taste, you usually need to find a suitable gateway into an unpopular genre to begin appreciating it. I always hated jazz until I turned 30, when I heard the melodic jazz of Avishai Cohen [1] and Phronesis [2], which led me to Eric Dolphy [3] and ultimately to free jazz outfits like Alexander von Schlippenbach and Peter Brotzmann. Having grown bored of everything else also helps.
I recently cancelled my paid subscription to Spotify after 10 years and I use Youtube a lot now. The Spotify web app is not great and Youtube recommendations are a lot better in my opinion.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6KYbpDditU
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEw0swsmqYk
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln8naZpOJ0o
Great suggestions. You might know them but I want to add Nik Bärtsch's Ronin[1], The Bad Plus[2], Nils Petter Molvær[3] and maybe some Ibrahim Maalouf[4].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8eL95fIQbk
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNI-2i6t7Zs
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edT6QGBmkrc
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpg8jBFaj3c
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8eL95fIQbk
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNI-2i6t7Zs
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edT6QGBmkrc
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpg8jBFaj3c
The Bad Plus (version 1) is such an unreasonable concentration of extraordinary talent, I haven't yet found anything else that comes close.
Essbjörn Svenson Trio, all of their records are great, however Leucocyte is on a whole different plane; it has been my favourite record for the last 15 years. It's however quite moody, Tuesday Wonderland is far more accessible while also being extremely good.
Haven't listened to them in a while, but I also enjoyed listening to Tingvall Trio, though I remember them as being more atmospheric. There's also Vijay Iyer Trio, I specifically remember Accelerando well, but that's a long time ago.
Haven't listened to them in a while, but I also enjoyed listening to Tingvall Trio, though I remember them as being more atmospheric. There's also Vijay Iyer Trio, I specifically remember Accelerando well, but that's a long time ago.
I had a similar Jazz experience. Thanks to Spotify, I ended up going to Bad Plus, Brad Mehldau, Avishai Cohen and similar concerts and started to appreciate free Jazz and the local scene more, too. I found this incredibly enriching, and it has made me try to play the piano again.
I study the Spotify web app a lot. What is it about the app that you don’t like?
I’ve never had a spotify account and whenever I want to listen to a specific song I go to youtube, even if I had already bought the song on bandcamp. It is amazing, sometimes I discover for the first time that the song has an amazing music video, or—better yet—a fan made music video (see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOeL6PYrU8M).
I can’t speak much for the recommendations, as I am fine with getting my recommendations from the radio and I prefer listening to whole CDs over playlists.
I can’t speak much for the recommendations, as I am fine with getting my recommendations from the radio and I prefer listening to whole CDs over playlists.
The problem with this service is that most times, I don't chose what I listen to. Spotify does.
I play music all day while working and I'd love to listen to more artists but most times, I'm stuck in the routine between my Release Radar on Fridays, Discovery Weekly on Monday, and Daily Mixes during the rest of the week. I add songs I like to a variety of personal playlists and sometimes I start a "Song Radio" for a song I like. But even then, I just end up getting the same songs Spotify seems to think I liked only because they've already played them to me over and over. Part of me wonders if their algorithm favours songs that costs them less in royalties...
Playlists made by real people seem way better than any Spotify playlist, but they are difficult to discover. I'd love a feature that recommends me playlists from people that share my music tastes. One example, is a playlist called "Sexy Bath" by Nicoleta Tataru.
I play music all day while working and I'd love to listen to more artists but most times, I'm stuck in the routine between my Release Radar on Fridays, Discovery Weekly on Monday, and Daily Mixes during the rest of the week. I add songs I like to a variety of personal playlists and sometimes I start a "Song Radio" for a song I like. But even then, I just end up getting the same songs Spotify seems to think I liked only because they've already played them to me over and over. Part of me wonders if their algorithm favours songs that costs them less in royalties...
Playlists made by real people seem way better than any Spotify playlist, but they are difficult to discover. I'd love a feature that recommends me playlists from people that share my music tastes. One example, is a playlist called "Sexy Bath" by Nicoleta Tataru.
I have no proofs, but I feel that liking/disliking songs does make difference (even though I'm still struggling to get rid of tons of bad covers and mediocre music in Slav languages)
Liking/disliking makes a difference, but for some reason my likes from 2014 seem to have an identical weight to my likes from today.
I haven't observed that with my account. I think it does change if you spend a bit of effort at letting it know what you like. Like songs you like, hide songs you loathe, skip songs that are meh.
> even though I'm still struggling to get rid of tons of bad covers and mediocre music in Slav languages)
What region is your Spotify set to? It seems to base the recommendations on the region (I live in the Nordics, but used the US version for some time and got recommended a ton of spanish music).
What region is your Spotify set to? It seems to base the recommendations on the region (I live in the Nordics, but used the US version for some time and got recommended a ton of spanish music).
I'm in Israel but originally from Russia and listen to some Russian music and Spotify somehow assume Polish would be just as good for me. Leave alone decent amount of German music due to Rammstein.
I also got some Scandinavian stuff too but it usually fits my taste at least.
I also got some Scandinavian stuff too but it usually fits my taste at least.
I wish the playlists were better but half the time when I search for a playlist to suit a specific mood, It'll have a minimum of 5000 songs on there which means that the overall average quality of the songs is probably going to be pretty low.
You know that the individual who created the playlist in no way hand curated that list, hell they probably haven't even listened to half the songs that they added to their playlist, much less vetted them.
You know that the individual who created the playlist in no way hand curated that list, hell they probably haven't even listened to half the songs that they added to their playlist, much less vetted them.
>The problem with this service is that most times, I don't chose what I listen to. Spotify does.
This is one reason I never really clicked with it, or with Pandora, and why I have really enjoyed and used Apple Music. I'm not really interested in algorithmic playlists most of the time. I want what I want. I've been listening to music a long time; I can make connections on my own. ;)
This is one reason I never really clicked with it, or with Pandora, and why I have really enjoyed and used Apple Music. I'm not really interested in algorithmic playlists most of the time. I want what I want. I've been listening to music a long time; I can make connections on my own. ;)
I follow artists I like as a way of adding them to my library and "like" particular songs if I want them more accessible without having to go to the artist page. This is the way I listen to what I want (along with occasionally making playlists).
I actually really enjoy the ability to effortlessly discover new music I never would have found otherwise that Spotify gives. The recommendation algorithm can be weird at times, but I hear liberal use of likes and dislikes helps though YMMV.
As an aside, everyone else I've seen using Spotify tends to strictly build playlists and not really follow any artists. Not really sure what to make of that.
I actually really enjoy the ability to effortlessly discover new music I never would have found otherwise that Spotify gives. The recommendation algorithm can be weird at times, but I hear liberal use of likes and dislikes helps though YMMV.
As an aside, everyone else I've seen using Spotify tends to strictly build playlists and not really follow any artists. Not really sure what to make of that.
I don't mean to dismiss algorithmic discovery entirely, I should say. It's good if you want it. But mostly I play stuff I've gleaned from elsewhere (read that article, got a suggestion, whatever).
Funny, but I was hoping this might provide some insight into why my Spotify is so bad, even by my own tastes.
Spotify constantly queues and recommends songs to me that are so bad, I can’t even imagine how there could possibly exist any data indicating that any significant sample of listeners has ever enjoyed hearing them. Spotify has 5+ years of my listening history, and orders of magnitude more data from listeners all over the world, and yet every time I set it to recommend anything to me I just sit there pressing “skip” repeatedly until I give up.
I always blamed myself, thought I was just becoming old and curmudgeonly in my 30s. But yesterday I finally discovered the problem isn’t with me. I switched to Apple Music, and it queued up 50 songs I’d never heard, and I enjoyed almost all of them.
I can use my HomePod now, too. I’m really loving Apple Music so far, highly recommend it to anyone who thinks their Spotify account is permanently broken like mine was.
Spotify constantly queues and recommends songs to me that are so bad, I can’t even imagine how there could possibly exist any data indicating that any significant sample of listeners has ever enjoyed hearing them. Spotify has 5+ years of my listening history, and orders of magnitude more data from listeners all over the world, and yet every time I set it to recommend anything to me I just sit there pressing “skip” repeatedly until I give up.
I always blamed myself, thought I was just becoming old and curmudgeonly in my 30s. But yesterday I finally discovered the problem isn’t with me. I switched to Apple Music, and it queued up 50 songs I’d never heard, and I enjoyed almost all of them.
I can use my HomePod now, too. I’m really loving Apple Music so far, highly recommend it to anyone who thinks their Spotify account is permanently broken like mine was.
> might provide some insight into why my Spotify is so bad, even by my own tastes.
That's just Spotify. The AI did a better job of figuring out what I like (138 and uplifting trance) than Spotify does (EDM). I blame it in Armin van Buuren: he is an extremely popular EDM DJ and he plays a very wide variety of EDM. If you listen to EDM chances are he has at least a few dozen sets you'd enjoy. That's the problem: he's prolific and he connects every genre of EDM to every other genre of EDM. He's a "super-connector" and I could easily see how this wrecks recommendation algorithms, all roads lead to Armin.
Basically: recommending music is not the same as recommending goods, and I think the same approach is being used.
That's just Spotify. The AI did a better job of figuring out what I like (138 and uplifting trance) than Spotify does (EDM). I blame it in Armin van Buuren: he is an extremely popular EDM DJ and he plays a very wide variety of EDM. If you listen to EDM chances are he has at least a few dozen sets you'd enjoy. That's the problem: he's prolific and he connects every genre of EDM to every other genre of EDM. He's a "super-connector" and I could easily see how this wrecks recommendation algorithms, all roads lead to Armin.
Basically: recommending music is not the same as recommending goods, and I think the same approach is being used.
Good point. I started to notice a lot of the Spotify recommendations sounded like half of an EDM track I might like, mixed with half of something that it should’ve never been mixed with.
Spotify also seems to think I’ll like literally anything with a house kick.
It’s an extremely difficult problem to solve though so they have my sympathy!
Nobody can really explain why they love one song and hate another, and the overlap of the Venn diagram between any two people is usually very small.
I can eat any dish at a restaurant and think it’s not very good, just ok, pretty good, great, or amazing. The same for any movie, TV show, painting, drink, book, article, ... but for a song, I either like it, love it, or hate it so much that I can’t stand it.
Music recommendation algorithms have such a narrow surface area to land on, and when they miss, they go right into a volcano.
Spotify also seems to think I’ll like literally anything with a house kick.
It’s an extremely difficult problem to solve though so they have my sympathy!
Nobody can really explain why they love one song and hate another, and the overlap of the Venn diagram between any two people is usually very small.
I can eat any dish at a restaurant and think it’s not very good, just ok, pretty good, great, or amazing. The same for any movie, TV show, painting, drink, book, article, ... but for a song, I either like it, love it, or hate it so much that I can’t stand it.
Music recommendation algorithms have such a narrow surface area to land on, and when they miss, they go right into a volcano.
Wow, a mention of Armin van Buren! I wonder how much discovery of his work is just happenstance. His track is the first thing on Google and Bing that gets thrust into your face when you search for "this is a test".
That's my default browser bar search term for checking that my interwebs are still wired up, and I've often thought that this was either genius or a really happy accident.
That's my default browser bar search term for checking that my interwebs are still wired up, and I've often thought that this was either genius or a really happy accident.
I don't think that's a bad thing per se, if the algorithm correctly identifies that you like EDM. We then come to the micro-genre discussion - how specific are you in your tastes, and how precise is the algorithm required to be?
EDM is an extremely diverse genre. Recommending music because it falls under EDM is like recommending music because guitars are used.
Fans of any genre say this. If you don't like metal then it's all loud guitars and screaming. When you do like metal there is fractal complexity of subgenres all the way down.
Except Phish fans. For them there is only Phish.
Except Phish fans. For them there is only Phish.
I think it just gets stuck on old songs you played. My kids played "The Bacon Song" a few times on my spotify, you can imagine what my recommendations are like now. I wish Spotify had a way to remove "bad songs" from whatever algorithm is used.
I always thought my recommendations are that broken because I listen to two very different music directions. For now, I fixed it by finding new Music via YouTube and using artists playlists etc.. Apple Music is probably no option, though, as I'm exclusively on Android.
Apple Music does have an Android app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
I've had the same problem. I like multiple genres but Spotify recommendations tend ever more toward overly harsh and angular electronica. I've tried retraining it multiple times by intentionally listening in a different direction but it never fixes the problem for long. Really frustrating.
Android does have an app for Apple Music though it's been years since I've used it. I was quite happy to pay the subscription fee but an update broke the whole app for me. It would play only a part of the song and then suddenly skip to the next one.
My music taste also diverges drastically but Apple seemed to handle it quite well IIRC.
My music taste also diverges drastically but Apple seemed to handle it quite well IIRC.
Spotify is fantastic for me with everything. My only complaint is their webapp causes random bugs and eats whatever resources it can find.
Just as a counter point.
Just as a counter point.
Same here. Wonderful playlists. Constant exposure to new music. This discussion seemed to get people in the mood for the airing of grievances, so here we are.
Just a couple of months ago Spotify temporarily blocked playlist exporting and there was an uproar. And it turned out that a lot of the uproar was about those Spotify automagically created playlists. Read some sentiments, coupled with some Apple Music comparative opinions, here-
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24747636
I guess it just turns out that maybe Spotify isn't for all people. Nor is Apple Music. Some discussions just draw out the edges from whatever side and it becomes the narrative.
Taste is a tough nut to crack.
Just a couple of months ago Spotify temporarily blocked playlist exporting and there was an uproar. And it turned out that a lot of the uproar was about those Spotify automagically created playlists. Read some sentiments, coupled with some Apple Music comparative opinions, here-
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24747636
I guess it just turns out that maybe Spotify isn't for all people. Nor is Apple Music. Some discussions just draw out the edges from whatever side and it becomes the narrative.
Taste is a tough nut to crack.
If I remember correctly, they blocked API access for one user because that user was violating the API usage terms, namely exporting Spotify's content (their playlists) to competing services. I actually though that was pretty reasonable of them.
I... what? So you think Spotify was justified to stop people from... copying playlists? ?? what????
The playlists they (Spotify) created? Yes. I think there's an argument they own that data.
The playlists that users created? No.
I apologise if that distinction was not clear enough in my original post.
The playlists that users created? No.
I apologise if that distinction was not clear enough in my original post.
I wasn't aware that playlists can be copyrighted. And what's the difference between someone mechanically scraping playlists (because, quite frankly, spotify alter their playlists all the time -- I've experienced this with the Soul playlists they have), and someone hiring people via mechanical turk or getting 3 other people together to make text-based lists?
> I wasn't aware that playlists can be copyrighted.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but "a curated collection of units-of-art" seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to, independently of ownership of the actual units-of-art themselves (overly-generic terminology is intentional, since although we're discussing playlists here, the same argument could be made for, for instance, "a particular framing/hanging of visual arts")
> And what's the difference between someone mechanically scraping playlists [...], and someone hiring people via mechanical turk or getting 3 other people together to make text-based lists?
What type of difference are you interested in?
* Effective difference in terms of output? None. * Spotify's desire to prevent people from doing so? None (they would want to provide both - and justifiably so, IMO, since, again, the playlist _itself_ is their own (algorithm's) creation). * Likelihood of evading prevention? The MTurk solution is less likely to get shut down, for sure. That doesn't mean that you have magically gotcha'd copyright and that corporation will cease trying to protect their IP, it just means that you have found the next step in the arms race.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but "a curated collection of units-of-art" seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to, independently of ownership of the actual units-of-art themselves (overly-generic terminology is intentional, since although we're discussing playlists here, the same argument could be made for, for instance, "a particular framing/hanging of visual arts")
> And what's the difference between someone mechanically scraping playlists [...], and someone hiring people via mechanical turk or getting 3 other people together to make text-based lists?
What type of difference are you interested in?
* Effective difference in terms of output? None. * Spotify's desire to prevent people from doing so? None (they would want to provide both - and justifiably so, IMO, since, again, the playlist _itself_ is their own (algorithm's) creation). * Likelihood of evading prevention? The MTurk solution is less likely to get shut down, for sure. That doesn't mean that you have magically gotcha'd copyright and that corporation will cease trying to protect their IP, it just means that you have found the next step in the arms race.
