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The lie of music discovery algorithms

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Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#181

Post by sahmeepee »

aljgz wrote: post #17

In the age of internet, engagement optimization and recommendation algorithms create a new way that we are affected by the behaviour of others. That annoying dark pattern on a piece of software you use? Because there are people who fall to it, clicking on an ad or "engaging" more. That stupid show that keeps being recommended to you? Because a lot of people just sit on the couch, watching something on the list that d…

I agree strongly. Listen to the radio stream for any reasonably niche artist (especially if they have had a single "hit") and you will be treated to 3 or 4 different mixes of the same song within the first hour. For some purposes Spotify is just unlistenable.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#182

Post by micheljansen »

I don't have evidence for this, but my working theory is that there is too much money to be made in promoting certain artists / songs for music recommender systems to remain objective. If supermarkets auction off premium shelf space to the highest bidder, what's stopping Spotify, Tidal, Apple etc. from doing the same? Want to create a new pop star? Hand over the cash and we'll put it in millions of people's "Discover" playlist.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#183

Post by herbst »

micheljansen wrote: post #182

I don't have evidence for this, but my working theory is that there is too much money to be made in promoting certain artists / songs for music recommender systems to remain objective. If supermarkets auction off premium shelf space to the highest bidder, what's stopping Spotify, Tidal, Apple etc. from doing the same? Want to create a new pop star? Hand over the cash and we'll put it in millions of people's "Discover…

These popular playlists are often already owned by the music corps. And I am sure there is a price tag for those that Spotify manages.

Next to that there is also the shadow fact that there are millions of dollars and more in fake plays, subscribers , ... SMM panels are getting big because the music industry doesn't allow for anything less than instant fame.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#184

Post by soylentcola »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #96
aljgz wrote: post #17

In the age of internet, engagement optimization and recommendation algorithms create a new way that we are affected by the behaviour of others. That annoying dark pattern on a piece of software you use? Because there are people who fall to it, clicking on an ad or "engaging" more. That stupid show that keeps being recommended to you? Because a lot of people just sit on the couch, watching something on the list that d…

You aren't the only one. The algorithm recommends overplayed songs that may be related but I don't ever want to hear again. Maybe these music services should ask you for music you hate, and start from there instead.

This is one of my main complaints. Back when Google Play Music was still a thing, I uploaded my library of ~30k tracks that had been ripped from the massive binder of CDs I'd accumulated over the years, plus stuff from friends, stuff I got off torrents to replace albums I'd already bought on tape, etc.

They have a huge sample set of stuff I like just from that (it's still accessibly via YouTube Music, but it sucks). Still, any time I fire up YouTube Music and play a song, the next 2 or 3 can be solidly appropriate and often stuff I wouldn't have thought to play - in a good way.

Then there's a sharp decline where it just starts playing the same thing it played last time or the most common song off the most popular album from the most well known artist adjacent to what played previously.

The whole reason I use the "algorithmic feed" is because it should be optimized for my tastes and what will keep me listening. I still "thumbs-up/down" stuff but it never seems to work. You would think with their insane library and huge dataset of my prefs and listening data they'd be able to generate something great.

Instead I just go back to the human programmed Shoutcast stations I have bookmarked after a few songs.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#185

Post by ragazzina »

scelerat wrote: post #127

It's not the only way to discover new music, but in the age of 99.9% online presence, I feel simply going out to listen to music is way overlooked. Most cities and metro areas with more than a few hundred thousand people have jazz, punk, indie, hip hop, country, choral, and classical scenes. Certainly true of any ville with a university. Check out a local weekly, listen to college radio, look at the online calendars…

> Most cities and metro areas with more than a few hundred thousand people

Maybe in Asia it's different, but in Europe and in the USA only 10% of the people live in a city with more than 300k inhabitants.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#186

Post by karaterobot »

cush wrote: post #169
karaterobot wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would naively assume that both Spotify and Tidal pull that information from the same sources. Hopefully there is a web service. Not to take anything away from the first person who decided to, you know, actually tell us this information. At this point it should be table stakes for a music streaming service-indeed, it should be a legal requirement if you ask me.

They 100% do not pull from the same sources. Hey Jude by The Beatles - Tidal lists 22 different people who worked on this song. Spotify lists 3.

