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How bad is your Spotify?

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Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#581

Post by mercer »

t0mbstone wrote: post #252

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 recom…

> 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.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#582

Post by mercer »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

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 recom…

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-…

> 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.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#583

Post by lkbm »

lambda_obrien wrote: post #532
tyrust wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#584

Post by rypskar »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

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 recom…

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-…

I did search for 5 random bands I listen to on Pandora, found a total of 0 albums and 0 songs.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#585

Post by triangleman »

abalashov wrote: post #453
triangleman wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#586

Post by 1_player »

raindropm wrote: post #552
1_player wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#587

Post by mnd999 »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

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 recom…

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-…

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.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#588

Post by azeirah »

progre wrote: post #357
tetha wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. > T…

>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: Yo…

Heheh love winterfylleth, you're not alone!

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#589

Post by Broken_Hippo »

mnd999 wrote: post #587
Alupis wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

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?

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#590

Post by amaccuish »

gfxgirl wrote: post #517
kick_in_the_dro wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 rec…

> Spotify objectively sucks compared to plenty of other services.

Is this a new thing?

"Everyone else's opinion * objectively * sucks".

Just because you write "objectively", doesn't make it so.

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