> I Am Not A Lawyer, but "a curated collection of units-of-art" seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to
I'm going to need a citation on playlists specifically being protected under copyright. I'm not sure how you can claim that what is effectually a simple plaintext list of things can be copyrighted. What original content there is being put under copyright?
As you already stated, they do not alter the music itself in the way that a rearrangement would, most media players provide fade-in/out functionality so they cannot claim that is unique, and they do not provide any supplimentary content to enhance the experience, at least not in the same way that a book published list, or internet top ten list would ordinarily provide some kind of commentary on the items.
What you're claiming here is effectually that, not even the content, but the mere titles of every single "top 50 foos" list on the internet can be copyrighted. Or that the rearranging of a book's chapters without any change to the contents, can itself fall under copyright
I'm not sure how anyone could think that this is at all a reasonable position to have? It's baffling, to be quite honest.
I'm going to need a citation on playlists specifically being protected under copyright. I'm not sure how you can claim that what is effectually a simple plaintext list of things can be copyrighted. What original content there is being put under copyright?
As you already stated, they do not alter the music itself in the way that a rearrangement would, most media players provide fade-in/out functionality so they cannot claim that is unique, and they do not provide any supplimentary content to enhance the experience, at least not in the same way that a book published list, or internet top ten list would ordinarily provide some kind of commentary on the items.
What you're claiming here is effectually that, not even the content, but the mere titles of every single "top 50 foos" list on the internet can be copyrighted. Or that the rearranging of a book's chapters without any change to the contents, can itself fall under copyright
I'm not sure how anyone could think that this is at all a reasonable position to have? It's baffling, to be quite honest.
> I'm going to need a citation on playlists specifically being protected under copyright
And I'm not going to give you one, because, as I said, I Am Not A Lawyer (and even if I was, you're not paying me to be). But, regardless, note that I made no reference to copyright whatsoever - I said "this seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to". I'm making no reference to law whatsoever - just to what _I_ think is reasonable for a corporation to protect. You are free to disagree.
> they do not provide any supplimentary content to enhance the experience, at least not in the same way that a book published list, or internet top ten list would ordinarily provide some kind of commentary on the items.
The collection _is_ the supplementary content. If a Spotify playlist was a quasi-random collection of tracks from across the entire catalogue, then you'd be right, but they're not - the playlists are curated and specifically chosen to fit some niche (genre, artist-relation, time period, etc.). By virtue of _being in a playlist called_ (e.g.) "1940's Smooth Jazz", the songs are demarcated as being a) relevant to the particular criteria, and b) of a high-enough "quality" (whatever that means) that they have been chosen. So, yes, the plaintext-listing of those song titles _would_ have some value, just like a list of "(only the titles of the) top ten sci-fi novels of 2019" would have some value. I would, for instance, value such a list more-highly if it came from someone whose taste in sci-fi I respect and resonate with.
> What you're claiming here is effectually that, not even the content, but the mere titles of every single "top 50 foos" list on the internet can be copyrighted
Again, I'm intentionally _not_ touching on issues of copyright as legal status - but, yes, I am absolutely suggesting that someone who has gone to the effort of curating a "top 50 foos" list, _and_ of associating it with a powerful taste-making brand like Spotify's, would be justified in perceiving that list _itself_ as a valuable and protection-worthy creation.
---
After the cut because it's less relevant to the discussion, but:
> that the rearranging of a book's chapters without any change to the contents, can itself fall under copyright
I mean...if you _don't_ see how it could be possible for someone to remix the content of an existing artwork into a conceptually-new work, by making statements _with_ the playing-with-form, then I think we're just looking at art from fundamentally different perspectives and are never going to agree. If you truly _do_ want to understand my perspective, you might try thinking about how the consumption of art is affect by the context of how it is consumed and presented, not just the sequence of bytes/soundwaves/visual-elements that compose it.
And I'm not going to give you one, because, as I said, I Am Not A Lawyer (and even if I was, you're not paying me to be). But, regardless, note that I made no reference to copyright whatsoever - I said "this seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to". I'm making no reference to law whatsoever - just to what _I_ think is reasonable for a corporation to protect. You are free to disagree.
> they do not provide any supplimentary content to enhance the experience, at least not in the same way that a book published list, or internet top ten list would ordinarily provide some kind of commentary on the items.
The collection _is_ the supplementary content. If a Spotify playlist was a quasi-random collection of tracks from across the entire catalogue, then you'd be right, but they're not - the playlists are curated and specifically chosen to fit some niche (genre, artist-relation, time period, etc.). By virtue of _being in a playlist called_ (e.g.) "1940's Smooth Jazz", the songs are demarcated as being a) relevant to the particular criteria, and b) of a high-enough "quality" (whatever that means) that they have been chosen. So, yes, the plaintext-listing of those song titles _would_ have some value, just like a list of "(only the titles of the) top ten sci-fi novels of 2019" would have some value. I would, for instance, value such a list more-highly if it came from someone whose taste in sci-fi I respect and resonate with.
> What you're claiming here is effectually that, not even the content, but the mere titles of every single "top 50 foos" list on the internet can be copyrighted
Again, I'm intentionally _not_ touching on issues of copyright as legal status - but, yes, I am absolutely suggesting that someone who has gone to the effort of curating a "top 50 foos" list, _and_ of associating it with a powerful taste-making brand like Spotify's, would be justified in perceiving that list _itself_ as a valuable and protection-worthy creation.
---
After the cut because it's less relevant to the discussion, but:
> that the rearranging of a book's chapters without any change to the contents, can itself fall under copyright
I mean...if you _don't_ see how it could be possible for someone to remix the content of an existing artwork into a conceptually-new work, by making statements _with_ the playing-with-form, then I think we're just looking at art from fundamentally different perspectives and are never going to agree. If you truly _do_ want to understand my perspective, you might try thinking about how the consumption of art is affect by the context of how it is consumed and presented, not just the sequence of bytes/soundwaves/visual-elements that compose it.
I believe they're referring to the playlists created BY Spotify
+1 for the general fantasticness. I use the app on my iphone - no problems whatsoever. They even recently updated their watch app to stream directly (without the phone being nearby). Apple music has had this feature for a while.
In my experience Spotify's recommendations for my big anything-goes playlist are terrible, but the one's for my smaller playlist for mostly British D&B music (https://open.spotify.com/track/22Z4p2gRkDPqmw8DgVixML?si=jeb... - for a taste of the genre) can give very specific and quite good recommendations of smaller artists.
I'm not typically one to buy into conspiracy theories, but I really can't help but wonder if the Spotify algorithm favors songs that have more favorable licensing terms.
They have already announced they intend to let artists buy their way into playlists in the future https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/could-spotifys-new-discovery-...
They have already announced they intend to let artists buy their way into playlists in the future https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/could-spotifys-new-discovery-...
Don't wonder. Just be realistic. Did you ever work in an IT business environment? Remember the situations when good taste slowly morphed into business interests? Yeah, that's natural in a capitalist environment.
By no chance spotify dodged that bullet. Positivity and goodwill is fine but don't spare anyone from corruption.
I had exactly the same feeling. The daily recommendations contain 80% from albums I've either already downloaded or liked (or auto-liked, which was also a very annoying thing I had for a while). The remaining 20% is recommendations of different songs of the same artists mostly.
With New releases it is different. If I ever play, say, a song someone else sent me to listen to in a different genre, then it screws up my recommendations here for months, sometimes forever.
With New releases it is different. If I ever play, say, a song someone else sent me to listen to in a different genre, then it screws up my recommendations here for months, sometimes forever.
Two years ago they were already shoving Drake all over paid subscribers' playlists[0]
I've paid for spotify for more than a decade and I definitely wasn't pleased to have every single playlist recommending an artist I don't like, and it was just ridiculous how EVERY[1] playlist had his photo regardless of the genre.
[0] https://exclaim.ca/music/article/drakes_face_was_all_over_sp...
[1] https://twitter.com/DanieleRose22/status/1013845491757568000
I've paid for spotify for more than a decade and I definitely wasn't pleased to have every single playlist recommending an artist I don't like, and it was just ridiculous how EVERY[1] playlist had his photo regardless of the genre.
[0] https://exclaim.ca/music/article/drakes_face_was_all_over_sp...
[1] https://twitter.com/DanieleRose22/status/1013845491757568000
I think that is the case for every freemium services and social networks: they (must) reward and optimize users for profitability.
I'm surprised that they haven't taken a page out of Netflix's book: sign small artists that sound close enough to what's popular to their own internal record label and push them in playlists?
That doesnt require a conspiracy (really hard), just an imperfect incentive structure (really easy)
It feels like it's a self-fulfilling spiral of bad music. The more I listen to the recommended music, the more of the same crap keeps getting recommended to me. Even if I skip them.
I remember that Spotify actually had pretty good recommendations when I first started using it at the start of this year, because I had only listened to the songs I actually liked so far. But now I'm lucky if I find one decent song out of a hundred recommended ones.
I remember that Spotify actually had pretty good recommendations when I first started using it at the start of this year, because I had only listened to the songs I actually liked so far. But now I'm lucky if I find one decent song out of a hundred recommended ones.
Seems there is exactly the same sort of discussion on another HN thread about poor recommendations from YouTube, also leading into a spiralling decline to more and more rubbish
Yeah. I've commented about this in the past. I have two YouTube accounts in different languages. One has great recommendations. One is terrible.
I wonder for the one with terrible recommendations if I fell into a particular failure spiral: YouTube tried to give me some new stuff for a period, but I happened to not like any of it. The AI noted I was just clicking suggestions from my subscriptions. It eventually tried different recommendations. I didn't like those either, and clicked videos I'd seen before from my subscriptions. Eventually the AI decided I only like watching videos for channels I'm subscribed to, and now doesn't recommend me stuff outside of that. Even when I branch out into a new area, it no longer suggests related channels or anything like that.
I wonder for the one with terrible recommendations if I fell into a particular failure spiral: YouTube tried to give me some new stuff for a period, but I happened to not like any of it. The AI noted I was just clicking suggestions from my subscriptions. It eventually tried different recommendations. I didn't like those either, and clicked videos I'd seen before from my subscriptions. Eventually the AI decided I only like watching videos for channels I'm subscribed to, and now doesn't recommend me stuff outside of that. Even when I branch out into a new area, it no longer suggests related channels or anything like that.
It's not just media. Every year or so I reinstall the Swype keyboard and it works great. But after about a month or two it 'learns' from my jokey misspellings or starts learning a lot of my more obscure vocabulary and starts muddying up the very basic level of Swyping I actually want it to do.
It works great when it types out phrases as I swype and I go back and edit in whatever jokes, memes, or 10 dollar words I want to include. It starts to suck when it starts trying to include those into its predictions.
There's like a sweet spot of machine learning beyond which the machine gets more annoying than helpful.
It works great when it types out phrases as I swype and I go back and edit in whatever jokes, memes, or 10 dollar words I want to include. It starts to suck when it starts trying to include those into its predictions.
There's like a sweet spot of machine learning beyond which the machine gets more annoying than helpful.
Similar experience for me - they always shuffle me most awful songs ever - I could never rely on their algorithms to the extent that no matter the mood/kind/playlist I choose, I end up skipping 20 songs that are just horrible and I just quit Spotify.
I wonder how much better algorithm could be if they'd recognise a skip within 10 seconds of a song as "no, bad choice, never play it again".
I wonder how much better algorithm could be if they'd recognise a skip within 10 seconds of a song as "no, bad choice, never play it again".
Their recommendation engine is really bad IMO. I was hoping for a futuristic machine learning + listening based recommendation engine that could find similar songs based on what they actually sound like. Mostly they just find songs based on what other playlists your song exists in. It's really boring and not good at finding new music for me. It does OKAY and it isn't why I use Spotify, but I can't help but feel like they are missing the boat here. I remember working with Gracenote software like 15 years ago and it could fingerprint songs and find similar music at least that long ago.
e: my overall sentiment on Spotify is very positive, I just wish recommendations were better.
e: my overall sentiment on Spotify is very positive, I just wish recommendations were better.
Check out SAGE from the guy at Hate5six. It's more punk/metal based, but if you're into that, you'll definitely find some new music.
https://hate5six.com/sage
https://hate5six.com/sage
Pretty good! I tried it with some random cross-genre combinations of stuff I like and it found a bunch of other fairly niche bands I like. Looking forward to trying out the other recommendations. Works fine for genres other than punk & metal btw.
Blog post below on how the hate5six creator made this algorithm. Boils down to using the lyrics and community listening habits from last.fm to build a similarity graph for artists, then community detection to group similar artists.
https://medium.com/@hate5six/sage-an-artificially-intelligen...
https://medium.com/@hate5six/sage-an-artificially-intelligen...
FWIW, I’ve had the exact same experience. Started a 3 month Apple Music trial and was so blown away by the number of bands I’d never heard of and absolutely loved that I am ditching Spotify. I somehow found my Spotify account recommendations either recommending songs of bands I’d already told it I liked (duh!) or new bands that I absolutely detested.
Honestly, I switched to funkwhale and I'm not looking back. I prefer to control my own "sound system" like in the old times.
I can't speak to Spotify but YouTube Music seems to do a good job with recommendations. If I start by seeding it with a "radio station" built off an artist I enjoy a lot of the follow-up music is enjoyable and helps me to discover new bands. YouTube Music even has a free ad-supported tier, which is nice.
Hahahaha YouTube has 8 years of my Google Play Music listening history, as well as my entire music library I uploaded back in 2012 when Zune (later XBM/Groove) got killed.
I started it on "The Little Things Give You Away" by Linkin Park, and let it play. For a while it was alright, it gave me chill downtempo kinda emo music selections with some like newer stuff from Linkin Park and like Green Day.
Normally I listen to slow/soft shit from bands like 3 Days Grace, Breaking Ben, 3 Doors Down, My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte and so on with my Linkin Park (especially the Minutes to Midnight album), so Green Day and Fall Out Boy aren't bad per se even though I like my older stuff. And I do have lots of playlists with GD + LP + FOB + other random pop punk bands.
But then it started throwing in shit like NF, Machine Gun Kelley, Eminem, Logic, then D12, Run DMC, DMX. The Smart DJ on my decade old Zune HD does a better job at building a playlist and recommending music (with the same library).
Pandora, Last.fm, GPM (after 8 years it finally started to "get" me FUCK YOU GOOGLE), Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, etc. They have all done this to me, they all inevitably end up playing some sort of rap, or move to super modern pop music. I do not understand it at all beyond 'it makes them money'.
I do listen to rap music, and I do like listening to those groups and artists. I have quite a few playlists built with just that music, and aside from Eminem, they do not intersect with my emo/punk/rock playlists. If I start listening to Linkin Park, I am never going to want to go from there to early 2000s rap.
I. Don't. Give. A. Rats. Ass. if every other person on the planet listens to Linkin Park with Eminem and DMX. I don't and I tell them every time I play a song or build a playlist, or skip, or remove a recommendation what I like and don't like.
Why can my deprecated Zune appreciate that and keep my genre interests separate and accurate and a billion dollar AI algo can't?
I started it on "The Little Things Give You Away" by Linkin Park, and let it play. For a while it was alright, it gave me chill downtempo kinda emo music selections with some like newer stuff from Linkin Park and like Green Day.
Normally I listen to slow/soft shit from bands like 3 Days Grace, Breaking Ben, 3 Doors Down, My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte and so on with my Linkin Park (especially the Minutes to Midnight album), so Green Day and Fall Out Boy aren't bad per se even though I like my older stuff. And I do have lots of playlists with GD + LP + FOB + other random pop punk bands.
But then it started throwing in shit like NF, Machine Gun Kelley, Eminem, Logic, then D12, Run DMC, DMX. The Smart DJ on my decade old Zune HD does a better job at building a playlist and recommending music (with the same library).
Pandora, Last.fm, GPM (after 8 years it finally started to "get" me FUCK YOU GOOGLE), Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, etc. They have all done this to me, they all inevitably end up playing some sort of rap, or move to super modern pop music. I do not understand it at all beyond 'it makes them money'.