Thanks, that's really surprising. Credits get into ownership and payment, and I assumed some group of authorities would have that on lock, and would have pooled all their data since it's sort of in their interest to do so. Silly me I guess!

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#187

Post by cush »

pimlottc wrote: post #174
cush wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify only lets you read a very reduced version of the credits of a song, and you can't click on the artist to see all of their work. On Tidal, the credits are much more extensive, and you can go deep down the rabbit hole of a producers work in one click. More importantly though, Spotify doesn't directly link artists to bands they're in. For example, on Spotify, Billie Joe Armstrong is credited with his work on Gre…

> For example, you can see just the songs that Paul McCartney wrote (turns out he wrote a track for Drake called Champagne Poetry in 2021... who knew). Unexpected writing credits like this usually indicate sampling. In this case [0], Drake sampled a song [1] that sampled another song [2] that was a cover of a Beatles song [3]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_Poetry#Samples_and_c... 1: "Navajo" by Masego 2:…

fun fact!

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#188

Post by gosub100 »

bsder wrote: post #150
MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #119

Way back when Last.FM has its own radio service, I could throw a few random genres and/or artists at it, and it would recommend me pretty much exactly want I wanted every time. I gladly enabled scrobbling in my music players, and it tended to recommend me good stuff every time. Ever since its radio feature got killed, its database has been getting worse and worse. Just now, I tried to search for some things it used t…

> Whatever happened to the good databases and their algorithms? They definitely used to exist. It was called a record store employee, and they no longer exist. There's an AI search engine I'd like to see ... Even the "market segmentation" of pop music still doesn't work for crap. Even something as basic as "Gee, I like 80s New Wave, how about recommending some artists born roughly in the 21st century who would fit?"…

> It was called a record store employee

I'm happy to not relive the days where CDs were and inflation adjusted $35 for about 10 songs. And there is no economic incentive or guarantee that any given retail employee would know anything about the inventory. Go to home Depot and canvas some of them about home repairs if you don't believe me.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#189

Post by bsder »

gosub100 wrote: post #188
bsder wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever happened to the good databases and their algorithms? They definitely used to exist. It was called a record store employee, and they no longer exist. There's an AI search engine I'd like to see ... Even the "market segmentation" of pop music still doesn't work for crap. Even something as basic as "Gee, I like 80s New Wave, how about recommending some artists born roughly in the 21st century who would fit?"…

> It was called a record store employee I'm happy to not relive the days where CDs were and inflation adjusted $35 for about 10 songs. And there is no economic incentive or guarantee that any given retail employee would know anything about the inventory. Go to home Depot and canvas some of them about home repairs if you don't believe me.

> I'm happy to not relive the days where CDs were and inflation adjusted $35 for about 10 songs.

Limited edition vinyl stuff, for example, generally goes for right around that in order to support the artists. Most of that money is going directly to the artist, nowadays (as opposed to live in which it all goes to Ticketmaster).

If you're not willing to spend at least some money, well, then you're part of the problem why artists can't get paid for doing music and why so much of it kinda sucks.

> And there is no economic incentive or guarantee that any given retail employee would know anything about the inventory. Go to home Depot and canvas some of them about home repairs if you don't believe me.

Sure, if you went to Tower Records, you almost always had someone clueless. However, the point of going to those stores was to NOT go to the big retailer, it was to go to the local record stores that had people who worked there specifically because they were super passionate about music.

This was how you found out about that super obscure artist. It was also how you found out about the local bands that might be of interest to someone who liked that super obscure artist. etc.

Re: The lie of music discovery algorithms

#190

Post by cush »

karaterobot wrote: post #186
cush wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They 100% do not pull from the same sources. Hey Jude by The Beatles - Tidal lists 22 different people who worked on this song. Spotify lists 3.

Thanks, that's really surprising. Credits get into ownership and payment, and I assumed some group of authorities would have that on lock, and would have pooled all their data since it's sort of in their interest to do so. Silly me I guess!

Spotify just pays the owner of the song (typically a record label) so doesn't need to be concerned with who created it. But yeah, even then, it's surprising the Spotify credits are so poor. Everyone forgets about Ringo!
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