More relevant radio

[Sam_Garner]

Update from Spotify staff:

"Hey everyone! As this idea is quite vague and it's difficult to say when it has been officially implemented, we're moving it to the Help boards. From there we will continue to pass this feedback to the Radio teams--who are continually working to improve the Radio experience. 

Please keep leaving your feedback here, including the following details:

• Device / Platform you're using
• Approximately what time (& time zone) the problem occurred
• How did you start the radio session (i.e. started radio based on artist X, or based on song Y, or using genre Z, etc)
• Any actions you took during the sessio (i.e. hit Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, or Skip through a lot of songs)"

Original message:

Dear Spotify,

First of all, awesome program. With that being said, the relevance of music that the radio plays is really poor. The Music Genome project has a significantly better way of picking songs to play when forming a radio station in terms of relevance that the station was set to. Currently, when picking a 'Skrillex' radio station, the thing plays one skrillex song, then is giving me Beyonce, Chris Brown, and music that ultimately has nothing to do with dubstep and dirtier electronica. 

If you can integrate a stronger, more relevant radio I wouldn't have to use Pandora or Last FM as much. Even Window's Zune has the DJ feature where you can pick a song, and it then plays songs of similar nature. Unfortunately your radio is like listening to MTV or something that plays one song the user enjoys, then songs that fill the space between the next more relevant song. 

Just as I write this, Kelly Clarkson comes on the Skrillex radio station. This is not pleasurable, although makes me laugh a little when a completely irrelevant song comes on (sense of humor helps).  Maybe this is a product of what kind of licenses that you have with music lables, but it would be a good idea to integrate a better radio service into Spotify if possible, so that people dont have to switch between programs for radio and music streaming.

[reverendawesome]

I agree - it would be awesome if spotify could offer a pandora app..

[Jude]

Guessing here, but I think the problem is that Skrillex is currently very popular with a wide audience. Consequently, you will also get Beyoncé. People who listen to Skrillex also listen to Beyoncé. The system doesn't know that, in fact, Skrillex is in reality associated exclusively with Dubstep. Catch my drift ?

You would get better results by choosing to seed with a track by a Dubstep artist with less mainstream appeal.

In fact, you can now go one better. The latest update now supports seeding the radio by a playlist (if you haven't been updated yet, get it here). Choose a playlist dubstepped to the brim, then start the radio..

[Sam_Garner]

Okay, good observation. Different underground artists produce more relevant radio, but that raises another issue. If the mainstream artists will produce radio that plays music from different genres, how does the radio choose a song to play? Is it based on musical relevance or popularity?

Pandora is based on fundamental characteristics of the music, which produces song choices that are relevant to the station. It shouldn't matter which genre the artist is classified in, the system ideally should be choosing songs with similar musical characteristics. Beyonce and Skrillex make really different kinds of music and it doesn't seem like they should be in the same station, unless it was based on a modern day mix kind of thing.

Here's what happens when you pick a new station on Pandora; they give you what kind of music the station is going to play.

For 'The Beatles' radio: "To start things off, we'll play a song that exemplifies the musical style of The Beatles which features mellow rock instrumentation, folk influences, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, acoustic rhythm piano and major key tonality."

This is the kind of thing Spotify radio should guarantee!

[AX]

You should make a playlist where you paste in your favourite dubstep songs, then start the radio from that playlist.

If you hear something you like, add it to your list. With that method spotify will get more and more your taste of music and playing music more similiar to your playlist which gets bigger and bigger.

That method works perfectly for me

[MattRoss]

I started a Club/Dance radio and had to downvote 12 times in a very short period to get to a dance related song, which I believe was Guetta. And someplace consider him pop. I started a Trance radio and got House. I didn't mind it, but I WAS looking to listen to Trance. Just be glad there is no downvote limit like on the mobile apps ;).

[Rocio]

Hello! This is a duplicate idea: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Better-Radio-Algorithms/idi-p/107485 Follow the updates in that main thread, Ive also added your kudos to the other idea, so keep adding votes and comments! Thanks for your feedback 🙂

[Marco]

Re-opening this idea to have a place to discuss the radio track-finding method.

Please keep in mind that the Spotify radio team is always working to make the radio experience better. Since this is a continuous process, this idea here might never get an "implemented" status. However your comments and kudos will show how important this matter is - so keep adding comments and kudos here please! 😉

[Raphael303]

good approach

spotify radio is boring. always playing the same artists and songs even though millions of songs are just waiting to be discovered. 

for me this is very sad. why waste such a potential?

Tip:

First define which artists and most importantly styles belong into which main genre.

For example "electronic music" find all styles that might be tagged in electronic music. drum'n bass, ambient, psy trance, goa, house, trance, techno, dub step, chill out, etc etc etc. 

then make a radio station that plays songs from those genres. votes should bias it little. or only every 3 or 4 track should be influenced by votes...