I do listen to rap music, and I do like listening to those groups and artists. I have quite a few playlists built with just that music, and aside from Eminem, they do not intersect with my emo/punk/rock playlists. If I start listening to Linkin Park, I am never going to want to go from there to early 2000s rap.
I. Don't. Give. A. Rats. Ass. if every other person on the planet listens to Linkin Park with Eminem and DMX. I don't and I tell them every time I play a song or build a playlist, or skip, or remove a recommendation what I like and don't like.
Why can my deprecated Zune appreciate that and keep my genre interests separate and accurate and a billion dollar AI algo can't?
After playing an album I select (usually soundtracks), Spotify falls into a tiny selection of 10-20 tracks that it plays on shuffle forever. It appears music discovery is incredibly poor.
...I'm also afraid to play something for my son, then the recommendations while coding will surely be polluted by that; just like if you play one or two kid's videos on youtube.
...I'm also afraid to play something for my son, then the recommendations while coding will surely be polluted by that; just like if you play one or two kid's videos on youtube.
Counter anecdote: I've built up playlists full of tracks from good recommendations from Spotify. The genres are relatively niche and electronic (sub-genres of house, techno, uk garage, electronica, etc). The only downside is it gets a bit too eager to recommend the most played few tracks from a given artist, but I've discovered a lot of new artists this way though.
I remember that my suggestions were pretty obscure the last time I tried the spotify algo. But actually it is pretty natural that they suggest niche or less known artists because those have shittier deals and are less expensive to stream. Also, in that position you don't want to promote the top artists for free.
Hilariously I just switched from Apple Music to Spotify and had the exact opposite experience! I wonder if recommendations get "stale" so you get bad ones, where as if you switch services you get recommendations based on different data sets so they're temporarily better.
I made the same assumption about what the link was going to be about.
My solution to terrible music algorithms this year has been to, well, give up on them entirely, and go back to the world of curated music. When Google Play Music died, and YouTube Music left an even worse experience in its place, I was done. So now people curate my music instad of machines. Whether that's in the form of letting the artist curate it for me with albums, letting myself curate my favorites with playlists, or letting a DJ curate music discovery on a streaming radio station, I find that humans do it better.
College radio stations (and their streams) are great, by the way. I can't evangelize them enough. Minimal or no ads, and some of the most interesting and creative sets I've heard in my life.
My solution to terrible music algorithms this year has been to, well, give up on them entirely, and go back to the world of curated music. When Google Play Music died, and YouTube Music left an even worse experience in its place, I was done. So now people curate my music instad of machines. Whether that's in the form of letting the artist curate it for me with albums, letting myself curate my favorites with playlists, or letting a DJ curate music discovery on a streaming radio station, I find that humans do it better.
College radio stations (and their streams) are great, by the way. I can't evangelize them enough. Minimal or no ads, and some of the most interesting and creative sets I've heard in my life.
Music algorithms didn't use to (or seem to) be terrible when the initial data they fed on was already curated music collections. It allowed the algorithm to really learn what you liked then provide recommendations from people with very similar music libraries.
Now it seems that everyone is listening to songs and albums based on recommendations based on what everyone else is listening to, which is also based on recommendations, so you don't find what you really like, you find what everyone else likes and it creates a feedback loop of mediocre garbage totally unspecific to your tastes. And if you try to break out of the loop you land in a loop with people who "broke out of the loop" and you get caught in the cycle again with weirder shit. Rinse and repeat until it pigeonholes you into some inescapable nether of music you might nearly but not really be into.
I would also like to plug Green River College's radio station 89.9 KGRG FM. It has an app and I've never heard a better modern Rock/Metal station
Now it seems that everyone is listening to songs and albums based on recommendations based on what everyone else is listening to, which is also based on recommendations, so you don't find what you really like, you find what everyone else likes and it creates a feedback loop of mediocre garbage totally unspecific to your tastes. And if you try to break out of the loop you land in a loop with people who "broke out of the loop" and you get caught in the cycle again with weirder shit. Rinse and repeat until it pigeonholes you into some inescapable nether of music you might nearly but not really be into.
I would also like to plug Green River College's radio station 89.9 KGRG FM. It has an app and I've never heard a better modern Rock/Metal station
sometimes spotify recommends songs that are so bad it makes me wonder is it some sort of test to check if i am even paying attention :)
i get good results from discover weekly for the most part though. I used to spend a lot of hours on social music sites like thisismyjam and the like, where I would stumble across a gem every 1 in 50, but with spotify it feels more like every 1 in 20 or 30, so I'm happy with that and it's also less work not switching between multiple services
other people I know have nothing good to say about discover weekly so I dunno. maybe I just have low standards!
i get good results from discover weekly for the most part though. I used to spend a lot of hours on social music sites like thisismyjam and the like, where I would stumble across a gem every 1 in 50, but with spotify it feels more like every 1 in 20 or 30, so I'm happy with that and it's also less work not switching between multiple services
other people I know have nothing good to say about discover weekly so I dunno. maybe I just have low standards!
It seems to always give me the best songs first and last in the Discover Weekly and Release Radar auto generated playlists. But in the middle there are sometimes unbelievably ill suited songs for me. Maybe it’s the artificial intelligence attempting to probe the boundaries a bit.
I see a lot of comments here (and some in the YouTube recommendation thread currently on the front page) suggesting sometimes a Rube Goldberg-esque series of behaviors to trick the algorithm into performing properly. I see this mentioned as "easy" and "trivial". I consider it "abrasive" and "tedious." The algorithms should work through normal use of the app. I shouldn't have to tell an app "Ignore this one-off piece of content I reached through an external link that is different from all the other content I've enjoyed and especially different than what I've searched." If I get to the point where I have to curate at that level of detail, what's the point?
It's less work to do what I've been doing all along: get recommendations from friends, family, articles, collabs, biographies, etc. (And it's a lot more fun.)
It's less work to do what I've been doing all along: get recommendations from friends, family, articles, collabs, biographies, etc. (And it's a lot more fun.)
> I shouldn't have to tell an app "Ignore this one-off piece of content I reached through an external link that is different from all the other content I've enjoyed and especially different than what I've searched.
Do you _really_ think they wouldn't've already implemented it already if it were possible in a reasonable way?
Do you _really_ think they wouldn't've already implemented it already if it were possible in a reasonable way?
Actually I'd bet on the opposite: They don't think it makes sense to ignore it. They want to process this data, and they're confident in the weight it's assigned to it.
I'm a bit wary of logging in. Does Spotify provide OAuth with fine-grained control, i.e. will the page only get access to the music history or could it in theory change playlists and billing information?
Yes. When you click auth you can see the permissive it asks for. Which is profile and history.
It looks like they request these permissions: user-top-read, playlist-read-private, playlist-read-collaborative and they also gets your your name, username and profile picture.
Seems a neat way to collect information for their startup. Maybe a Spotify competitor, or a datamarket for selling people's music preferences.
The Pudding is, per the footer on that page, "a digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays". It's been around for a few years already. https://pudding.cool/archives/
I see a lot of comments about how bad spotify recommendations are. I have had great experience but I follow a methodology to keep the recommendations curated. I'll also note that I listen to a wide variety of music ranging from EDM to metal to high enery jpop to classical. What I have found is:
- Adding things to playlists makes a big difference. If you really love a song, hit it with a heart, if you want to hear more but don't love it, add it to a relevant playlist
- skip mildly bad songs
- actively dislike terrible songs (hide it on mobile, hit the no smoking sign on desktop)
I got into a chill beats phase and it took a couple months for me to eradicate it from my discover weekly but now it's pretty on point. Just my 2 cents.
- Adding things to playlists makes a big difference. If you really love a song, hit it with a heart, if you want to hear more but don't love it, add it to a relevant playlist
- skip mildly bad songs
- actively dislike terrible songs (hide it on mobile, hit the no smoking sign on desktop)
I got into a chill beats phase and it took a couple months for me to eradicate it from my discover weekly but now it's pretty on point. Just my 2 cents.
Another tip: Spotify seems to ignore anything you listen to during a "Private Session".
I listen to a lot of ambient and instrumental music while I work, but I don't want recommendations based on this, so I always start a private session.
I listen to a lot of ambient and instrumental music while I work, but I don't want recommendations based on this, so I always start a private session.
Woah, thanks! My 2020 list was topped by some tracks off kids albums which...are for my toddler!
Mentioned to the below responder, but you should give this a try if you're on a family plan, I heard it helps with that problem: https://www.spotify.com/us/kids/
There's not Desktop version for this though, right?
Yeah, same here. Spotify should offer a 'kids' account with every premium subscription, the way video streaming services do.
The family subscription actually does! https://www.spotify.com/us/kids/
Unfortunately, "private session" resets every X hours.
After 6 hours of inactivity or app restart specifically if you plan on utilising this
That's an awful idea for a privacy feature.
You can disable sharing altogether if you want. This is specifically for a single "session." Like if you want to listen to a guilty pleasure and don't want your friends bugging you about it
Of course. But even then I wouldn't want the session to end without confirmation. A prompt/reminder after six hours would make sense.
Wait wait wait, Spotify notifies my friends of what I am listening to (not a user, so honest question)?
No no, but in the UI you can see what your friends are listening to (if you're added as friends). Example I found online (the right bar is the friends feed):
https://miro.medium.com/max/3836/1*C_ImLXQdMOGljMRhLcV-Yw.jp...
https://miro.medium.com/max/3836/1*C_ImLXQdMOGljMRhLcV-Yw.jp...
And to be clear, this is an optional feature.
Appreciate that clarification. Good to know.
It's also useful if you have a second musical "life" that you don't want to involve in your recommendations. Parents with kids' music, for instance. In my case, I turn on private listening when I go to bed, because my sleeping music is repetitive and nothing like the music I want to discover.
I agree that some curation effort makes a huge difference.
I have a "Queue" playlist into which I copy my "Discover Weekly" every now and then; then I listen to that Queue playlist, which lets me delete the tracks I don't want, and keep the ones I do (you can't modify your Discover Weekly). Then, every time I refresh the Queue playlist from Discover Weekly, I first move the current Queue contents into a YYYY-MM playlist (e.g. 2020-12 for this month).
I've been doing this for several years and it's been great — I've got a timestamped record of what I was enjoying/discovering during those months, and it does seem to have helped Spotify to keep recommending me things I really do enjoy. (Weirdly some weeks seem _really bad_, like I delete virtually everything — but I guess there's some A/Bing going on there.)
(Also: I'll only like/heart tracks I _particularly_ like, and sometimes I'll just listen to my "Liked Songs" playlist; I think this helps teach Spotify what I really like.)
I have a "Queue" playlist into which I copy my "Discover Weekly" every now and then; then I listen to that Queue playlist, which lets me delete the tracks I don't want, and keep the ones I do (you can't modify your Discover Weekly). Then, every time I refresh the Queue playlist from Discover Weekly, I first move the current Queue contents into a YYYY-MM playlist (e.g. 2020-12 for this month).
I've been doing this for several years and it's been great — I've got a timestamped record of what I was enjoying/discovering during those months, and it does seem to have helped Spotify to keep recommending me things I really do enjoy. (Weirdly some weeks seem _really bad_, like I delete virtually everything — but I guess there's some A/Bing going on there.)
(Also: I'll only like/heart tracks I _particularly_ like, and sometimes I'll just listen to my "Liked Songs" playlist; I think this helps teach Spotify what I really like.)
> Weirdly some weeks seem _really bad_, like I delete virtually everything — but I guess there's some A/Bing going on there.
Noticed the same, but I think this is actually great, because it seems like there is some randomness that gives you different stuff. It’s like breaking your filter bubble.
Noticed the same, but I think this is actually great, because it seems like there is some randomness that gives you different stuff. It’s like breaking your filter bubble.
Honestly all I want is for Spotify to differentiate between music I actually like to actively listen to and music that I like to play in the background 24/7 (e.g. chill hop)
Same, my spotify thinks I'm very obsessed with Ambient and Classical. I mean I enjoy those genres, but they're not my typical "active listening", I just always want some sort of sound going on in my apartment.
Also whenever I'm DM'ing a D&D game the majority of my daily mixes change to video game music for weeks because I use them as backing music.
Also whenever I'm DM'ing a D&D game the majority of my daily mixes change to video game music for weeks because I use them as backing music.
Spotify's daily no es solve that problem for me. I always have one or two mixes with chill-hop music accumulating things I listen to when working, plus different mixes with different genres and 0% ambient music.
I wish other websites had similar recommendation systems. Spend an afternoon watching shitposting videos and YouTube will only recommends low-effort videos.
I wish other websites had similar recommendation systems. Spend an afternoon watching shitposting videos and YouTube will only recommends low-effort videos.
I feel Spotify makes a half decent jab at identifying moods with their "Daily Mixes" feature. Right now for me it's identified 6 sort of genres that I listen to.
It didn't identify that one of them is hip hop, and the other one is dutch hip hop, which obviously to me are the same genre, but that's alright.
It's got a classical music mix, one for rock, one for soundtracks and one for electronic/lo-fi.
It would've been cool if it knew to group electronic/lo-fi, classical and soundtrack together as my background work music, but I'm not sure how it would've learned that as normally I have to pick one of those genres while working, I have no playlists that mix them.
It didn't identify that one of them is hip hop, and the other one is dutch hip hop, which obviously to me are the same genre, but that's alright.
It's got a classical music mix, one for rock, one for soundtracks and one for electronic/lo-fi.
It would've been cool if it knew to group electronic/lo-fi, classical and soundtrack together as my background work music, but I'm not sure how it would've learned that as normally I have to pick one of those genres while working, I have no playlists that mix them.
I've wanted this for video streaming too. After getting rid of cable, I'll often want to put something on in the background while I'm browsing the web or playing switch or something. I feel like almost everyone has a completely different thing they are looking for in active vs passive consumption and being able to tailor it would be very nice. Very straightforward example: I really don't need subtitled shows when I will be half paying attention at best. I also don't want to watch something that is new to me and also "good" when I won't really be paying attention.
If you're on Family plan, you could sign up for a separate account and use it for background music only. Kind of a hassle, but that's what I'm doing with YouTube so that relaxation recommendations aren't mixed with lectures.
Youtube music distinguishes between them. You can choose one of many supermixes and it clusters the music together.
I've been surprised how many mixes YouTube throws Matchbox 20 at.
Here's my 2 cents: don't rely so much on spotify for recommendations. It's first and foremost a streaming service, any recommendation features are secondary. My strategy is to use a variety of recommendation systems. I've found things through spotify, pandora, gnoosic, reviews, forums, even wikipedia pages. Hunting for music is really fun! Music tastes are subjective, I just don't think the algorithms are ever going to be perfect.
I don't know how much Spotify uses human curation, but Apple Music has a lot of human editors behind the scenes to assemble -- and update/maintain -- what I'm pretty sure are tens of thousands of playlists at this point, based on artist and genre and subject and mood and more. And while this is absolutely one of those Totally Subjective YMMV Works For Me May Suck For You deals, for me it's been far more hit than miss.
(I have some experience with Tidal, which also has apparently human-curated lists but they haven't at all at Apple's level. My experience with Spotify wasn't good, but it was also really limited, because it just didn't offer anything obvious over Apple Music to me -- the reverse is almost certainly true for someone who's already deeply invested in Spotify, though!)
(I have some experience with Tidal, which also has apparently human-curated lists but they haven't at all at Apple's level. My experience with Spotify wasn't good, but it was also really limited, because it just didn't offer anything obvious over Apple Music to me -- the reverse is almost certainly true for someone who's already deeply invested in Spotify, though!)
It is subjective, but I agree with you and enjoy the human touch on the Apple playlists. I tried Spotify long ago, had some issues and then moved to GPM. I used GPM for years until they started pushing me to YTM, so I moved to AM. AM has been the best experience so far, but like you said, YMMV.
TYSM!
I don’t consider it as much as “relying on Spotify” as I just consider the recommendations a great addition to music discovery. A long time ago I relied heavily on last.fm’s radio for music discovery, and Spotify does a decent job filling that gap.
