Artists not appearing in daily mix

[Meijer1973]

I noticed certain artists not appearing in daily miixes. I made a playlist of those artists. Listening a lot to this list should solve the problem. As the daily mixes adapt to your listening.  But it did not not solve it after more than a month of listening. 

My number one artist is in none of my daily mixes. I now only listen to artists not in my daily mix. My top 20/50 is filled with artists not appearing in the daily mix. Pretty soon I will have a top ten filled with artists not in the daily mix. This really puzzles me. Anyone know how the algoritm could be so off.

I have been doing this for more than a month. Only listening to songs not in my daily mixes. My playlist of artists not in the daily mix very slowly gets smaller. Every ten days or so the daily mix get a big refresh. Last refresh two artists appeared. But it seems that some artists just dont show up in the daily mixes. 

[Katerina]

Hey there @Meijer1973,

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community!

That doesn't sound cool. Just to confirm, had you clicked the dislike icon in the past for any of these artists' songs? 

Keep in mind that if you click/tap the dislike icon in the Now Playing view while it plays, it won’t crop up in your mix again. You’ll also get the option to remove all songs by that artist from your mixes.

Hope this helps!

/K

[Meijer1973]

No I did not dislike these artists. Could the algoritm have a preference for certain artists? Most of the time this would go unnoticed. But in my "experiment" I am only listening to artists not in the daily mix. After a certain amount of time these artists should appear in the daily mixes. Daily mixes should adapt to listening history. 

But if certain artists are ignored by the algoritm. And I only listen to those artists. The daily mixes will not adapt to my listening. The playlist I am using still has 55 artists on it (if one appears in the daily mix I delete that artist). Those are the only artists I listen to. Some artists seem to appear much slower or not at all.  

[Jemi]

Hey again @Meijer1973,

Did you ckeck all of the Daily Mixes to make sure they don't include your favorite artists? Keep in mind that Daily Mix merely gives suggestions based on your listening experience, and may not be an exact reflection of what you listen to, especially when it comes to artists. It is however true that the more you listen to something, the more similar music will be added to the Daily Mix, including artists and songs you already have saved.

We're afraid that this isn't something we can manipulate, and as long as your Daily Mix is being updated, it is considered to be working. We do suggest that you keep listening to your favorite music - your Daily Mix will surely update to mirror your music taste after a while. 

Hope that helps! 🙂

[Meijer1973]

I did check all my mixes. I understand that the mixes are not an exact reflection. And they should not be. It will include new artists etc. And the algoritm tries to group similar artists together. 

The artist I listened to most in the past six months never appeared in the mixes. So it still feels as if some artists need much more listening to show up. Some appear after only a couple of listens and others dont even show up after listening 60+ times to that artist (this is not the only example). I will keep at it and I will inform you of the progress. If somebody understands why some artists dont show please let me know.

[Meijer1973]

update: It becomes more interesting. The latest mix update added a mix with lady gaga and pink (havent listened to those for six months, and even than not much). Last six months I only listenend to metal. So why did the algoritm do this. 

I am starting to understand the problem. And I that means there is more evidence that certain artists are invisible to the daily mix algoritm. There might be a good explanation but is does require fixing.

some facts

- artists played in the last 30 day are not featured in any of the daily mixes

- a daily mix was added based on artist not played for six months. 

- it is based on artists that I banned from the mix. This mix appeared several months ago. In an attempt to remove it I banned a lot of artists (lady gaga, beyonce etc).  

do not play artist

- The daily mix does not feature these artists (lady gaga) but the mix is based partly on artists similar to lady gaga. Mostly artists I never heard of.

- It contains only artists I have never played !!!

How can this happen? An explanation would be that some artists are invisible to the algoritm and others have a very high preference (lady gaga, adele etc).

- This could be based on the amount of listeners. Lady gaga has a lot more listeners than the metal bands I listen to. I noticed that listening to Adele just a few times almost immediatly creates a mix based on Adele.

- The algoritm prefers variety. Listing outside your genre will have a strong effect on your mixes. Suppose you listen to black, death, brutal metal etc. Listening to some pop music will create a mix very easily (just a few listens will do it). And you will lose one of the mixes based on the metal genres. 

- Some believe there is something more going on and that there is actual human intervention to promote certain artists. 

But lets assume that just the amount of total plays is the key factor. That is a major problem for somebody listening to niche/indie music. Occasionaly listening to popular bands will mess up your mixes. 

I only relatively popular bands are included than listening to your mixes will make it worse. Your listening history will reflect you listening to more popular artists and daily mixes will slowly slide towards to mainstream music. 

Now I have a playlist that contains only bands that are invisible to the daily mix algoritm. Listening to this playlist will only confuse the algoritm. So it decided to add something I might like based upon total popularity and some songs I listened to more than six months ago (Lady Gaga). But it did not add the bands I actualy listened to for the last months. 

I will keep updating.