I am in an intense love-hate relationship with Spotify. It makes good mixes for me, I have found a lot of great bands that way. BUT IT KEEPS REGURGITATING THE SAME SONGS IN THERE. I know about Song Radios and Artist Radios, so please don’t recommend those. Smart Shuttle doesn’t cut it, either.
The best thing would be several randomness sliders. One for randomness in bands, the other for randnomness of their songs, one for genres. Please tell me some music service has implemented something like that. I am dying over here.
I’m ready for downvotes but I use Apple Music and it plays me new music all the time. And if it repeats a song I just say suggest less and it goes away. I play my station and it’s a nice mix of music I like and new stuff.
And it is free to stream!(2015)And it is only 2.99 $(2018)And it’s only 4.99!(2020) And it’s only 10.99! (2023)We went from free to 132$ in 8 years for (check notes) listening to the radio.
Is everyone cool with paying 20$ a month in 2028?
The service has improved every time though in Apple’s defense…and if there’s one company I actually trust to improve on its services it is Apple (not a fanboy, they have their own issues, just delivering quality consistently isn’t one of them).
I think most people use it in bundles with other Apple subscriptions like iCloud and TV
They have all gone up in price:
The most marked increase is in the overall Apple One bundle. Its lowest, or individual tier, used to cost $16.95 per month but as of now, it is $19.95 per month.
Similarly, the Family Apple One tier has risen from $22.95/month to $25.95/month. And the Premier tier is now up from $32.95 to $37.95.
The price rise for Apple One comes at the same time as increases for many of its major constituent services.
Apple TV+ was $6.99/month, now $9.99 Apple News+ was $9.99/month, now $12.99 Apple Arcade was $4.99/month, now $6.99
We’ll have to see how long subscription services will be able to raise prices. I hope that there will be some disruption soon.
I am when Apple Music pays the artists 3x what Spotify does per stream. At least my money is going to the content creators, not some dickhead Spotify exec.
Even as a primarily Android user, I agree. I have tried most music streaming services at this point and Apple Music has been the best for helping me discover music. Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.
Another plus is Apple Music is one of the last remaining music platforms that is not trying to shove podcasts down my throat.
Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.
I’m pretty sure it’s not the algorithm but rather some agreed upon rates for streaming. The more they stream the same stuff, the less they pay per stream. Same shit that killed radio.
I’ll second Apple Music!
I’m using Appel music as well and I think it’s great for the most part. It sometimes has a weird bug where it won’t play downloaded music unless you have internet though.
Spotify has that bug too, and it’s infuriating. Whenever I’m on a plane or something I have to put Spotify in “offline mode”, otherwise it just refuses to play all the music I’ve downloaded.
That makes it even weirder. Probably some DRM thing.
Thanks, I think I will try it for a bit. Other people recommended YouTube music, I’m a bit torn between those rn
I know that feeling. I’m torn between Apple Music and Spotify myself. Spotify is just that much more convenient for me but at the same time, so is Apple Music…
It’s also got actual radio stations. This is how I found out about Studio Brussel.
Agreed, my new music mix is usually pretty good too.
The discovery radio works really well too as long as you’ve been liking and disliking things.
I have the same gripe with Spotify, you dare like a song and that’s all you get over and over.
I really miss Google Play Music!
Spotify: hey remember that song you accidentally pressed like on, you know the one you listened to for 5 seconds? Yeah, that’s gonna be all you’ll listen to now.
Songza FTW
Same gripe. I recently requested all my data from Spotify, scraped play counts out of it (thanks for not providing that in the API) and made a playlist of my liked songs in ascending play count order. Shuffling that, I’m hearing songs I love which I haven’t heard in years. Sucks that it takes so much effort
I’ve been thinking about something like that as well. Can you create playlists and add songs via the API? Really have to check that out.
But yes, it’s a frustrating trend, I have that with smart home stuff as well. Huge vendors sell powerful enough hardware, but it’s dumbed down and after some point you get so frustrated you start tinkering with their API. Almost seems like a ploy to get all abled people distracted, so they don’t use their time and energy to work on building guillotines
I’m pretty sure you can create playlists and add songs via the API. For my purposes, because I wasn’t otherwise using the API, I found it easier to just manually copy a list of URLs in/out of playlists on the desktop app.
Vim + grep + tiny python snippet = good enough
Now though, I’m thinking a little script which did a “true shuffle” on a playlist, via the API, that could then be played in playlist order could be just as useful…
Even better, one already exists…
I have been using https://spotifyshuffler.com/. This allows you to create a shuffled version of your playlist, then you play through that version once with Spotify’s shuffling disabled.