To each their own, I guess, but I’m naturally a “passive” music discoverer, using a combination of recommendations and similar artist radios and whatnot. It works fairly well.
To each their own, I guess, but I’m naturally a “passive” music discoverer, using a combination of recommendations and similar artist radios and whatnot. It works fairly well.
> recommendation features are secondary
The recommendation features, albeit imperfect, are a big reason I'm still on Spotify. I don't think they're secondary at all, as I would have gotten bored by now and canceled my subscription. True, I could go through all the effort you mentioned, but realistically I wouldn't.
The recommendation features, albeit imperfect, are a big reason I'm still on Spotify. I don't think they're secondary at all, as I would have gotten bored by now and canceled my subscription. True, I could go through all the effort you mentioned, but realistically I wouldn't.
> Hunting for music is really fun!
I mean, maybe. I only listen to music when I'm a) driving; b) working. Neither are times I'm particularly interested in searching for new bands to listen to, so I'm going to end up relying on my streaming service's recommendation engine.
I mean, maybe. I only listen to music when I'm a) driving; b) working. Neither are times I'm particularly interested in searching for new bands to listen to, so I'm going to end up relying on my streaming service's recommendation engine.
I highly recommend carving out some time to put on a good pair of headphones, and just listen to music. It can be very much like reading a good book.
Sometimes I do this with music videos. Unfortunately a song has to be popular enough to have a video made, but I'm routinely surprised which songs do have videos. I'm sure this is a bit of nostalgia, since I grew up in the era when MTV still showed music videos.
> - actively dislike terrible songs (hide it on mobile, hit the no smoking sign on desktop)
I see this suggestion a lot, but for whatever reason I never see an option on desktop to dislike songs. Unless I'm really blind.
Does it show up near the track controls?
I see this suggestion a lot, but for whatever reason I never see an option on desktop to dislike songs. Unless I'm really blind.
Does it show up near the track controls?
I'm actively looking for it right now and don't see anything. MacOS user.
It only works on certain playlists, I think only Discover Weekly and Release Radar. It shows up next to the like button for me.
Letting a child use your account ruins it too. Even the AI noticed the horror.
I use the Spotify heart button as a "mark as listened" button since there is no listening history on Spotify mobile and Spotify adds songs I have already listened to my Release Radar. However, this means I can't use it to tailor my recommendations since I heart everything I listen to.
I also listen to a wide variety of music, and what I've found works really well is letting playlists run past their end, into the recommended tracks at the bottom. Spotify's usually pretty good about keeping to that theme.
Sorry, I am not going to let an external AI engine sneak into my Playlists :) I would let the AI engines of Spotify do the same job for me - whenever that happens.
This seems like a lot of work. I wonder why people tolerate this, it seems to me to be a significantly worse UX over the radio.
You think that being able to favorite, skip, and dislike songs is worse UX than the radio, which just plays endlessly, whether you want to listen to that song (or annoying DJ) or commercial or not? I mean, sure, you can change the station, but, best case scenario, you get a song you want, 3/4 of the way through.
I heard recently that some radio station here had developed an app that they were promoting. One huge feature of the app was that it could send you a notification when your favourite song...
...was playing on the radio station, so that you could then turn on the radio and listen to it.
This was - unironically - the big thing they were using to try to get users to download their app. I can't even. This is so dumb.
Can we just kill radio already? Please?
...was playing on the radio station, so that you could then turn on the radio and listen to it.
This was - unironically - the big thing they were using to try to get users to download their app. I can't even. This is so dumb.
Can we just kill radio already? Please?
A music experience where you listen to music industry's preferences instead? That's a step down, even from not curating your spotify preferences at all.
Spotify announced last month that the "music industry" can start paying to put specific songs into people's recommendations.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/03/spotify-a...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/03/spotify-a...
What makes you think spotify isn’t injecting the music industry’s preferences into your playlist? But anyway there are plenty of radio stations that still pay humans to DJ that know more about music then, me with good enough programming skills that even if they play a song I don’t really care about, it is played in a context where I don’t mind listening to it.
> still pay humans to DJ that know more about music then, me with good enough programming skills that even if they play a song I don’t really care about, it is played in a context where I don’t mind listening to it.
Sure, and that's what Spotify IS doing, only they can do it for literally any song/artist/genre, instead of just the mainstream ones. If the RIAA wants to give me some melancholy lofi during my melancholy lofi listening, I don't really mind. I don't have to sit through an Imagine Dragons song, which is the radio alternative
Sure, and that's what Spotify IS doing, only they can do it for literally any song/artist/genre, instead of just the mainstream ones. If the RIAA wants to give me some melancholy lofi during my melancholy lofi listening, I don't really mind. I don't have to sit through an Imagine Dragons song, which is the radio alternative
> Spotify limiting how many people can use this app at once, so you'll need to wait or try again later.
Patiently anticipating how bad my taste is
Patiently anticipating how bad my taste is
A lot of people in this thread have no sense of humor and need to seriously lighten up.
That'd be me. Wasn't in a good mood when I commented. :-)
ironically, my comment is funny to me (at least) now.
A tale as old as the internet itself.
> You are 0% basic. Oh wow Menschdefekt and Culture Kultur! Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
(In Bender's voice) You think you're all high and mighty, just because you're an AI? Well, I guessed so.
EDIT On a real note, how do you feel about doing the same for my last.fm that has data since 2007?
(In Bender's voice) You think you're all high and mighty, just because you're an AI? Well, I guessed so.
EDIT On a real note, how do you feel about doing the same for my last.fm that has data since 2007?
Love how polarizing this is on HN. Half the comments are afraid of their precious data being leeched, other half is divided into "eww" and "this is amazing" :-)
I'm stuck in "Loading your music library...Spotify limiting how many people can use this app at once [...] I'll try again in n seconds" limbo :(
I'm stuck in "Loading your music library...Spotify limiting how many people can use this app at once [...] I'll try again in n seconds" limbo :(
Appears to be dead (likely hugged). Getting an application error from Heroku.
So fun! My score plummeted when I answered the interactive questions.
Hit a bug where it asked me “do you recognize this song?” And tried to play some audio, but nothing actually played. (Safari on iOS; could have been caused by an ad blocker)
Hit a bug where it asked me “do you recognize this song?” And tried to play some audio, but nothing actually played. (Safari on iOS; could have been caused by an ad blocker)
My score was pretty okay until it played me don't stop believing and I liked it, hard to argue with that one
It also absolutely disliked the amount of Daft Punk I listened too, and called me pretentious for listening to Periphery, this was hilarious.
It also absolutely disliked the amount of Daft Punk I listened too, and called me pretentious for listening to Periphery, this was hilarious.
Happened to me but it was because the mute switch was set to vibrate. Turning the switch let the song play. I guess unless the ringer is on iOS controls whether Safari can play audio?
I also couldn’t hear anything. (Also safari iOS)
It played Don't Stop Believing by Journey, and then made fun of me for liking it loool
> You are 6% basic. Acrimonious and Inherit Disease? Where do you even find this shit?.
Yup. That's me.
Yup. That's me.
> You are 2% basic. Wombripper and Blindfolded and Led to the Woods? Where do you even find this shit?
m000, you are my new best friend.
m000, you are my new best friend.
>You are 3% basic. Lost Symphony and VIRTA? Where do you even find this shit?.
Liked those two, try these two.
Liked those two, try these two.
This obviously isn't a real AI.
My results and text pieces are pretty much the same as everyone else's here in the comments.
It just fetches some playlists, fills the blanks in its text pieces and that's it.
My results and text pieces are pretty much the same as everyone else's here in the comments.
It just fetches some playlists, fills the blanks in its text pieces and that's it.
> Oh wow Taim and Viper! Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
It's vaguely sentient.
It has some really bizarre opinions about certain songs - Guthrie Govan is basically a god amongst men for guitar players but it absolutely hates his work.
A final note: I assume this is a joke, but please don't try to objectively rank music.
It's vaguely sentient.
It has some really bizarre opinions about certain songs - Guthrie Govan is basically a god amongst men for guitar players but it absolutely hates his work.
A final note: I assume this is a joke, but please don't try to objectively rank music.
> Guthrie Govan is basically a god amongst men for guitar players but it absolutely hates his work.
They apparently just took public reviews, but I geniuinelycan not imagine someone disliking Guthrie Govan. Maybe the score is also inversely proportional to popularity/# of reviews found? It'd fit into the hipster gag
They apparently just took public reviews, but I geniuinelycan not imagine someone disliking Guthrie Govan. Maybe the score is also inversely proportional to popularity/# of reviews found? It'd fit into the hipster gag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaqbbjciqsE&list=RD6MexmN9vF...
Like/Dislike ratio of 6600/98, they must be extrapolating from some bad data (or possibly extrapolating from the genre not being particularly melon-y).
Excuse me, I need to go and practice...
Like/Dislike ratio of 6600/98, they must be extrapolating from some bad data (or possibly extrapolating from the genre not being particularly melon-y).
Excuse me, I need to go and practice...
I was hoping it was a questionnaire about how bad Spotify recommendations are. I have no idea why Spotify feels the need to clutter my recommendations with radio stations like "Rap Caviar" and "Music for when you know you're the bad bitch", meanwhile it doesn't show me new releases for music I actually listen to because of all the irrelevant suggestions taking up space. I ended up creating a new account because apparently listening to a couple of podcast episodes means you want half your page filled with recommendations for shows on the same topic.
Besides that, Spotify is now getting flooded with all those coaching podcasts.
How to flirt better. How to earn more money. How to be more lucky.
In the beginning there were lots of sex podcasts, seemed like everybody who had sex at least twice got its own podcast on Spotify, but now it's all filled with the generic stuff I already hate in the other places.
How to flirt better. How to earn more money. How to be more lucky.
In the beginning there were lots of sex podcasts, seemed like everybody who had sex at least twice got its own podcast on Spotify, but now it's all filled with the generic stuff I already hate in the other places.
Every generation thinks they invented sex podcasts.
Spotify really wants people to listen to podcasts... it's oh so much easier to wedge some advertising into podcasts.
You're right, but I'm grateful anyway. I used to listen to Joe Rogan's podcast sometimes (on Overcast, which is awesome)... since he moved to the vastly inferior Spotify platform, I don't listen to him at all. The platform is pure shit for podcasts, so I've cut Rogan out of my life, and saved many hours per week in the process. Not that his $100M is going to notice my absence!
I’m really bummed at the amount of effort which is going into building walled gardens for podcasts. Yet another amazing thing on the open web which is dying.
I keep hoping that someone will crack the micropayment idea and kill advertising on the web.
I keep hoping that someone will crack the micropayment idea and kill advertising on the web.
> I keep hoping that someone will crack the micropayment idea and kill advertising on the web.
Trying! https://wiki.snowdrift.coop
Ok -- technically not micropayments and technically killing advertising is not a goal. But many of us are personally against advertising, and a viable alternative for funding free/libre/open works would certainly put a dent in advertising coffers.
Trying! https://wiki.snowdrift.coop
Ok -- technically not micropayments and technically killing advertising is not a goal. But many of us are personally against advertising, and a viable alternative for funding free/libre/open works would certainly put a dent in advertising coffers.
Release Radar is usually pretty good at recommending new releases, at least for me.
Yeah I can't think of anything I've missed by following Release Radar each Friday. It would be nice if it was clearer on Release Radar whether the new release was a single or an album. You can infer this from the single having a separate title than the listed album, but sometimes it's the title track.
a big part of my motivation for going back to a local music library soon are those annoying ads at the top of the screen when you first open the app. its even more annoying that I am paying them for premium and there is still not option to disable them.
is pretty much the same reason I moved to linux because microsoft kept trying to push crap apps like candy crush on me even though I bought the "pro" licence. #everythingIsTerrible
is pretty much the same reason I moved to linux because microsoft kept trying to push crap apps like candy crush on me even though I bought the "pro" licence. #everythingIsTerrible
It's not just you, I've literally never listened to a podcast on Spotify but they're front and center on the Home page for me too. I wish there was a way to turn them off, I'm just not interested in podcasts.
Most of the comments here are people that use Spotify complaining about Spotify. I don’t understand what makes it a “sticky” service that people feel they have to put up with.
They have many competitors, and tools to copy your music selections between services exist. For example:
https://www.tunemymusic.com/
Also, Spotify pays musicians less than most other services:
https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-...
Spotify’s pricing is also inline with competitors. I don’t get it.
They have many competitors, and tools to copy your music selections between services exist. For example:
https://www.tunemymusic.com/
Also, Spotify pays musicians less than most other services:
https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-...
Spotify’s pricing is also inline with competitors. I don’t get it.
Spotify is better than the competitors. HN is just filled with grumps who love to complain about everything.
In what way is it “better”?
I tried three competitors as I moved away from Spotify, and found they were all substantially better than it.
I care about music selection, recommendation quality, and library stability (not deleting stuff from my collection).
I tried three competitors as I moved away from Spotify, and found they were all substantially better than it.
I care about music selection, recommendation quality, and library stability (not deleting stuff from my collection).
The API, for example. It's a ton of fun to bang out toy projects.
Just the other day I built my own podcast picker script that curates a playlist of subscribed podcast episodes in exactly the way I want (balance-wise/order-wise). Sounds minor, but it has been huge for my smart-home listening experience, given how terrible the out-of-box podcast experience is with Alexa.
Just the other day I built my own podcast picker script that curates a playlist of subscribed podcast episodes in exactly the way I want (balance-wise/order-wise). Sounds minor, but it has been huge for my smart-home listening experience, given how terrible the out-of-box podcast experience is with Alexa.
Spotify is ubiquitous. There is hardly a device that doesn't support it.
Hah, I'm always a bit self conscious about playing my music "in public", this took it to a new high...
Or, how to get your app rate limited in one easy step lol. Patiently waiting...
The concept of "objectively good music" is hilarious enough that this is already a win in my book.
The concept of "objectively good music" is hilarious enough that this is already a win in my book.
Aaaannd it's down. I can't wait until this comes back up so I can send it to a bunch of my ex-bandmates lol.
Wow reading discussion of music consumption on HN is so surreal for me as a working pianist / keyboardist / accordionist / educator. There’s a guilty pleasure I derive from mostly feeling unworthy when reading through HN posts about tech, you all are amazing! At the same time I really appreciate that HN is aware of your minority tech nerd preferences compared to the greater consumer population who are perfectly happy in their walled gardens. I practice tech in the same way some one casually dabbles in piano. I wish I didn’t have to be in a walled in garden but not enough time (for now) to make a website that’s not a godaddy template. The disdain for using gd services must be similar to how I feel about music industry discussion, but I accept that I’m a minority since I can see the ‘source code’ to everything I hear. But yeah pretty funny to be judged by the AI as a consumer for something that I actually use more of as a professional reference tool. I got, 2% basic, jazz-everyones-heard-of-jazz-flex-stuck-in-the-fifties bad. It also made fun of me a lot for listening to every episode of Marion Mcpartland’s ‘Piano Jazz’ that’s available on Spotify...
[deleted]
> made fun of me a lot for listening to every episode of Marion Mcpartland’s ‘Piano Jazz’ that’s available on Spotify...
That's not you, that's bad AI :)
That's not you, that's bad AI :)
lol that’s really cute.
Spotify permissions it asks for make sense.
It was really confused by all the kid music I play. Why so much Raffi? Their training set must not include people with children. :)
Spotify permissions it asks for make sense.
It was really confused by all the kid music I play. Why so much Raffi? Their training set must not include people with children. :)
I was asked
> "You listen to 'Super Simple Songs' a lot. I mean A LOT. Are you ok?"
> "You listen to 'Super Simple Songs' a lot. I mean A LOT. Are you ok?"
Might have missed the point of the site here (just speculating) -- I got a lot of sarcastic criticism (hey cool, I don't care) but not a single suggestion. Spotify has helped me find lots of music that I like. This site didn't.
Fuck this site.
Fuck this site.
I think it's pretty clearly only intended to provide snark about your listening habits and not made to give suggestions.
Ah, but it didn't promise suggestions, it promised to analyze how bad your Spotify is, and it delivers as promised, regardless of what you listen to!