[ckdexter]

Yes, Riders in the Sky do some children's music. But they primarily do a western / cowboy type of music.

A radio station based on Riders in the Sky should have Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and Tex Ritter, not Pinnochio and Little Mermaid and Snow White.

[Marco]

ckdexter - I've moved your idea over here in the general idea for a better radio track finding method. Please add your kudos here. 😉

[morphie]

The Music Genome Project is the best thing since sliced bread and I LOVED that in Pandora. Please see if you can add it to Spotify.

It was awesome ten years ago when they threw us out, and I guess its even better now 🙂

[BLB0975]

Hopefully they listen... the worst thing that happens is when I start a metal station and what do they chose for me? Screamo! I cant stand that noise... that awful noise, and no matter how much screamo I downvote it keeps coming, and once it finally stops it figures I hate meatal so it changes to hard rock, and I never get the metal I wanted 😞

When I start a station off a playlist all the station does is play songs from the playlist or songs off the albums in the playlist

[user-removed]

Wow , I know I'm late to the conversation but I have been complaining about this for years! I ,like others on here, listen to  a lot of electronic music. Sad to say this but the electronic music radio stations are severly lacking. I mean the guys that built this are from Sweden right?! Electronic music is king there ( also metal..lol). I turn on the only house channel and I get Lady Gaga, Pitbull then some other crazy stuff. I also end up downvoting 12 times until I hear a song thats good.

Slacker radio has I believe 7 different radio stations for electronic music. Why doesn't Sportify have 20? They've got tons of backing from great DJ's and I've even seen Paul Van Dyk rocking a spotify sticker.

[nickelfault]

Better late than never I suppose, but I've created a playlist with my top 100 artists from Last.fm. When I start the playlist radio, it plays the same artists over and over, and doesn't include a LOT of the ones in my playlist. It plays the same 15-20 artists and leaves the rest out. Please work on your radio algorithm, it's the weakest point of the software in my opinion!

[user-removed]

I agree.  I've been listening to Willie Nelson radio when Cee-lo Green starts playing.  In no way, shape, or form should this ever happen.  They just aren't similar enough.  

My main problem with Spotify radio is that there isn't enough variety.  Even amongst artists.  Today I was listening to My Morning Jacket radio.  Within the course of an hour, "Holding On to Black Metal" played twice and "That Old Black Hole" by Dr. Dog played FOUR times!!??!!??  That is an absurd number of plays for one song on a radio station in one hour.  If I wanted to listen to the same song all the time I would just listen to FM radio.  

As a Spotify premium subscriber, this is, BY FAR, my number one gripe.  Please upgrade the radio function.

[user-removed]

***Update*** As I write this "Holding on to Black Metal" has come on for a third time.

[cbalhawk]

I have tried creating a raido station from a playlist of songs that I truly enjoy. What I find, is most times they end up playing the songs that are on that playlist and not giving me new music. What I have noticed on the desktop app, when using Lazify on a particular track I get MUCH BETTER results for music suggestions that exist in Sptofiy. I believe they use the Last.FM API to get the list of recommended tracks. So either way, it shoulds like Spotify Radio just needs a better way to deliver new music to my radio station.

[DatAshe]

I must say that the second comment about Skrillex being a popular artist and that he should be mixed with Chris Brown is just ... stupid. I mean I have tried EVERY SINGLE way you guys suggested in this forum and I am still not getting the right kind of music. Not just skrillex, forget dubstep, this is happening with everything. I mean if I have to add 100 songs to a playlist to start a radio why don't I just steam through my own list? What's the radio for then? I played some french Jazz and ended listening to some american electronic music. WHAT?

Please improve! We actually pay for this. Thanks.

[WesWunder]

I subscribe to Spotify, Pandora, AND Google play. Spotify radio is by far the worst of the bunch. 3 things:

1. The Music Genome Project should just be a standard. Basing a radio station off one artist (without the ability to add more artists for variety) is not the business. I've tried "radio from playlist" which seems to always favor the 1st artist, and provides very little in the way of discovery. 

2. PLEASE take a note from Google play music. When I start a radio station on Play, the entire queue is available to rearrange and remove tracks, so I can get all my thumbs up/thumbs down out of the way before I let it roll. Brilliant. I can also skip around to whatever song was in the queue that I want to hear again. This may be a licensing issue, but if it is, you bought the wrong license Spotify...

3. Something none of these services are doing, but would be brilliant for me: Playlist from Radio. If I could cultivate a radio station with Google Play's tools, that selected music properly with the Music Genome Project, and then save my perfectly curated queue as a Spotify playlist... man. Man. Oh man.