Is the idea that it’ll break Spotify preference to play only certain stuff?
The idea is that you don’t rely on Spotify shuffle at all. A separate app reads your playlist, shuffles it once, and puts that shuffled version into your library. Now you can play this new version with the in-Spotify shuffle disabled. Once you’ve heard all the songs, just rinse and repeat.
Is it weird that I don’t use any of these streaming services and just use my own library via FTP (if I’m not at home)?
I’m (slowly) working my way towards that too (it’s hell to classify though) but how do you discover new music?
Like I’ve always done, through friends or the internet 🤷.
I don’t have a small collection BTW. Things weren’t always discovered through app suggestions 😂.
Cool!
But if I understand you correctly you have a load and loads of stuff? How do you deal with it?
I mean, awhile ago I shazamed songs I liked and I got everything they ever produced and got cluttered up. It’s not the disk space but I don’t have the time to classify it all (in some perfect way) and I don’t even have a way to classify songs, some are good but only in a party setting, but another is both for a party setting, a long car ride and for outdoor business etc etc.
Any help greatly appreciated:-) !
Oh, yeah, classification takes some time. I classify by style (Pop, Rock, Metal, Techno, etc.). And I have 2 different “classification directories”, lol 😂. One is for albums/compilations. They are also sorted by style, but there are whole albums. The other one is with singles (like single tracks, not singles as in releases, lol 😂). Like, let’s say I like just 1 track from a certain artist and I don’t think anything else is worth it from that album (or EP, whatever). I download the whole thing, then delete everything else and just keep that 1 single track. So, let’s say this artist is a pop artist. I have a folder named Pop + Hip-Hop + House + Etc. and I just put it in there 😂. There’s like thousands of tracks there 😂.
So, let’s say I’m in the mood for something specific. I know where it resides, whether it be a whole album or a single track in the “randomness” directories (😂), I find it and I play it. If I’m just in a mood for music, in general, nothing specific, I usually just load the Pop + … directory in the playlist, set random and just hit play. Something I don’t like pops up, I just hit next 🤷.
I hope I helped. Sorting by style is what works for me 🤷. Sure, it’s not perfect, but I really don’t see any other sort style as better than that.
Thanks, that’s a smart way to do it! What kind of soft do you use to classify it, or are you using like disk folders?
I just use directories. Easier if swapping OS, plus it’s easier when I stream via FTP cuz I don’t have to use anything special software wise.
Yeah but I’d forget and end up with dozens of the same song named slightly different in the same folder :-D
But you’re right, if I can’t lay my hands on a soft letting me “tag” music correly I’ll just chuck stuff in the correct bins (folders).
But I think I’ll keep the original albums intact, so I can redo mixes and so.
I installed Navidrome for that
I could google that, but I’m in a chatty mood 😂, could you explain what that is?
It’s a self-hosted music streaming service, based on the subsonic protocol. I set it up with an nginx reverse proxy so I’m able to access it from many compatible apps without a VPN, I use Symfonium on my phone and the integrated web UI on my computer.
Mmm, that is actually really cool 👍, I’ll have to look into that, maybe change the way I stream my media from my NAS. Thanks for the info ☺️.
Where do you get the (new) music from, CDs/albums?
While I primarily use streaming services, I almost always still buy albums on Bandcamp for the day when I need to go back to running my own music. You can save up for a Bandcamp Friday when more goes to the artist. Bandcamp has been the best place for music for awhile. Best to get in before Songtradr continues the destruction Epic started.
I pirate. I buy only what I really really like, and I’d like to have a hard copy (CD, vinyl), not digital download. If there is only digital download available, I pirate it.
I do it too, just with Plexamp.
The recommendations and radios on plexamp are amazing compared to any other service I’ve tried.
Will have to look into this, I haven’t really optimized around the way I stream my media.
It seems most people are complaining about when Spotify plays random stuff it thinks you like, but I’m having the same issue with my actual created playlist. I’ve carefully gathered and downloaded all my favorite songs into a playlist that has about 3 days worth of music on it… Yet it plays the same 100-200 or so songs no matter what, even on shuffle. I’m pretty sure most songs in this list have never been played. Very irritating
That’s because Spotify shuffle by default is not a simple true randomizer as most would expect. It tries to be “smart” and mixes your playlist so similar songs play after another, while avoiding playing songs from the same artists back to back. And some more variables. In theory this is great and works well for some users and focused playlists, but can ruin playlists that cover a very wide range of genres and styles.
You can better approach true randomness by disabling the “Automix” feature in Spotify settings. Not entirely sure if you then actually get true randomness (Spotify loves being opaque), but I hope it helps with your playlist at least.