... it’s comedy. Have a sense of humor.
> Your spotify was horny-soundtrack-movie-soundtrack bad.
I suppose because soundtracks and 90s dance remixes are what I listen to while programming.
For soundtracks, I made a playlist that goes for 28hrs 30 mins full of:
* Hans Zimmer
* James Horner
* John Williams
* Alan Silvestri
* David Newman
* Danny Elfman
* Christopher Tin
* John Powell
* Michael Giacchino
* Ramin Djawadi
* etc
I suppose because soundtracks and 90s dance remixes are what I listen to while programming.
For soundtracks, I made a playlist that goes for 28hrs 30 mins full of:
* Hans Zimmer
* James Horner
* John Williams
* Alan Silvestri
* David Newman
* Danny Elfman
* Christopher Tin
* John Powell
* Michael Giacchino
* Ramin Djawadi
* etc
Here's the playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/31buZEaVGW9f5Y4cEcKtbt?si=...
Do you mind sharing that playlist? Sounds interesting :)
Have you heard much Vangelis? I think you'd probably like him.
Please do share the playlist. Will love to listen to it.
This was fun. I like that the AI had a bit of a personality.
In terms of bad vs. good, though, music is like a lot of things in life, so subjective that you can't judge another person's taste. If for no other reason than people care about music to wildly different degrees. I've met people who say they don't listen to music. As in ever. Others cannot let a minute go by without having something playing in their head. It's akin to judging taste in food or recreational activities or movies. It's not really about what's good, rather, what gets a positive mental response.
That point aside, I'd say that what would be interesting is measuring how broad a person's musical tastes are. I.e., how much have they been exposed to and how much of that have they assimilated into their regular listening rotation. Pandora does a pretty good job suggesting artists I've never heard. When I hear one I like, I'll incorporate some songs into my regular rotation on Spotify.
If you must know, I have Bad Taste. The bad as in Hawaiian shirt-etc.-etc.-etc.... bad.
In terms of bad vs. good, though, music is like a lot of things in life, so subjective that you can't judge another person's taste. If for no other reason than people care about music to wildly different degrees. I've met people who say they don't listen to music. As in ever. Others cannot let a minute go by without having something playing in their head. It's akin to judging taste in food or recreational activities or movies. It's not really about what's good, rather, what gets a positive mental response.
That point aside, I'd say that what would be interesting is measuring how broad a person's musical tastes are. I.e., how much have they been exposed to and how much of that have they assimilated into their regular listening rotation. Pandora does a pretty good job suggesting artists I've never heard. When I hear one I like, I'll incorporate some songs into my regular rotation on Spotify.
If you must know, I have Bad Taste. The bad as in Hawaiian shirt-etc.-etc.-etc.... bad.
I'm pretty sure it flags everyone as having bad taste and the algorithm is tuned to customize its mockery. The AI is simulating a record store snob.
That said, I thought it was funny because I realize people making fun of me for not being cool doesn't have any effect on me anymore. Is this what middle-age is about?
It also focused on mocking my musical tastes being stuck in the early 2010s, but I haven't actually used Spotify since 2015 so I guess that checks out from its perspective.
That said, I thought it was funny because I realize people making fun of me for not being cool doesn't have any effect on me anymore. Is this what middle-age is about?
It also focused on mocking my musical tastes being stuck in the early 2010s, but I haven't actually used Spotify since 2015 so I guess that checks out from its perspective.
If you wanted to build this with Apple Music, you'd need a $99 developers account for the privilege
> You are 25% basic. Yeah, you've got some obscure artists like Mojave 3, but your real top ones are ultra-mainstream like Taylor Swift..
You're stuck in the early 2010s. For you, music's been all downhill since Auli'i Cravalho made How Far I'll Go.
Connecting my Spotify account to the Alexa my 3 year old has figured out how to use was a definite mistake.
Connecting my Spotify account to the Alexa my 3 year old has figured out how to use was a definite mistake.
Right, I'm not sure I should get dinged for letting my daughter listen to Baby Shark or Taylor Swift on repeat, but I guess that's life...
I know the bot is spewing nonsense when it starts insulting Queen, Van Halen, and Electric Light Orchestra
very funny to get roasted by a machine though!
very funny to get roasted by a machine though!
"Your spotify was retiree-softball-league-tommy-bahama-africa-on-touchtunes bad.
Thank your obsessions with Steely Dan, mellow gold, and Africa for that.
Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
60s-acid-flashback bad
mercury-idolizer bad
parody-song bad
midwest-classic-rock bad
punk-with-grandchildren bad
But wait, it gets worse:
You listen to these tracks too much:
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Ninja Sex Party's Under the Covers.
That's it. I'm done.
I need to go recalibrate my taste levels.
Shutting down."
Yeah, I'm a 90's kid who listened to their parents' music from the Classic Rock stations they always had on. If anything, I'm more stuck in the 70s; the early 10s is just when I stopped paying much attention to new music, though my wife is trying to change that. You can't shame me, A.I.!
What's funny to me, is that I actually discovered Klaatu via Spotify. I'd never heard them before, but they came up in one of my weekly playlists, and (obviously) I took quite a liking. "Calling Occupants" was my #1 song of 2020.
Thank your obsessions with Steely Dan, mellow gold, and Africa for that.
Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
60s-acid-flashback bad
mercury-idolizer bad
parody-song bad
midwest-classic-rock bad
punk-with-grandchildren bad
But wait, it gets worse:
You listen to these tracks too much:
Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft by Klaatu
Working Man by Rush
WEIT WEG by Rammstein
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Remastered 2009 by The Beatles
The Dope Show by Marilyn Manson
Ninja Sex Party
Rammstein
Led Zeppelin
Steely Dan
Rush
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Ninja Sex Party's Under the Covers.
That's it. I'm done.
I need to go recalibrate my taste levels.
Shutting down."
Yeah, I'm a 90's kid who listened to their parents' music from the Classic Rock stations they always had on. If anything, I'm more stuck in the 70s; the early 10s is just when I stopped paying much attention to new music, though my wife is trying to change that. You can't shame me, A.I.!
What's funny to me, is that I actually discovered Klaatu via Spotify. I'd never heard them before, but they came up in one of my weekly playlists, and (obviously) I took quite a liking. "Calling Occupants" was my #1 song of 2020.
> Your spotify was pretentious-hip-hop-god-rock bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Childish Gambino and christian rock for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> awkward-beatboxing bad
Bruh
> Thank your obsessions with Childish Gambino and christian rock for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> awkward-beatboxing bad
Bruh
Does it do anything but gives some hipster insults?
My activity seems to have messed it up:
"You only listen to Obama-era jams like Sleepy Brown Noise by White Noise for Reading" err..
How do I delete my data?
My activity seems to have messed it up:
"You only listen to Obama-era jams like Sleepy Brown Noise by White Noise for Reading" err..
How do I delete my data?
*ponders if "Obama-era jams" means music that came out during the Obama-administration, or music Obama would have jammed to when he was younger
Both have a lot of potential, as it would seem the former President and I have very similar musical tastes (that is: a very strong love for Stevie Wonder)
Both have a lot of potential, as it would seem the former President and I have very similar musical tastes (that is: a very strong love for Stevie Wonder)
Well that was dumb. The entire thing was generic insults that could be applied to literally anything.
> You are 0% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to Perihelion Ship?.
Screw you, they're great. Its Opeth with growling.
> You are 0% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to Perihelion Ship?.
Screw you, they're great. Its Opeth with growling.
Thats the point. Its designed to make fun of you
So much AI for something that seems like a list of random insults that could be used in any situation. Why bother?
Some things can be done just for the fun of it
>Its Opeth with growling.
So... Opeth before Heritage? lol
So... Opeth before Heritage? lol
Everyone is blaming the Spotify algorithm for bad suggestions. I ran this test, it's my OWN TASTE that turns out to be bad according to this :(
Jokes aside, I think this is a really neat toy with a great sense of humor
Jokes aside, I think this is a really neat toy with a great sense of humor
Sounds like a scam, no way am I connecting this to my Spotify account for them to leech out my personal data.
I don’t think I’ve ever been insulted that much by a computer before...
That's how I felt when I was learning to compile stuff from source.
That’s more like the computer just slept with your sister even though you told it not to and now you’re horrified and no longer friends...
This contraption is the digital equivalence of the proverbial white van that kids are told to never climb into. Don't do it, even if the man said he has puppies or snarky retorts inside.
It's a shame because "Discover Weekly" is a complete flop for me. It's beyond strange what it's sending me. I tried hitting the "-" / don't like button several weeks on almost everything... but eventually I gave up. I'm not sure how customized it is to me, honestly.
Your Daily Mix # - that works better but it's mostly repetitive stuff I already have in my Library.
They need toggles of some sort, or some dial of some sort rather than put blind trust in these algorithms.
Your Daily Mix # - that works better but it's mostly repetitive stuff I already have in my Library.
They need toggles of some sort, or some dial of some sort rather than put blind trust in these algorithms.
In contrast, I continue to pay for Pandora in the U.S. because the artist radios work very well for somehow knowing what stuff-that-others-liked-that's-similar is. Downside is Pandora gets repetitive quickly in its playlists.
Discover weekly is better if you spend time during the previous week listening to songs you like (and also add them to likes).
Haven't used Spotify in over a year now so it'll judge an older me, but it apparently has my favorite Melon as a reference of good taste so it can't be all that bad.
As soon as I saw melon I knew I was in for a ride.
> sad-knowledge-worker bad
> wear-carhartts-to-your-desk-job
> remember-when-williamsburg-was-cool bad
Isn't that a younger you though?
Well, it absolutely hated me (Possibly because I have one massive playlist) despite noticing enormous amounts of Death Grips on my profile, and recommending me a Neutral Milk Hotel song at the end (which I was quite impressed with although it could've been a lucky guess)
It asked me to listen to a clip of Oh Comely and asked me if I liked it or not lmao.
This is pretty funny, that "fuck marry kill" one throws me off a little bit though.
That's where it didn't respond anymore, and I had to kill it.
The comments before were not enlightening enough, as I was music editor and dj on a local indie radio station, so it should be the other way round. The general taste sucks. Spotify's release radar only recommends shit, but nevertheless it's still the best to find the hidden gems. You won't find them on radio shows, other than KTRU or WFMU.
The comments before were not enlightening enough, as I was music editor and dj on a local indie radio station, so it should be the other way round. The general taste sucks. Spotify's release radar only recommends shit, but nevertheless it's still the best to find the hidden gems. You won't find them on radio shows, other than KTRU or WFMU.
First time I've ever seen KTRU mentioned on the internet!
KTRU is legend even in Europe. The strongest radio station that times, then destroyed by Rice and politics, now online only. The most uncompromosing programming, in the most corrupt state. Still no mp3's, only Vinyl. Legendary DJ's. I'm sure you don't know 95% of what they play. They hate all the major labels. They have a huge blacklist.
Huh, I didn't get the zoomer memes this thing spat at me
It used "stan" as both a noun and a verb and I have no idea what it means.
Just some fun history, but "stan" is actually a millennial portmanteau courtesy of Eminem [0]. It came out around the time the older Gen Z's were born, actually. Although, yes, it has seen a revival amongst Gen Z.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(song)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(song)
To be a “Stan” is to be a truly diehard fan, bordering on obsession. The term comes from the Eminem song of the same name. It can be used as a noun or a verb.
I think it means 'excessive fan', from Eminem - Stan
Stalker + fan specifically
Verbing weirds nouns.
This was great, really spot on and snarky. Though there are some ambient playlists I sleep to and so it weighed those far more than it probably should, but I guess how is it supposed to know that. My spotify recap thingie said the same thing about some of the ambient artists.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> stoned-itunes-visualizer bad
> cling-clang-pots-and-pans-music bad
Gotta say, that's a pretty perfect call out of my average music listening.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> stoned-itunes-visualizer bad
> cling-clang-pots-and-pans-music bad
Gotta say, that's a pretty perfect call out of my average music listening.
Didn't expect it will play a music for me haha, had to pick up my earphones.
Anyway it was hilarious.
- Your spotify was anime-slow-dance bad,
On "You listen to these tracks too much:" part, well that is because they are on the top of the playlist. I usually start my Spotify day by just playing the playlist (Liked Songs) so it goes just play the music on whats on top and go down to the first song I fav'ed.
- You are 2% basic. Oh wow The Contes and Crown Jewels! Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
This one got me :) I really like "The Contes" and "Crown Jewels"
- You're stuck in the early 2010s.
Hmm... Kinda not accurate. Does it know when the track was originally released to make accurate one? Like there was an album on my list that it was originally released on 1998-2004 but was released on Spotify earlier this year 2020.
"fuck marry kill.. fast" was fun but got off took me a while to figure it out, I quickly clicked "fuck" and "marry" on SCANDAL (why not right? haha) and thought the A.I. is dead, later I figured out that I need to choose on others too.
- Your spotify was anime-slow-dance bad,
On "You listen to these tracks too much:" part, well that is because they are on the top of the playlist. I usually start my Spotify day by just playing the playlist (Liked Songs) so it goes just play the music on whats on top and go down to the first song I fav'ed.
- You are 2% basic. Oh wow The Contes and Crown Jewels! Your taste is so obscure that's so cool I bet you're super interesting..
This one got me :) I really like "The Contes" and "Crown Jewels"
- You're stuck in the early 2010s.
Hmm... Kinda not accurate. Does it know when the track was originally released to make accurate one? Like there was an album on my list that it was originally released on 1998-2004 but was released on Spotify earlier this year 2020.
"fuck marry kill.. fast" was fun but got off took me a while to figure it out, I quickly clicked "fuck" and "marry" on SCANDAL (why not right? haha) and thought the A.I. is dead, later I figured out that I need to choose on others too.
Your spotify was pour-over-coffee-too-much-symphonic metal bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Of Monsters and Men and symphonic metal (e.g., Luca Turilli and Van Canto) for that.
> Here's what else I learned in that hellscape:
You listen to these tracks too much:
[too embarrassing]
You stan these artists to an uncomfortable extent:
You are 4% basic. Мёртвые Осы and Zabili Mi Żółwia? Where do you even find this shit?.
You're too trendy for your own good. You only listen to music made in the last year like...
It's amazing that it correctly spotted objectievely shitty songs on my playlist.
> Thank your obsessions with Of Monsters and Men and symphonic metal (e.g., Luca Turilli and Van Canto) for that.
> Here's what else I learned in that hellscape:
You listen to these tracks too much:
[too embarrassing]
You stan these artists to an uncomfortable extent:
You are 4% basic. Мёртвые Осы and Zabili Mi Żółwia? Where do you even find this shit?.
You're too trendy for your own good. You only listen to music made in the last year like...
It's amazing that it correctly spotted objectievely shitty songs on my playlist.
The years are even worse for classical. I've just been told "You're stuck in the 1990s. Forget about Johann Sebastian Bach's Bach, JS : Sacred Cantatas BWV Nos 4 - 6 and move on."
I got stuck at the "marry fuck kill" question twice and gave up.
> You are 1% basic. Jimkata and The Disco Biscuits? Where do you even find this shit?.
That might be the highest compliment I've ever received!
That might be the highest compliment I've ever received!
Successful auto-playlisting is going to vary on the demands made.
There is no 100% music (or any creative output) recommender because everyone feels differently about what 'energy', 'easy', 'powerful', 'touching', and 'rock' all mean, and to each person individually. These terms are meant to, and always will be, necessarily ambiguous; and that is how these terms work best.
AI currently cannot 100% give you a track without drums even if you check the 'no drums' box (because along the way one track with drums was put in the no drums box).
Incidentally I've used various searchers (now referred to as) AI for years to try and find tracks requested by clients, it remains somewhat helpful though unable to compete with a human first listening to the human making the request.
AI is improving, but it is going to be beyond our lifetime before it replaces communication, human to human, eye to eye.
Until AI knows what it means to be human, so it shall remain.
There is no 100% music (or any creative output) recommender because everyone feels differently about what 'energy', 'easy', 'powerful', 'touching', and 'rock' all mean, and to each person individually. These terms are meant to, and always will be, necessarily ambiguous; and that is how these terms work best.
