"Related artists" - how do Spotify decide what artists are related to a specific artist?

[Terkel_Mohl]

Spotify has a number of great features - (I love the "show lyrics" feature, by the way).

I would like to know how the "related artists" works: What - or who determines what artists are related to one another? What if I find an artist whom I find has much more resemblance to another artist, but this artist does not figure under "related artists"? Is there someone I can write to in order to suggest related artists are these lists automatically generated?

Thank you for a great service,

Terkel

[blake]

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@Terkel_Mohl wrote:

Spotify has a number of great features - (I love the "show lyrics" feature, by the way).

I would like to know how the "related artists" works: What - or who determines what artists are related to one another? What if I find an artist whom I find has much more resemblance to another artist, but this artist does not figure under "related artists"? Is there someone I can write to in order to suggest related artists are these lists automatically generated?

Thank you for a great service,

Terkel

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Hi Terkel, I can offer you this answer from the Spotify Artists' website (see the FAQ here😞

"Spotify's related artists and radio are determined by algorithms which look at what people listen to alongside your music. So if I put your music in a playlist alongside artist X & artist Y then artists X & Y are more likely to be shown as related to you or played on radio.

There's no manual way to change these. You can start to affect it by creating a sharing playlists of your music with other music you think is more related. This will increase your streams and the bands you want to be associated with, increasing the chance of them becoming related artists."

[NaterChapman]

This is currently a problem for us as an artist.   Exodus Music - makes congregational worship music - And currently our related artists are heavy metal bands.   Gonna try and fix it - by the playlists.  But if you are a new artist with not a lot of listeners - this really is hard to get corrected.  

[mauxetv]

I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM WITH THE INCORRECT RELATED ARTISTS WITH MY BAND. THE RELATED ARTISTS THAT APPEARS ARE NOT BANDS OF REGGAE AND DON´T HELP MORE PEOPLE TO DISCOVER RELATED BANDS. THE RELATED ARTISTS IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT WAS CORRECT AND ONLY THE BANDS KNOWS HIS INFLUENCES AND REAL RELATED ARTISTS BAD PONT FOR SPOTIFY MUSIC LOVERS.

[LegPuppy]

same with us, we've been waiting for the related artists for months now, but most of the stuff we got is nothing like us. A few of our tracks do appear on Liquid Dnb playlist which has 1500 subscribers, so I thought that would help them decide

this is our music

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2KTRfoMxYDElUGGGXpitWM

tell me, are those related artists the same?

[LegPuppy]

is there amybe anyway we can help each other out my making playlists amd playing eachother music? That way, Spotify will collect the data and add it to our music

[LegPuppy]

with this mind, would yoi be so kind as to follow and share this cool playlist please

https://open.spotify.com/user/bongoboots/playlist/0lKEjBr07D7uxN36hG6mG3

[w1xnfa1]

How come Metallica never pops up on related artists? You can choose any of the related artists which appear on Metallica, but they never link back to Metallica

[SceonMusic]

I am willing to follow a playlist in exchange for a follow on my artist featured playlist. My music is inspired by futurebass, Flume/Odesza type synths and my related artists are all heavy metal. It is a real problem for my audience who clicks start a radio station from my music. 

This is the playlist

https://open.spotify.com/user/jamesclinard/playlist/36vHUPDh93YrZiAco0s6mX

This is my artist page

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7ESWBSzwVbCheNEM1GIPQ6

[xicoga]

Dear blake, 

we have been claiming for more than two years, about 15 times and almost always they answer the same thing: “copy & paste”:

... Spotify's related artists and radio are determined by algorithms which look at what people listen to alongside your music. So if I put your music in a playlist alongside artist X & artist And then artists X & Y are more likely to be shown as related to you or played on radio. This means there's no way to change these, no setting I can switch. But, you can start to play it by creating a playlists of your music with other music ...

But what Spotify says is not absolutely true, fortunately our music has been for two years in the outstanding Playlists of Spotify, some of them with more than 90 thousand followers, ( relating to right artists related to our music) we have another 20 Playlists that belongs to users, including some of my own... It relation us with correct artist like Olafur Arnals, Nils Frahm, Max Richter, etc. ModernClassical, contemorary artists.

But we have 20 related artists and all are wrong (all of them), they have nothing to do with our musical style.

The years go by and nothing changes ... there is a mistake in this that affects in our career, We have written several private messages to Spotify and nothing.

Thanks!

[megdunnmusic]

I'll totally do that!! I'm Meg Dunn on Spotify!

[megdunnmusic]

I'll gladly help!! My artist's name is Meg Dunn!

[megdunnmusic]

I'm down!!

My artist name is Meg Dunn, and I will follow up when I've made a playlist with my stuff on it!

[solipsism]

This situation is really annoying.  The related artists on my page have nothing to do with Spotify listens or playlists, they've been lisfted directly from last.fm as they're the same similar artists I had on there and I know it's fake, as we were all friends back then on Last.fm so it wasn't a case of listening habits, it was simply other artists trying to help each other out.  Some of the artists listed as my similar artists aren't even making music anymore, that list is about 12 years out of date. 

[silver_olive]

I don't know it works super well for me👍

[solipsism]

Congratulations, I'm happy for you. Still doesn't help my situation though!

[LegPuppy]

its the same for us. really annoying. We've aske for it to moved twice as we are at trip hop electronica outfit yet we got put with horrendous cheesy rnb and contry music.

Im fed up with the same template responce. Ive seen bands with hardly any plays or followers with brilliant related artists tab. 

[DaniTamayo]

Is very frustrating, my music is electronic, some house, some trance, some techno, but my related artists are all rap and hip-hop, that's crazy. Solve it, affects your credibility.

[Tracyburns17]

WHEN I ORIGIANLLY JOINED, I SAID I LIKED COUNTRY. IT ASKED ME WHICH ARTISTS AND I CLICKED ON THEM. NOW WHEN I PLAY "COUNTRY HITS" IT FOCUSES ON THOSE ARTISTS. i DONT REMEMBER HOW I GOT TO THE SCREEN GIVNG ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHOSE THOSE ARTISTS AND I WOULD LIKE TO ADD TO IT. DO YOU KNOW HOW?

[solipsism]

Nothing has been done about this yet unfortunately 😞 What is annoying also is that many of my similar artists haven't released anything in years, they're old releases on Spotify and I don't understand why my new releases are being linked to releases from 10 years ago?  Can anyone from Spotify clear this up? 

The system is so utterly bonkers that I'm not even a related artist to other artists I've worked with on albums.