I would love if they made some enthusiast options available so we could customize our own Automix and shuffle preferences, but that will never happen…
i just preshuffle my playlist using a playlist shuffler website and then go in the order its shuffled. just got to remember what song you left off on, that way every song gets played at least once
I’ve set up my Spotify to tell Last.fm what songs I listen to (aka scrobble). Over time, Last.fm gets a pretty good idea of what songs you like, so when I wanna discover new songs, I go to Last.fm, ask it to play me a mix, and direct it to play the songs through my Spotify. I find that its recommendations are much better than what I get from using Spotify alone.
I use Tidal and it shares the same problem, especially if you are using it in drive mode in your car (Android Auto). I guess they do it to minimize data transmission costs by buffering your favorite songs on your device, but it annoys the hell out of me.
Also, Tidal has a Hip-hop/Rap bias that I was unable to remove after some 2 years of using it. I don’t have a single song from those genres in my favorites or playlists, but it will suggest them all the same. I will block the artists and they will pop up on the new releases page.
Regarding music quality it is miles ahead of Spotify. I don’t know if Spotify has finally released an hi-fi/lossless tier, but at the time Tidal was unmatched. After listening to Tidal hi-fi I could not go back to Spotify’s mungled up audio.
Spotify still has done nothing about their audio quality. I use it where I don’t have access to decent playback equipment.
I know it’s not tidal lossless quality, but have you set all the music quality settings to extreme in Spotify settings?
Very high is the maximum, that’s what I use. The same songs in 128kbps mp3 sound much better even in my crappy airpods, not to mention lossless files. My speakers give me a Bose soundbar experience when playing Spotify on them.
You’re right, I don’t know where I got the idea it was called extreme
Does tidal still have lossless? I remember they were replacing all lossless flac with their
qmamqa stuff, which isn’t lossless, and requires you to buy specialized hardware. That was the main reason I chose deezer instead of tidal.Yes, they have a 16bit/44.1KHz FLAC tier (€7.49), as well as a 320Kbps tier for lower data consumption and a 24bit/192KHz tier (€13.99) if you have the Hi-Fi gear to use it.
I really wanted to use Tidal because of the Linux thing and FLAC, despite the cost over Spotify etc.
Tried to sign up and had horrendous problems over such a simple thing. Gave up on them. Never had a problem with subscriptions before or since, unless you count insurance auto-renew!
I haven’t had any problem with my subscription.
Their player works very well for my use cases: I use it on my Android phone, on my car via Android Auto, on my LG TV with WebOS and on my Linux machine via Firefox.
That’s very good to read. It was only the sign-up that went badly wrong and getting on touch with them made it worse.
Hopefully I got a disgruntled Customer Service person on a bad day. One of those things.
Enjoy!
One of the main reasons I stuck with YouTube Music is that I find the algorhitms superior to spotify. Maybe this is placebo, but I think between the 7 mixes + discovery + artist / song radio I always have something that does not feel the same, and I feel like any intentionally searched listening updates the mixes fairly quickly.
I disagree entirely.
I used the free trial. The algorithm was a whole lot shittier than spotify’s recommendations. It had the same annoying vibe as the regular youtube algo where if you watch one video from Jordan Peterson, you suddenly inherit the feed of an Elon Musk worshipping alt right tech bro.
It was the same for music. I listened to one song as a joke then it stopped recommending good music and just made my whole feed into joke songs. Much like youtube’s algorithm, youtube music algo clearly uses google’s machnine learning tech (which they use for ads too) where it tries so hard to predict what you like without real data, instead preferring to use solely other people’s browsing habits rather than creating a unique profile for that user without it making too many assumptions right off the bat. Perhaps, I’d describe that algorithm as “HIGHLY reductive” when compared to any other recommendatiion algorithm which seem more geared toward slowly discovering the tastes of its users.
This might be a function of low usage time, the shifts were definitely more pronounced in the beginning, now when I listen to new stuff it only introduces the changes in the appropriate mixes (i.e my mix 1-3 is various hiphop (very well segregated into different styles i must add), 4,5 is indie/rock etc) and the amount is a function of how much of said new stuff i listen. On occasion i will use votes and the dislikes especially affect playlists quickly.
I know the youtube behaviour you refer to and it honestly really makes me hate watching youtube, some days I will have a bad mood and start spamming not interested for a few rows and my feed is good again.
But with YTM it seems to be really nice, whereas with spotify, as OP, I found it quite stale.
I do the same with YT Music and tolerate the ads. Then, when they hit on a few songs I’m enjoying, I go to Newpipe and play playlistss or extended version of the songs/artists. I also build my own playlists in Newpipe.