AI currently cannot 100% give you a track without drums even if you check the 'no drums' box (because along the way one track with drums was put in the no drums box).
Incidentally I've used various searchers (now referred to as) AI for years to try and find tracks requested by clients, it remains somewhat helpful though unable to compete with a human first listening to the human making the request.
AI is improving, but it is going to be beyond our lifetime before it replaces communication, human to human, eye to eye.
Until AI knows what it means to be human, so it shall remain.
Seems like it was hugged to death within half an hour, ah Hacker News.
My badness made me laugh. I like certain show tunes when I program. Don't judge me, the web site already did. But because I read a news story about The Chicks rebranding and got curious about their new album, it got added to my gestalt.
Thus: Your spotify was like-country-but-smoke-weed-with-your-gay-friends-drama-club-tonys-watch-party bad.
Thus: Your spotify was like-country-but-smoke-weed-with-your-gay-friends-drama-club-tonys-watch-party bad.
My problem with Spotify is that it almost exclusively plays music that I listened to in the past, or that's on my playlists. The more times I listen to a song, the more frequently they play it.
You can get around this by closing the account, and opening a new one, but this is too time consuming, since you need to do it frequently.
You can get around this by closing the account, and opening a new one, but this is too time consuming, since you need to do it frequently.
I have such a different experience. Perhaps we use different bits of the service? I almost always listen to the Discovery Weekly playlist, and very often create radio statations for new tracks, which in turn show me more stuff I haven't listened to before.
Ah, the old "this guy bought a car, let's show him ads for cars since he's clearly a car-buyer" style of advertising/recommendation.
You can get around this by using the Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists which update and are fine tuned to your likes on music.
To everyone complaining about how to trick the Spotify AI: This is why I still listen to the radio/watch DJ streams on Twitch. Because a human still curates the experience. It's just a matter of finding a human you tend to agree with, and then you literally do nothing but listen.
Honestly it's not too bad. I've pretty much tried every platform, including the ones no longer with us (RIP Rdio) and no Spotify isn't perfect, but it's pretty good in relative terms. Every platform, after some time, gets stuck in a recommend loop. If I listen to enough recommended tracks, it gives me more recommendations of similar tracks, but if I keep listening, the recommendations eventually just become the songs they've already recommended and they get recommended over and over. Spotify does that but their tree of recommendations has far more branches and playlists from users adds randomness to the recommend algorithm. The other platforms aren't as good with that (haven't tried Apple Music in a while though).
Is anyone fed up with seeing a song in their Release Radar, getting excited about your favourite artists releasing a new album, then being disappointed that the artist has decided to only drop one song from the album, which you will likely get sick of before the album releases?
I’m tired of having subscribed to one of my favorite artists, then release radar gives me a horrible song by an artist who apparently took their name. Then when I hit dislike every single week and unsubscribe it still keeps giving me their garbage.
I thought it was a fluke at first but it has happened now with about 4-5 artists.
I thought it was a fluke at first but it has happened now with about 4-5 artists.
The same happened to me; one of my liked bands apparently released an album; it then turns out that it was some other band that just happened to have the same name. Seems they compare band-names instead of some unique-ids; no idea how they thought this would be a good idea.
This drives me nuts. I want to listen to an album, not a song. But I'm guessing this is an old-school POV that the younger demographic doesn't agree with.
I'm not young anymore (35) but I really don't care about albums
It eviscerated me for listening to a lot of soothing piano songs (mostly from one album). For the last year, we learned that was the best thing to play for our foster kid so she'd sleep. My recommendations will probably never recover. Same for netflix.
This seems to be just a few canned quips with fields to insert a few of your most listened to artists and tracks. Quite funny though.
What's actually more fun is Spotify's yearly playlists with your most listened to songs. I always get a kick out of analysing those.
What's actually more fun is Spotify's yearly playlists with your most listened to songs. I always get a kick out of analysing those.
[deleted]
I'm always curious to broaden my musical taste.
But I would not want to let that site log into my Slotify account.
Gnoosic is a site I love. It creates AI based recommendations without any login:
https://www.gnoosic.com
But I would not want to let that site log into my Slotify account.
Gnoosic is a site I love. It creates AI based recommendations without any login:
https://www.gnoosic.com
That was funny. However, I'm one of those people with a bona fide, DRM-free MP3 collection[1]
But I only use Spotify a) in the car and b) while riding my bike/bike trainer. I have an actual DRM-free MP3 collection[1] for the important stuff--which has a little overlap with Spotify, but not too much.
[1] Small - only about 20 GB - and has been contiguously curated, over five distinct "generations" in my life, since I was in 7th grade (1998), when I had a 486 DX4/75 that could just about play an MP3, downloaded over dial-up from a shady FTP server, over my SoundBlaster 16 if I wasn't running X or doing anything else.
But I only use Spotify a) in the car and b) while riding my bike/bike trainer. I have an actual DRM-free MP3 collection[1] for the important stuff--which has a little overlap with Spotify, but not too much.
[1] Small - only about 20 GB - and has been contiguously curated, over five distinct "generations" in my life, since I was in 7th grade (1998), when I had a 486 DX4/75 that could just about play an MP3, downloaded over dial-up from a shady FTP server, over my SoundBlaster 16 if I wasn't running X or doing anything else.
What are your feelings about AAC 128kbps?
Undefined value. :)
I'm getting back into collecting and I think that's what I'm going to use for mobile play. And to think just a few years ago I was encoding with LAME...
The insults don’t really work on me. It is also contradicting itself
> Your spotify was jazz-everyones-heard-of-jazz-snob-never-turn-down-a-microphone bad.
> You're too trendy for your own good. You know there's good music from before 2019, right?
> Your spotify was jazz-everyones-heard-of-jazz-snob-never-turn-down-a-microphone bad.
> You're too trendy for your own good. You know there's good music from before 2019, right?
Wow, that was great. Very engaging UX / text.
By the way, I hated the Spotify ads so much I paid up for YouTube Music + Premium. Even though the Spotify Windows app is VERY usable compared to https://music.youtube.com. Good Lord, I hated those ads. I know the conspiracy theory that they were designed to be irritating so that you pay up, but that only works in a world without much choice; ;now you have YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Deezer. Spotify, I'll readily pay up and switch if you improve those awful ads.
By the way, I hated the Spotify ads so much I paid up for YouTube Music + Premium. Even though the Spotify Windows app is VERY usable compared to https://music.youtube.com. Good Lord, I hated those ads. I know the conspiracy theory that they were designed to be irritating so that you pay up, but that only works in a world without much choice; ;now you have YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Deezer. Spotify, I'll readily pay up and switch if you improve those awful ads.
I have the same opinion on spotify ads, they are so annoying I refuse to subscribe to spotify. It just feels like if I subscribe to remove the awful ads then Spotify has won. I refuse to subscribe because they've annoyed me so much I pay to make it go away!
I'd rather just not use spotify at all.
I'd rather just not use spotify at all.
```> Your spotify was moonwalk-BFG bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Michael Jackson and Doom (Original Game Soundtrack) for that.
> But wait, it gets worse:
You listen to these tracks too much:
Enter the Cipher by Follow The Cipher Afterlife by Metalite Winterfall by Follow The Cipher Valkyria by Follow The Cipher My Soldier by Follow The Cipher You stan these artists to an uncomfortable extent:
Amaranthe Mick Gordon Nightwish Celldweller Little V. You are 1% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to monomer?.
You're stuck in the early 2010s. For you, music's been all downhill since Amaranthe made Leave Everything Behind.
Well, that was really something.
I need to go recalibrate my taste levels.
Shutting down.```
well shit
> Thank your obsessions with Michael Jackson and Doom (Original Game Soundtrack) for that.
> But wait, it gets worse:
You listen to these tracks too much:
Enter the Cipher by Follow The Cipher Afterlife by Metalite Winterfall by Follow The Cipher Valkyria by Follow The Cipher My Soldier by Follow The Cipher You stan these artists to an uncomfortable extent:
Amaranthe Mick Gordon Nightwish Celldweller Little V. You are 1% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to monomer?.
You're stuck in the early 2010s. For you, music's been all downhill since Amaranthe made Leave Everything Behind.
Well, that was really something.
I need to go recalibrate my taste levels.
Shutting down.```
well shit
What's really clever about this bot is that it mostly seems to criticize the good music in your library. Nobody is going to feel insecure about their guilty pleasures. I already know that Mambo Number 5 and Achy-Breaky Heart aren't musical masterpieces.
But when it starts telling us the stuff we think is high-brow stuff is actually crap, that's when people really start feeling insecure and second-guessing our personal taste. You start thinking wait, what's wrong with Nine Inch Nails and Haim? I thought they're supposed to be good...
But when it starts telling us the stuff we think is high-brow stuff is actually crap, that's when people really start feeling insecure and second-guessing our personal taste. You start thinking wait, what's wrong with Nine Inch Nails and Haim? I thought they're supposed to be good...
That was fun, if not maybe a bit TOO judgmental!
Tangential: I wish one-off applications like this also offered a one-click de-authorization step at the end to remove access to my account. It’s a pain to go figure out how to do it for certain accounts, especially if you’re mobile and there’s a decent chance you’ll just forget to do it later. I do not like leaving access tokens around in other people’s databases unless I have to. I understand this would require the service to provide such functionality to the application developer, which I’m sure isn’t always available..
Tangential: I wish one-off applications like this also offered a one-click de-authorization step at the end to remove access to my account. It’s a pain to go figure out how to do it for certain accounts, especially if you’re mobile and there’s a decent chance you’ll just forget to do it later. I do not like leaving access tokens around in other people’s databases unless I have to. I understand this would require the service to provide such functionality to the application developer, which I’m sure isn’t always available..
As soon as I saw Tiny Desk Concerts in the list of "objectively good music" at the beginning, I was dying. It knows me too well! I'm gonna check out that list...
Spotify has done an excellent job of recommendations lately. It took several years of liking songs and making playlists, but I've been very impressed with Discover Weekly.
The shuffle function is still broken, however. It only "shuffles" from like the top 50 songs.
UPDATE: It told me JERRY MARTIN is basic?! The composer for Sims and Sim City? Bruh...
Spotify has done an excellent job of recommendations lately. It took several years of liking songs and making playlists, but I've been very impressed with Discover Weekly.
The shuffle function is still broken, however. It only "shuffles" from like the top 50 songs.
UPDATE: It told me JERRY MARTIN is basic?! The composer for Sims and Sim City? Bruh...
[deleted]
My Spottily is filled with children music like Coco-melon etc which I never listen. But kids play this from Alexa and Google home all the time. Spotify should have profiles.
I wouldn't call it AI, but I had a good laugh so thanks for that.
I revoked access to the Spotify API shortly after use, and it didn't seem to do any harm to my account.
I revoked access to the Spotify API shortly after use, and it didn't seem to do any harm to my account.
> You're stuck in the 2000s. You know there's been good music since Metalocalypse: Dethklok, right?
False. Time to throw this into the death pit.
False. Time to throw this into the death pit.
Somehow, the one time we babysitted a friend's kid made a kid song go to the top of my most listened tracks...
I definitely don't use my Spotify account enough for it to do meaningful recommendations. Too much time on the Discover Weekly and it is more and more diverging from tracks I actually like. The algorithm feed itself and lose precision.
I miss the recommendation capabilities of rdio.
I definitely don't use my Spotify account enough for it to do meaningful recommendations. Too much time on the Discover Weekly and it is more and more diverging from tracks I actually like. The algorithm feed itself and lose precision.
I miss the recommendation capabilities of rdio.
My biggest issue with spotify is that when a playlist is played to completion, it alternates randomly between a set of 20 or so recommendations. However I usually don't notice right away, and this ends up polluting the recommendation system at large, to the point that my most-played song of 2020 is one that I now absolutely hate, by it keeps on coming back.
You can turn this off in settings, under "Autoplay".
Oddly, I signed up for Spotify family so it would be more affordable for three kids. I spend way more time in Pandora (premium) because after several years of use, it has built up a good idea what I want to listen to. I find Spotify repeats far to often, but that is possibly from my lack of use. I listen to my own music collection more than I listen to Pandora.
I just wish they put radio back as what it used to be. Now if you create artist/song/playlist radios they seem to be the same few tracks and artists looping, it used to be infinite, ie, the whole point of radio.
If you do radio for a decently sized playlist, it is basically just akin to using shuffle. What is the point in that? Absolutely useless for music discovery.
If you do radio for a decently sized playlist, it is basically just akin to using shuffle. What is the point in that? Absolutely useless for music discovery.
"I can't judge your music without seeing your Spotify. I mean, I can guess from your browsing history and cookies that your taste is rough, but that's all I'll say for now.
Log in with Spotify"
I never used Spotify, so he was doing this assessment from my cookies...from where? Youtube? I don't login there either, I just browse it. Anyway, that's my test on this.
Log in with Spotify"
I never used Spotify, so he was doing this assessment from my cookies...from where? Youtube? I don't login there either, I just browse it. Anyway, that's my test on this.
This is just a generic statement. Even in a container with no cookies it gives that statement.
It’s part of the joke; it insults your tastes no matter what they are.
Oh, it's a joke? I didn't realized that. I thought that legit it does some AI stuff, not just randomly takes insults from a database and throw it at you.
Sororities statistics are weird, all sites like this tend to pull up stuff I haven’t listened to in 3-4 years and don’t have in any playlists. Similar to this, I’ve noticed a lot of sites that pull your top artists, will pull artists I’ve listened to once or twice recently, but not ones that be listened to continuously over time.
I listened to a number of audio books by the same author during a road trip last year, this tells me I listen to this author to an uncomfortable extent ;)
I believe it focuses quite a lot on artists or tracks listened to a lot, and judging from the covers it shows it selects some top N songs for its analysis. Fun stuff though!
I believe it focuses quite a lot on artists or tracks listened to a lot, and judging from the covers it shows it selects some top N songs for its analysis. Fun stuff though!
One of my top songs is the absolute worst. It always comes on and I always click next and cuss at Spotify about it. It came on twice in one day recently. Somehow that song is the artist’s top song, despite it being a bonus track and not even on the official album. Too bad they took away the “dislike” button.
Hi, I am collecting data for my own purposes, and in exchange for your data I'll give you some snarky comments.
Sincerely, AI
Sincerely, AI
Most of the other comments talk about why Spotify's recommendations are bad, but I think they are great. Discover weekly is my favourite playlist when I feel like listening to something new.
This tool is also awesome -- `Finding a lot of Above & Beyond.` Yes, you are and there should be even more!
This tool is also awesome -- `Finding a lot of Above & Beyond.` Yes, you are and there should be even more!
I love that the first pass for "objectively good music" is Fantano. They know their audience.
Ah, thanks, that was the one logo I didn’t recognize.
This algorithm is bloody rude! But I get it, and to be honest it's not my fault I keep listening to the same stuff, Spotify doesn't recommend anything good. And I'm sorry but nobody can convince that Fleetwood Mack isn't one of the best groups of all time!
I can't stand Spotify recommendations. I've been spoiled by Last.fm's recommendations.
Is there a way to reset the logic for a recommended play list or set it to not factor in songs played for the next hour?
I often find myself playing songs for others I myself wouldn't want to listen to and as a result my Discover Weekly feed is unusable with no apparent fix.
I often find myself playing songs for others I myself wouldn't want to listen to and as a result my Discover Weekly feed is unusable with no apparent fix.
>You're stuck in the early 2010s. You must have peaked right around Gorillaz's Plastic Beach.
Truth...
Truth...
> Your spotify was romcom-trailer-music-walmart-hawaiian-shirt-slow-dance bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Ed Sheeran, mellow gold, and Wonderful Tonight for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> mainstream-country bad
> like-country-but-smoke-weed-with-your-gay-friends bad
> DMB-die-hard bad
> wear-carhartts-to-your-desk-job bad
> requests-bohemian-rhapsody-at-weddings bad
> Here's what else is going on in your aural trash fire:
You listen to these tracks too much:
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You only listen to Obama-era jams like Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars and Emmylou - Spotify Sessions by First Aid Kit.
