For music discovery, nothing ever really rocked my socks like Pandora in its early days. I discovered many obscure bands with it - the software really lived to its promise of finding you tunes with similar musical characteristics. Almost two decades later, Spotify's radio feature is very lacklustre in comparison. It seems to be heavily based on social signals and not enough on the features of the underlying songs. I can and do discover music with Spotify but pace is very slow, and I have the feeling that things could be so much better.
The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
11–20 of 40 posts
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#12For all the complexity... this is something Spotify has got right. I'm in my 40s, and I still listen to an incredible amount of new music. That is across everything from mainstream rock and pop, through to jazz, jungle, soul, techno, house, hip hop, classical... everything (though I tend to draw the line at screamcore). And in there last year a tiny unsigned band with 2 tracks and fewer than 900 listens (at the time)…
My experience is completely different. The weekly dynamic playlists are very poor (either completely the wrong genre or songs I regularly listen to in the case of the monday playlist). The daily playlists regularly play the same songs by an artist. It seems to me that spotify only uses the top 2 or 3 songs and nothing else. I'd say that of a specific genre it will play 40 to 50 songs and then repeat them.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#13For music discovery, nothing ever really rocked my socks like Pandora in its early days. I discovered many obscure bands with it - the software really lived to its promise of finding you tunes with similar musical characteristics. Almost two decades later, Spotify's radio feature is very lacklustre in comparison. It seems to be heavily based on social signals and not enough on the features of the underlying songs. I…
Pandora, the good old days.
Using some USA proxy to get it in Europe and using some obscure downloader to save the best songs before music streaming was the thing.
The recommendations where perfect! For any genre.
It was a solved problem, Spotify sucks really bad at recommending things. Weekly playlist are rubbishy and the radio feature is also not really good.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#14For music discovery, nothing ever really rocked my socks like Pandora in its early days. I discovered many obscure bands with it - the software really lived to its promise of finding you tunes with similar musical characteristics. Almost two decades later, Spotify's radio feature is very lacklustre in comparison. It seems to be heavily based on social signals and not enough on the features of the underlying songs. I…
Pandora, the good old days. Using some USA proxy to get it in Europe and using some obscure downloader to save the best songs before music streaming was the thing. The recommendations where perfect! For any genre. It was a solved problem, Spotify sucks really bad at recommending things. Weekly playlist are rubbishy and the radio feature is also not really good.
I used it from Spain and I don't remember even needing a proxy in its earliest days. I think the IP issues and fencing came later... I've considered trying it nowadays but I think one also needs a US card - way too much friction. I'm curious if it's still a good tool for music discovery.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#15For music discovery, nothing ever really rocked my socks like Pandora in its early days. I discovered many obscure bands with it - the software really lived to its promise of finding you tunes with similar musical characteristics. Almost two decades later, Spotify's radio feature is very lacklustre in comparison. It seems to be heavily based on social signals and not enough on the features of the underlying songs. I…
Pandora, the good old days. Using some USA proxy to get it in Europe and using some obscure downloader to save the best songs before music streaming was the thing. The recommendations where perfect! For any genre. It was a solved problem, Spotify sucks really bad at recommending things. Weekly playlist are rubbishy and the radio feature is also not really good.
There's an entire industry of pluggers and marketers doing whatever they can to get tracks on those Spotify playlists. And also businesses which link artists to playlist curators - for a fee, of course.
There's no sense in which they're an organic reflection of anything at all.
Pandora was never big enough to suffer much from that problem.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#16For all the complexity... this is something Spotify has got right. I'm in my 40s, and I still listen to an incredible amount of new music. That is across everything from mainstream rock and pop, through to jazz, jungle, soul, techno, house, hip hop, classical... everything (though I tend to draw the line at screamcore). And in there last year a tiny unsigned band with 2 tracks and fewer than 900 listens (at the time)…
This might possibly be true for the types of music you named. Try it with world music in general (e.g,. south asian or middle eastern music) and you'll come across severe limitations and suggestions that simply do not work. Spotify doesn't even still carry even half the catalog of music from some of these regions. It's suggestions in (western) classical also have left a lot to be desired.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#17Spotify is still one of my top ways to discover music, but I needed even more.
I’ve been spending a lot of time and money on discogs lately. I’ve found so much stuff you simply cannot find on the open web, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#18For all the complexity... this is something Spotify has got right. I'm in my 40s, and I still listen to an incredible amount of new music. That is across everything from mainstream rock and pop, through to jazz, jungle, soul, techno, house, hip hop, classical... everything (though I tend to draw the line at screamcore). And in there last year a tiny unsigned band with 2 tracks and fewer than 900 listens (at the time)…
This might possibly be true for the types of music you named. Try it with world music in general (e.g,. south asian or middle eastern music) and you'll come across severe limitations and suggestions that simply do not work. Spotify doesn't even still carry even half the catalog of music from some of these regions. It's suggestions in (western) classical also have left a lot to be desired.
which platform does this right though? YouTube is alright for Bollywood at least
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#19For all the complexity... this is something Spotify has got right. I'm in my 40s, and I still listen to an incredible amount of new music. That is across everything from mainstream rock and pop, through to jazz, jungle, soul, techno, house, hip hop, classical... everything (though I tend to draw the line at screamcore). And in there last year a tiny unsigned band with 2 tracks and fewer than 900 listens (at the time)…
My experience is completely different. The weekly dynamic playlists are very poor (either completely the wrong genre or songs I regularly listen to in the case of the monday playlist). The daily playlists regularly play the same songs by an artist. It seems to me that spotify only uses the top 2 or 3 songs and nothing else. I'd say that of a specific genre it will play 40 to 50 songs and then repeat them.
Even randomizing your existing playlist plays the same music over and misses most of them. Not to mention the UI and flows are pretty terrible for a software that dominates the space.
Re: The Dynamics of Music Exploration on Spotify
#20For music discovery, nothing ever really rocked my socks like Pandora in its early days. I discovered many obscure bands with it - the software really lived to its promise of finding you tunes with similar musical characteristics. Almost two decades later, Spotify's radio feature is very lacklustre in comparison. It seems to be heavily based on social signals and not enough on the features of the underlying songs. I…
Pandora, the good old days. Using some USA proxy to get it in Europe and using some obscure downloader to save the best songs before music streaming was the thing. The recommendations where perfect! For any genre. It was a solved problem, Spotify sucks really bad at recommending things. Weekly playlist are rubbishy and the radio feature is also not really good.