If I discover a song I like IRL (say, on the radio or in the background of a video), I add it to both YT Music and Newpipe (e.g., I’m listening to Chaleya from the movie Jawan on Newpipe right now, discovered when I was out and about).
ETA: Newpipe also offers auto-enqueing, which might lead to more discovery.
Im a disgusting premium user, but I might check out newpipe some day.
Nah it’s not just you. Anytime I decide to start a radio while working, half the time I discover absolute bangers that I add to my playlists that balances between matching the vibe and distinct - which isn’t as easy as it seems.
This wasn’t what you asked for, but I have to add it in here: I switched to YouTube music because I was told the shuffle actually was random there. From my experience the past couple of months it seems to be the case, at the very least it’s better. But discovering new music (without putting in much effort) has been harder. Their playlist sorting is non-existent (you’re stuck with alphabetic order, no folders). And for some idiotic reason the playlists are shared with YouTube… Everything with it, except for its working shuffle, is horrendous.
How the fuck can Spotify just not have a true fucking random shuffle, it’s so annoying! It does everything else fairly well, but I’m not switching back to starting a playlist of 8+ hrs and getting a recognizable pattern depending on what I skip and don’t. Or whatever goddamn algorithm they think is better than /dev/urandom.
This gave me hope for a while, but I’ve now given up: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/4880594/page/103#comments
If you want to discover new music, use “Start Radio” in lieu of shuffle.
Yes, I’m aware of the radio ability. I’m not using shuffle to discover new music. I’m using it to play random songs from a large playlist I have.
I actually looked for that after you mentioned it on the Spotify app but couldn’t find it. Mind saying where it is? Or you’re referencing the outside shuffle website.
Sorry I was unclear. I meant in YouTube Music. It has a Start Radio option which is suitable for discovery.
Thanks, maybe I should really Check that and Apple music out… still frustrating, as no option seems to be great. How can that be, after so many years of music services? What are all those developers doing? Are they stuck in scrum meeting timeloops?
https://spotifyshuffler.com/ this is what I use. To shuffle liked songs, use the desktop app, go to liked songs, ctrl-a, right click, add to new playlist. Then that playlist can be shuffled with that tool and you play it in spotify with shuffle turned off (since the song order is already random). I’ve heard a lot of songs I haven’t heard in forever so it’s super nice
I use Virtual Shuffle. It forces Spotify to play truly random tracks. https://shuffle.virock.org
I don’t seem to have this problem. I create playlists all the time and shuffle them. I never listen to artist radio and rarely use suggested songs. I find a lot of great music through Spotify and end up finding so many bands that I can’t listen to them all.
YouTube Music is what I use. You can start a radio from a song, and it’ll play new music. You can also change the Up Next to different styles if you want familiar or new music.
I should also add that with YouTube Revanced you can make the app ad free, which is the primary reason I use it over other music streaming
Man I didn’t even know those buttons existed. I thought I always had to go through the music tuner to land in a “discover” playlist tuned to certain artists. This is so much easier, thanks!!
Also YouTube music will play random tracks uploaded to YouTube that are not licensed on other streaming services
I’ve been having the same issue. Then I saw a meme implying it’s laziness is a caching issue? I’m going to try clearing the cache daily (or more often if I am using it a lot) and seeing if that helps Spotify be more spontaneous
On Android install InnerTune from F-Droid. Allows you to play Youtube Music for free and no ads.
I was using innertune and will go.back to it when I can convince my wife to stop paying for youtube, but I’m definitely not looking forward to going back to it.
Innertune had issues communicating with Bluetooth and would have loading issues when not on wi-fi.
Also, the app fully breaks and has to be redownloaded if you attempt to use a widget maker for it.
I’ve been using Deezer for a while and I like its variety. They have a “Flow” button where you can let it play random music with favorites mixed in, but you can also select a “mood” (like Focus, Party, Chill, and others) or genres (like R&B, Alternative, Rock, and others). You can also have Flow lean more towards new music or already favorited tracks, but that’s been inconsistent for me in the past where sometimes it’ll only play my favorited songs when I chose to listen to new music or vice versa.
I’ve discovered a lot of new songs and artists by letting Flow do its thing on my drive to and from work. Although, sometimes Flow gets stuck in a certain style of music, like playing back-to-back-to-back Golden Oldies, and it’s frustrating trying to get it to play anything else without manually selecting a genre or mood each time you launch the app. That’s a small gripe because the variety is typically good, with favorites mixed in.
I love flow but deezer’s music variety is just really lacking compared to Spotify or YouTube music for me, unfortunately. I want to love it!