> Thank your obsessions with Ed Sheeran, mellow gold, and Wonderful Tonight for that.
> Based on your listening habits, I can also tell you your spotify was...
> mainstream-country bad
> like-country-but-smoke-weed-with-your-gay-friends bad
> DMB-die-hard bad
> wear-carhartts-to-your-desk-job bad
> requests-bohemian-rhapsody-at-weddings bad
> Here's what else is going on in your aural trash fire:
You listen to these tracks too much:
Highwomen by The Highwomen
WAP by Cardi B
Classic by Cam
Forgetting You by Cam
Bridge Over Troubled Water by Willie Nelson
Ed Sheeran
George Strait
Sturgill Simpson
Cam
Dolly Parton
You're stuck in the early 2010s. You only listen to Obama-era jams like Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars and Emmylou - Spotify Sessions by First Aid Kit.
I have been logged out and the recovery process through email does not work. Basic error caused me to never use it again.
I can start over with a new account, but I will lose all my bookmarked songs.
QA did not bother to check this simple on boarding process for long time users.
I can start over with a new account, but I will lose all my bookmarked songs.
QA did not bother to check this simple on boarding process for long time users.
This looks really cool, but I wish it displayed some sort of lip service guarantee about not preserving my data. As-is I'm unable to determine whether this is a fun project or a kind of trojan horse to grab as much Spotify data as possible. (and obviously at the end of the day it comes down to trust)
Interesting. Judging by the people sitting next to me in traffic or at the beach, most people are perfectly fine with letting the entire world know what kind of music they enjoy listening to. Even when the rest of the world doesn't care and really really doesn't want to hear it.
Sad that this thought pattern is a thing. I was also too paranoid to sign in with Spotify.
By my reading of their privacy policy, it seems they will keep data they collect as part of a story or project.
Personally, I never use anything that asks me to sign in with something else. My data is my business and IMO there are plenty of ways to get a laugh without compromising privacy.
Personally, I never use anything that asks me to sign in with something else. My data is my business and IMO there are plenty of ways to get a laugh without compromising privacy.
Any service that has third party integrations like this should let me get a token that is just valid e.g 24 hours.
I wish it only looked at my last year, or two. It seems to look at all of my music from the beginning of my account, which is about 10 years old, when I listed to a lot of shitty rave music. Not saying my score would have been better.
As someone who has a lot of very obscure artists in my library due to a dialect of my native language, this did a bad job of judging that. About half or more of my listening is not English language music and that was also disregarded.
> Finding a lot of Super Simple Songs.
> Like... a LOT.
> Your spotify was moms-spaghetti-movie-soundtrack-baby-shark-prison bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Eminem, soundtrack (e.g., Hans Zimmer and Two Steps from Hell), and Baby Shark for that.
LOL my kids used my spotify a lot...
> Like... a LOT.
> Your spotify was moms-spaghetti-movie-soundtrack-baby-shark-prison bad.
> Thank your obsessions with Eminem, soundtrack (e.g., Hans Zimmer and Two Steps from Hell), and Baby Shark for that.
LOL my kids used my spotify a lot...
Clearly this is flawed solely based on the fact that its "objective" taste in allegedly non-basic music culture is learned from a corpus of Pitchfork reviews and subreddits. I guess that's part of the joke
It just crashes for me when getting my final score (on Firefox). Guess my taste is so bad I broke the AI...
https://pastebin.com/3Q70EiKY
https://pastebin.com/3Q70EiKY
Not sure why the first post didn't catch on - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25513886
Spotify mobile has weird issues for me. I'll be playing podcast A, then when I switch to podcast B, the display on the bottom gets stuck on A. I can still use buttons, but unless I restart the app, it will always keep podcast A on display. It'll even keep the timestamp I was on for A, even if I start a new podcast fresh. Mildly annoying...
In terms of recs, it does ok. There are weeks when every discover Weekly track is bizarre ambient music or very quiet music, like I'm supposed to be a spa owner. Then sometimes it has delivered great tracks. But as a musician, it's very rare for me to find new gems, I've heard of so many via friends, class, YT, etc.
Overall, spotify is great, but the app and algorithm could use improvement.
In terms of recs, it does ok. There are weeks when every discover Weekly track is bizarre ambient music or very quiet music, like I'm supposed to be a spa owner. Then sometimes it has delivered great tracks. But as a musician, it's very rare for me to find new gems, I've heard of so many via friends, class, YT, etc.
Overall, spotify is great, but the app and algorithm could use improvement.
I was 4% basic. Feels pretty good to me. The AI had some strong, and frequently stated about me listening to Best Frenz's (Joywave + Sir Sly) first and only EP which came out this year haha.
I thought this was going to help me get rid of that annoying ad for a "Charmin fresh booty", but all it did was criticize my listening. Don't care what you say, SkyNet, REM rocks.
All I get is (after granting access):
Loading your music library...Spotify limiting how many people
can use this app at once, so you'll need to wait or try again
later.been throttled trying it every few hours for me , seems to be hosed by the popularity. checking network requests spotify may have enabled cors and killed it outright?
Without trying it - my spotify is terrible. I used a website to feed 8 years of lastfm and all my youtube plays, but Spotify just thinks I want versions of all the most annoying songs.
Kind of annoying that the site is down, but you still have to wait through 30 seconds of non-functional pauses to get that information. And there's no "retry" button.
Check uBlock or Privacy Badger if you have them installed - they may block the Spotify API. Took five refreshes before I figured that out.
I miss Rdio- I got a free subscription back in 2013 courtesy of an employer and it had amazing auto-play features- always good new exciting music.
Spotify by comparison is a crime against good taste.
Spotify by comparison is a crime against good taste.
This made me laugh a couple of times. Pretty good :)
Really well written. Unique responses to many (I thought) relatively unknown songs and artists.
The final score, a rambling "BAD" rating, was very funny.
Great job!
Really well written. Unique responses to many (I thought) relatively unknown songs and artists.
The final score, a rambling "BAD" rating, was very funny.
Great job!
Tried both, Spotify and Pandora. Moved to Pandora. The algorithms work ways better for me on Pandora. On both platforms the rule is to actively rhumba up or down the music.
If it doesn't work it might be because your privacy related browser plugins are blocking the Spotify requests. My privacy badger was blocking the request by default.
Off topic: I really suggest you take a look at other stuff on the site. pudding.cool does some seriously awesome interactive visualisations about social/hot topics.
I think music now serves multiple purposes in a way that makes some judgements a kind of type error.
When we judge whether music is "good" or "bad", we're evaluating it as a work of art. Being novel, smart, well performed etc are all naturally important considerations.
But when you listen to music for hours while working, studying, workout out, either alone or through headphones ... music is no longer art exactly. Music becomes a tool which helps us guide our own moods or quality of attention. Music becomes a cognitive aid.
My desk is bad as sculpture. My documentation is bad as literature. My thinking-music is generally bad as art-music.
When we judge whether music is "good" or "bad", we're evaluating it as a work of art. Being novel, smart, well performed etc are all naturally important considerations.
But when you listen to music for hours while working, studying, workout out, either alone or through headphones ... music is no longer art exactly. Music becomes a tool which helps us guide our own moods or quality of attention. Music becomes a cognitive aid.
My desk is bad as sculpture. My documentation is bad as literature. My thinking-music is generally bad as art-music.
Damn, stop criticizing my taste in Taylor Swift's music!
This is good but it didn't seem to pick up on my constant listening to the Native Tongues group or artists like Del the Funky Homosapien and Queen Lahtifah
This is funny but for some reason focused on my listening history from like 5 years back and completely ignored anything I've listened to since...
You've been listening to a lot of Yo La Tengo lately.
u okay?
AI means a chat bot in this case or? I don't see anything that would imply more interesting computation is going on under the surface here.
It really dragged me through the mud about all the German hip hop in my history when my Spotify was hacked checks calendar 4 years ago.
Love this. Although I haven't listened to Kanye West for like several months and yet I got roasted into oblivion for listening to him.
Might have been some viral marketing and publicity for Spotify, but instead will just dribble away here due to rate limiting of the API.
> Your spotify was retiree-softball-league-walmart-hawaiian-shirt-allegations-of-abuse-have-never-been-proven-in-court bad.
You stan these artists to an uncomfortable extent:
The Beatles
Cream
Led Zeppelin
Rush
Yes
Whoops sorry, I'm a big prog fan :p
You stan these artists to an uncomfortable extent:
The Beatles
Cream
Led Zeppelin
Rush
Yes
Whoops sorry, I'm a big prog fan :p
> Your spotify was sinatra-mug-shot-poster-in-your-dorm-room-massage-franchise-bed-bath-and-beyond-christmas soundtrack bad
I resent this comment
I resent this comment
i cannot wait to try this, but currently my wife is using Spotify to listen to the Lion King soundtrack with my 3-yr-old for the 50th time this week. The kid has for sure ruined the algorithm. But even before that happened, Spotify was bad when it came to discoverability. Reading the other comments here, it sounds like it hasn't improved.
"Your spotify was midwestern-stoner-potty-training-baby-shark-prison bad."
As a 35 y/o with a toddler I'd say they nailed it.
As a 35 y/o with a toddler I'd say they nailed it.
>You are 0% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to Pryapisme?.
I'm so offended now. I mean, not surprised...
I'm so offended now. I mean, not surprised...
I kind of felt like yelling at it for judging my music taste based on tracks and artists I haven't listened to for years.
Youtube Music on other hand is fantastic and after it, trying to use Spotify was painful experience. Just giving you a hint.
Once I see how many basic features got cut from the free plan I immediately decided to not use Spotify for my life. Period.
It didn't roast me, weighted on my most recent listening, and instead went for analyzing my whole history at once.
Icecast+VLC or Groove.FM work great for my needs. Is Spotify really that useful for folks? What is it that yall like?
>You are 14% basic. Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to Headache Migrane Relief?.<
I envy those people
I envy those people
Please, please make this work without Spotify (e.g. type in a few favorite albums from Musicbrainz or something)
It's only funny if you don't get to deliberately select the music yourself to make yourself seem more edgy/cool/punk/folk/etc.
This gave me a good laugh. Shared with all my friends and made my group chat blow up for a while. Great job!
That AI can fuck right off. 21% basic, my arse. Pretentious cunt of thing. I like pop music of all kinds, and I don't feel even slightly "bad" about that. I'm certainly not going to start listening to random indie garbage (actually, I like Garbage :-) ) that makes my ears hurt, just so my "taste" gets a positive rating on some cock-smoker's AI driven site.
I've never used Spotify. I'm not sure I want to.
Pandora was OK. The issue I had with it is that "Liking" or "Disliking" a song seemed to poison the playlist.
YouTube is what I use to discover music today. It can take me down a rabbit hole, but going down one never seems to adversely impact song recommendations the next time I go searching for music.
Newer stuff I tend to like usually ends up being on Bandcamp.
Pandora was OK. The issue I had with it is that "Liking" or "Disliking" a song seemed to poison the playlist.
YouTube is what I use to discover music today. It can take me down a rabbit hole, but going down one never seems to adversely impact song recommendations the next time I go searching for music.
Newer stuff I tend to like usually ends up being on Bandcamp.
Calling this AI.. I had a few friends run it and it turns out it's just madlibs. Fun regardless.
It says the same things that someone from 4chan's /mu/ would say about my music taste.
The cynic in me says this is a project to mine some data. I think Cambridge Analytica used IQ tests?
> You're stuck in the 1970s. Forget about Eagles's One of These Nights (2013 Remaster) and move on.
Hah.
Hah.
"OMG. Hold up. Do you really listen to Day of the Diesels by Thomas and Friends?" (sigh)
> You are 0% basic. Elliot Berger and Elènne? Where do you even find this shit?.
This is just awesome, man.
This is just awesome, man.
Oh please tell me whats good music two random guys who wrote an algorithm .... Gimme a break
It doesn't seem to work with the desktop web player. I keep getting application errors.
It doesn't care which player you use, does it? It just uses the API to read your account. For what it's worth, I exclusively use web player and it can get my data fine.
OKay, I got it to work. It was disturbed that I listen to Daniel Kahn, and seemed to disapprove of listening to jazz. Zero percent basic, whatever that means.
I guess it would be even worse, except that most of the Tzadik Records catalog isn't on Spotify.
I guess it would be even worse, except that most of the Tzadik Records catalog isn't on Spotify.
i enjoyed this, really nice. every metal band, every metal album and song decreased my score. :)
> Your spotify was music-to-stalk-boys-to-hail-satan-heavy-eyeliner-post-punk bad.
> allegations-of-abuse-have-never-been-proven-in-court bad
> gallagher-brother bad
> instagram-your-tent-at-sunset bad
> Your spotify was music-to-stalk-boys-to-hail-satan-heavy-eyeliner-post-punk bad.
> allegations-of-abuse-have-never-been-proven-in-court bad
> gallagher-brother bad
> instagram-your-tent-at-sunset bad
> Have you considered there's a reason nobody listens to Orchestre Lyrique de la RTF?
Thanks, AI.
Thanks, AI.
I love it, really funny. It's great how the AI make a coherent critic, feels real.
That was fun as hell. I didn't realize how enjoyable hipster AIs would be.
long gone are the days of Pitchfork having "objective good taste"...
To whom does my listening history get sold if I hook my Spotify up to this?
"You listen to a lot of Drake. Like, A LOT.
You okay?"
... LMAO. love it.
... LMAO. love it.
I've been seen and mocked :D I love it, super funny bot.
Wondering what happens to the data they read from each user?
[deleted]
Love this! It needs some way to save your score.
It made fun of me for listening to BTS :(
This was fun. Trigger-inducing, but fun.
I don't know I didn't really learn anything new from that AI that Spotify doesn't tell me for their End of the Year stuff.
Thing sh on my music tastes...
> Where do you even find this shit?
uh ... Spotify?
uh ... Spotify?
Best to worst in the last few years.
Music without words for programming
hilarious product!
Super curious though.. what data did you use to get the model to write super accurate slang
Super curious though.. what data did you use to get the model to write super accurate slang
Man that was fun - great project!
I wish I could share my results.
Thank you for the morning laugh!
On the last step - empty screen
For taste... We have colors
I've worked on various music recommendation systems just for my own private consumption for 15 years.
My current approach at least makes me really happy. The problem is I'm likely radically different.
The general problem is so are many people. But all in different, incompatible ways.
For instance, my (current) approach is fundamentally label based. Things are organized by label and I "rate" releases as I listen to them. This leads to a generalized "label rating" which can be partially extended to (1) a rating of the artists who released on the label along with (2) albums and eps which may see a release under another label. Then there is a similarity index to other labels based on a percentage of artists who release on both labels and this leads to something going into a big "consider" pile which then gets treated randomly. It's not really a "recommendation" as much as it is a "might be related? i dunno" system.
For people who want familiar songs they can sing along with, this is a terrible no-good system. For people who like to listen to the same song multiple times a day, this is equally useless. For those who want steadfast genre uniformity and things to sound more or less the same, this is also useless.
This is designed to be exclusively long-tail and stay firmly within the confines way out at the end of the tail. But that's exactly where I want to be.
In the pareto principle, everyone in the 80% looks more or less the same but everyone in the 20% is strange in a different kind of way.
There is no 1 recommendation system that works for all customers. Users have to be segmented. It's utterly inescapable. That's why these systems try to just service the 80% and just not put any effort to the other 20%.
The problem with this approach is the 80% is no longer 80%. More people are becoming snowflake 20%ers and this trend is likely to continue. The mainstream orientation engines of radio and cable television aren't influencing like they used to and the 'service the 80' approach just won't work any more. It's over.
The single recommendation system approach is being tweaked to try to service this coalition that no longer exists. So what happens?
Everything starts to suck. Google results, youtube recommendations, spotify, they all start to be unfocused, scattered messes that just discard all the signal, amplify the noise and return piles of nearly identical derivative garbage.
Socially we've moved beyond the assumption that simply everyone in society will be in some conventional nuclear family with the wife vacuuming at home and the daughter playing with dolls but technologically we still seem to model humans using utterly conventional and outdated single purpose models that simply do not apply and are increasingly a poor fit for everyone.
The new normal is that there isn't one and it's time for tech to play catch up.
My current approach at least makes me really happy. The problem is I'm likely radically different.
The general problem is so are many people. But all in different, incompatible ways.
For instance, my (current) approach is fundamentally label based. Things are organized by label and I "rate" releases as I listen to them. This leads to a generalized "label rating" which can be partially extended to (1) a rating of the artists who released on the label along with (2) albums and eps which may see a release under another label. Then there is a similarity index to other labels based on a percentage of artists who release on both labels and this leads to something going into a big "consider" pile which then gets treated randomly. It's not really a "recommendation" as much as it is a "might be related? i dunno" system.
For people who want familiar songs they can sing along with, this is a terrible no-good system. For people who like to listen to the same song multiple times a day, this is equally useless. For those who want steadfast genre uniformity and things to sound more or less the same, this is also useless.
This is designed to be exclusively long-tail and stay firmly within the confines way out at the end of the tail. But that's exactly where I want to be.
In the pareto principle, everyone in the 80% looks more or less the same but everyone in the 20% is strange in a different kind of way.
There is no 1 recommendation system that works for all customers. Users have to be segmented. It's utterly inescapable. That's why these systems try to just service the 80% and just not put any effort to the other 20%.
The problem with this approach is the 80% is no longer 80%. More people are becoming snowflake 20%ers and this trend is likely to continue. The mainstream orientation engines of radio and cable television aren't influencing like they used to and the 'service the 80' approach just won't work any more. It's over.
The single recommendation system approach is being tweaked to try to service this coalition that no longer exists. So what happens?
Everything starts to suck. Google results, youtube recommendations, spotify, they all start to be unfocused, scattered messes that just discard all the signal, amplify the noise and return piles of nearly identical derivative garbage.
Socially we've moved beyond the assumption that simply everyone in society will be in some conventional nuclear family with the wife vacuuming at home and the daughter playing with dolls but technologically we still seem to model humans using utterly conventional and outdated single purpose models that simply do not apply and are increasingly a poor fit for everyone.
The new normal is that there isn't one and it's time for tech to play catch up.
I am still missing Rdio..
I'm so offended now.
What is Spotify? Looks with smile at NAS Folder "Music" with .flac collection.
tries a bit too hard to be negative to really get what it finds.
americans really despise when foreign companies are successful
Does not work for me :(
hangs for me at "f marry kill choose fast" fyi
Hilarious! Nice work
oh damm, I'm a big fan of Parcel. 90% ACCURATE
A troll bot. Cool.
That's great!
"4% basic, manic-pixie-dream-girl-jazz-flex-boomer bad."
Too much beebop and nothing past 2015.
A lot of people here revelling in their 'not basic' results, the thing is, that's maybe something interesting, but the vast majority of arcane music is straight up bad. Just because it's 'different' doesn't make it good. Most artists who are actually 'pretty good' have some kind of following - they get picked up, at least marginally. Of course there's nothing wrong with 'liking that band with 2K views'. One reason this happens if if they are 'genre' meaning, a newer band, playing into a past sound or genre, people may not pick up. A local band here in Montreal is really good, but they play a kind of specific Cajun country/rock, so their appeal is 'respectable' but 'quaint'.
Too much beebop and nothing past 2015.
A lot of people here revelling in their 'not basic' results, the thing is, that's maybe something interesting, but the vast majority of arcane music is straight up bad. Just because it's 'different' doesn't make it good. Most artists who are actually 'pretty good' have some kind of following - they get picked up, at least marginally. Of course there's nothing wrong with 'liking that band with 2K views'. One reason this happens if if they are 'genre' meaning, a newer band, playing into a past sound or genre, people may not pick up. A local band here in Montreal is really good, but they play a kind of specific Cajun country/rock, so their appeal is 'respectable' but 'quaint'.
that is amazing
Looking at title I thought it was rant about product quality. But it's not, so I'll provide mine.
Since 2013 when I've started paying for Spotify it has turned from one of my favourite apps to one of those I hate most. On my previous Android phone it would freeze every other day when there was no internet. Why? Who knows. Could be related to me using SD card, or could be something else. The phone wasn't very old, but still on many days it was basically unusable. Somehow I was gifted a new phone and it kind of works. I say kind of, because sometimes when I click on a downloaded album it doesn't work - no tracks display. Why? Who knows. And few days ago something bugged out and tracks suddenly started setting volume to max. Apparently it's known issue that appears occasionally. Why? Who knows. Happily I wasn't wearing headphones so I did not get hearing damage. But who knows, maybe this will happen again.
There is also desktop app which severely crippled local file support few years ago. That really sucked for me, because I record a lot of my own stuff and I want to listen to music in one place. I don't know if this was fixed since then because I pretty much switched to using web app, which usually works. There is also iPad app which seems to routinely delete stuff I have downloaded do my iPad; and sometimes it also freeze in offline mode when browsing my library. At this point I didn't even try filing a ticket with support, I lost hope of them fixing this. I suppose soon I will simply stop paying them and make switch to something else.
EDIT: Why post this here? I hope people at Spotify see that submission about Spotify is on top of HN, and maybe, hopefully, someone sees my comments and thinks twice about setting 2021 OKRs and put some capacity into improving the app reliability. I know, this is optimistic, but who knows.
Since 2013 when I've started paying for Spotify it has turned from one of my favourite apps to one of those I hate most. On my previous Android phone it would freeze every other day when there was no internet. Why? Who knows. Could be related to me using SD card, or could be something else. The phone wasn't very old, but still on many days it was basically unusable. Somehow I was gifted a new phone and it kind of works. I say kind of, because sometimes when I click on a downloaded album it doesn't work - no tracks display. Why? Who knows. And few days ago something bugged out and tracks suddenly started setting volume to max. Apparently it's known issue that appears occasionally. Why? Who knows. Happily I wasn't wearing headphones so I did not get hearing damage. But who knows, maybe this will happen again.
There is also desktop app which severely crippled local file support few years ago. That really sucked for me, because I record a lot of my own stuff and I want to listen to music in one place. I don't know if this was fixed since then because I pretty much switched to using web app, which usually works. There is also iPad app which seems to routinely delete stuff I have downloaded do my iPad; and sometimes it also freeze in offline mode when browsing my library. At this point I didn't even try filing a ticket with support, I lost hope of them fixing this. I suppose soon I will simply stop paying them and make switch to something else.
EDIT: Why post this here? I hope people at Spotify see that submission about Spotify is on top of HN, and maybe, hopefully, someone sees my comments and thinks twice about setting 2021 OKRs and put some capacity into improving the app reliability. I know, this is optimistic, but who knows.
I've got the polar opposite opinion to yours. Spotify has been God's gift to mankind as far as my experience goes. I'll get the negative out of the way first: their UI teams loves to keep tweaking stuff, which is annoying. It's a stable app and they should leave it alone.
Having said that, it's wonderful. I can download all my music. It has some truly wonderful playlists for when I'm coding. It's recommendation engine seems to recommend really nice tunes week after week. The yearly reviews, the On Repeat etc. all this stuff is really nice to look back at.
Then, I FINALLY have a podcast search which can search for podcast episodes and then, when I click on the search result, take me to tho god-damned episode instead of the full podcast with 2500 fucking episodes to hunt through. It actually has a sane podcast interface that isn't a cluttered mess.
I was so sceptical of it because I loved Pandora to the absolute hilt, but now it's the only Saas I pay monthly for.
Having said that, it's wonderful. I can download all my music. It has some truly wonderful playlists for when I'm coding. It's recommendation engine seems to recommend really nice tunes week after week. The yearly reviews, the On Repeat etc. all this stuff is really nice to look back at.
Then, I FINALLY have a podcast search which can search for podcast episodes and then, when I click on the search result, take me to tho god-damned episode instead of the full podcast with 2500 fucking episodes to hunt through. It actually has a sane podcast interface that isn't a cluttered mess.
I was so sceptical of it because I loved Pandora to the absolute hilt, but now it's the only Saas I pay monthly for.
I completely fell in love with Pandora at first. New music discovery is one of my favorite things. Eventually, though, it stopped giving it to me. Despite having over 100 stations, I started hearing mostly repeats. Also, of the artists I liked, they were only playing me a small fraction of their work. And I missed albums.
Spotify has been a breath of fresh air, I switched a couple years ago. It is missing some stuff here & there, but I haven't hit too many bugs like others have (on Windows or Android), and their catalog is much bigger than Pandora's was when I was using it heavily. Turns out, what I needed was more content. What once seemed like Pandora's best strength - that 'special sauce' recommendation algorithm - is now clearly being done to a similar or greater level of competence by damn near everyone else in the space. And like you say, the podcast stuff has been solid & gotten better, too. These things never turn out how I expect.
Spotify has been a breath of fresh air, I switched a couple years ago. It is missing some stuff here & there, but I haven't hit too many bugs like others have (on Windows or Android), and their catalog is much bigger than Pandora's was when I was using it heavily. Turns out, what I needed was more content. What once seemed like Pandora's best strength - that 'special sauce' recommendation algorithm - is now clearly being done to a similar or greater level of competence by damn near everyone else in the space. And like you say, the podcast stuff has been solid & gotten better, too. These things never turn out how I expect.
I had similar opinion to yours until around 2015, then things started to break randomly. To be fair, I discovered some good stuff via recommendation and I like other features you mentioned (though I don't really use podcasts). However none of this matters when basic playback functionality is broken.
Couldn't agree more. Spotify is one of those products that I sort of almost can't live without but yet it's painful how bad they have become in the last couple of years. Instead of improving the service and customer experience, it only got worse (if I had the chance to straight up use an outdated client from a couple of years ago, I would!).
The fun thing is, my company has jumped on the agile train a while back (nothing wrong with that per se in my opinion), and Spotify was always that cool example "where agile works". Well, no idea what they're doing, but if their KPIs mainly consist of how bad of a UX they get away with, they for sure are very successfully improving their product.
It constantly forgets which episodes of a podcast I've already listened to, or where exactly I've stopped when in the middle of an episode. Their support for downloaded songs at this point seems to be almost non-existent (I stopped using spotify offline quite some time ago as it became too much of an annoyance). If a song I liked is not available anymore but is then available again, I have to like it again. It still can't differentiate between studio and live versions of songs which I would like to filter out (I hope someone corrects me that I'm just too dumb to find the right button). I once got an email that one of the bands I liked released a new album - but it was a band with an identical name (and never heard of before!); apparently, they send out mails by matching band names instead of some unique IDs (no idea how that passed any kind of review; must've been some mashed-together 11-hour release).
... the list could go on and on. The thing is; I really want Spotify to be good, it's what made me stop pirating music, it was just way more convenient. It still is, but it could be so much more, especially given all the cash they're rolling in.
The fun thing is, my company has jumped on the agile train a while back (nothing wrong with that per se in my opinion), and Spotify was always that cool example "where agile works". Well, no idea what they're doing, but if their KPIs mainly consist of how bad of a UX they get away with, they for sure are very successfully improving their product.
It constantly forgets which episodes of a podcast I've already listened to, or where exactly I've stopped when in the middle of an episode. Their support for downloaded songs at this point seems to be almost non-existent (I stopped using spotify offline quite some time ago as it became too much of an annoyance). If a song I liked is not available anymore but is then available again, I have to like it again. It still can't differentiate between studio and live versions of songs which I would like to filter out (I hope someone corrects me that I'm just too dumb to find the right button). I once got an email that one of the bands I liked released a new album - but it was a band with an identical name (and never heard of before!); apparently, they send out mails by matching band names instead of some unique IDs (no idea how that passed any kind of review; must've been some mashed-together 11-hour release).
... the list could go on and on. The thing is; I really want Spotify to be good, it's what made me stop pirating music, it was just way more convenient. It still is, but it could be so much more, especially given all the cash they're rolling in.
And they removed most of your opportunities to steer recommendation. There should be a like/dislike band/song at every point in all UIs for paid users; there used to be but it was taken away from most places on most UIs. The community forum has thousands of votes on this matter and Spotify ignores it.
I suspect recommendation is more steered by contract agreements than showing you new bands you might like.
I suspect recommendation is more steered by contract agreements than showing you new bands you might like.
Spotify on the Mac has given me lots of little issues here and there in the last year. It's incredibly frustrating to have to restart it now and again.
I have encountered situations where I hit PLAY and nothing happens, or I hit PLAY and it says it's playing, but there's no audio, or I hit PLAY and the app says it's unable to play the track. Restarting the app seems to fix most of these issues.
There are also scroll bugs when browsing podcast episodes. The scroll position will just jump to the same spot as you try to scroll down the page, making it impossible to view the episodes in a series.
I have encountered situations where I hit PLAY and nothing happens, or I hit PLAY and it says it's playing, but there's no audio, or I hit PLAY and the app says it's unable to play the track. Restarting the app seems to fix most of these issues.
There are also scroll bugs when browsing podcast episodes. The scroll position will just jump to the same spot as you try to scroll down the page, making it impossible to view the episodes in a series.
Probably related to this 3-year-old unresolved issue with Bluetooth headphones:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-won-...
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-won-...
Yes! One of the issues is definitely due to switching on/off Bluetooth headphones during playback. It has actually changed my behavior. I intentionally pause playback now when I turn on headphones.
This is the main issue I had as well. I'm on Linux, and tried all Linux flavors of Spotify that exist to no avail. I switched to Amazon and haven't looked back. You press play, music plays.
I have a similar experience, the mac client has been pretty broken for me in the last few months, it refuses to play about half of all tracks among other things. And opening of links to tracks has been semi-broken for years.
They have over 1k employees, surely many of them experience the same easily fixable flaws? My fav theory is, once a company becomes successful and big enough, noone wants to own problems, everyone wants to be part of new exciting projects with a purely positive outlook. And if business is going well, upper management has no reason nor (informal) mandate to get tough and make strong demands.
They have over 1k employees, surely many of them experience the same easily fixable flaws? My fav theory is, once a company becomes successful and big enough, noone wants to own problems, everyone wants to be part of new exciting projects with a purely positive outlook. And if business is going well, upper management has no reason nor (informal) mandate to get tough and make strong demands.
To add to the list of complaints... The Chromecast streaming feature is also broken. It will randomly pause in the middle of playback. This bug has existed for months and months. My configuration is very vanilla. Common phone, TV with built-in Chromecast, no other devices you could stream to on the network, stable internet connection...
Spotify became entirely unusable for me when I started using Bluetooth headphones on my computer. When I turn them off, Spotify goes into some weird attempt to play every single song in rapid succession as it has no Output device to play to. Finally crashing so bad that I have to end the process and reopen it.
It doesn't help that I've reported that a long time ago and even though the QA triage should have marked this as a low hanging fruit, nothing has happened.
// rant end, I know this post doesn't help anything but venting is always a form of self-therapy haha
I canceled Spotify and switched to Amazon Music Unlimited, primarily due to how buggy Spotify is. AMU does have one annoying bug I've found (that seems to have emerged after the recent redesign) but other than that it's been totally flawless. Reliable apps are such a joy to use. I feel this side of software is not appreciated enough anymore.
I agree about the Spotify desktop app. It got worse and worse. But for me there are different reasons. Especially the performance got worse enormously. Still running the 0.9.7. The old Android apps were way faster, too. I really miss those times. Hardware got better but software got so much worse it's pure insanity.
The dialog was just saying that I listen to x, y, and z in a snide way. The summary was cool.
< 8% indicates official hipsterdom.
this triggered me
I just wish the Spotify app would stream properly on my car’s Bluetooth connection.
WTF? ... I didn't get it. What's so great about it?
What is moonshine-bommer bad?
> You are 26% basic. You're trying to be cool with Kapitan Korsakov, but your favorites are the same as everybody else's..
> Your spotify was please-read-my-manuscript-walmart-hawaiian-shirt-sitting-alone-in-the-cafeteria bad.
Ouch.
Really interesting project by all means. I hope they release the source - I'm curious about how it was built.
Edit: This same link was posted 11 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25513886 here and is not at all getting the same popularity. Anyone got ideas?