The radio option sucks!

[lol1996s]

It literally just repeats the same 10 songs for hours. Kinda.... Like a real radio station.
Also let's say I have 10 Eminem songs and 200 other artist songs on the original playlist. It will play Eminem after Eminem song, its so frustrating.
I love the way google's radio option, keep playing new songs that are actually related to the original playlist.
I would have left a long time ago if it wasn't for the desktop app, where I can game on my PC and have music. Still might leave because of the crappy radio.

[Fred]

Hi, and welcome to the community.
The way the radio works is a frequently discussed topic here, and there are a few ideas as to how it should change.
If you search for "radio" and "variety" in the ideas section, you'll get plenty of posts suggesting various changes to radio. If there is any you like, add your kudos and comments, it helps.
Here is one such link I personally like on this topic:
http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Opt-in-to-Discovery-Mode-for-Spotify-Radio/idi-p/16378...

[caleblilley]

I'd agree with the first post. Also, if I "dislike" a song, it will still get played again later. I create a station on the song "Turn down for what" and it's playing soft alternative stuff or even Eminem. What? Neither of those are club or trap music. How do they relate? That's less annoying though then dislking a song, and then having it play AGAIN the next day. "No, I don't want to listen to Kanye. Thank you." Does the radio not remember preferences after the application is closed? Seems to kind of defeat the purpose. Also, I've heard "Recess" by Skrillex about ten times. Why does it keep repeating that? Sure, it fits the genre, and it's a decent song but couldn't there possibly be ANOTHER song out there that fits as well?

[tamar]

I need to chime in here too to agree with everything that was said here.

I'm a paying Spotify member and I don't understand why Spotify is so crappy at music discovery 😞 

[user-removed]

I agree with the Radio option being redundant... but can someone please PLEASE PLEASE tell me how to end a playlist?  I listened to it, I'm done, I want it to go away, why does it keep repeating?

Thanks,

L

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@lol1996s wrote:
It literally just repeats the same 10 songs for hours. Kinda.... Like a real radio station.
Also let's say I have 10 Eminem songs and 200 other artist songs on the original playlist. It will play Eminem after Eminem song, its so frustrating.
I love the way google's radio option, keep playing new songs that are actually related to the original playlist.
I would have left a long time ago if it wasn't for the desktop app, where I can game on my PC and have music. Still might leave because of the crappy radio.

---

[tamar]

@lauretteraby11 - You have repeat turned on then. It's green on the bottom right hand corner and is an arrow that is pointing to another arrow in a circular motion. Click on it once or twice and when it's grey, it's off.

But your question really has nothing to do with Radio, so sorry, but this isn't the place for a gripe about Radio. Two very different beasts.

[Peter__]

The playlist will loop if you have the repeat option on, otherwise it will stop once it gets to the end of playlist. (However it will re-populate in your play queue). Starting playback from another location (playlist/album/radio) should replace it though.

[that_one_guy_87]

You linked to "Spotify Ideas" where they are discussing suggestions to improve the radio function on Spotify, how does this help us in the here and now? Thanks for trying.

[Peter__]

It doesn't help the here and now, but the Ideas Exchange is the main way users can influence what Spotify work on (some of the time at least).

[tamar]

So you know what's awesome? How disconnected Spotify support is with its engineers.

As soon as I posted this issue to the Spotify forum, I also alerted the Spotify community team (@SpotifyCares) via Twitter about what was happening. They were pretty much on top of it right away. It was clear they genuinely wanted to help. 

And then I thumbed down the same Jackson song I heard repeatedly on the Florence + the Machine radio channel. Once. Twice. Three times. I told Spotify that this doesn't enhance my customized experience.  

They said "OMG we're so sorry! we'll fix it!" and they kept escalating it. 

They escalated it maybe 3 or 4 times.

I told them to look at this thread. I don't think they did.

Either way, I took a hiatus from the Florence + the Machine radio. Today, I turned it on again. Almost 10 songs in, I heard the Jackson song I hate so much.

Here's what I've deduced:

1) Spotify radio is never customized to the likes of the users. It's customized to all listeners and seems to be on the basis of a collective whole. If I wanted to listen to the Oasis channel and kept thumbing down Wonderwall, it would never get removed from the channel because I suspect the agorithm would not remove songs sung by the artists themselves. It may, however, remove something like Madonna for being irrelevant to the channel.

I guess I and everyone else always understood radio to be a customized experience *for the listener*. 

2) Spotify engineers suck at addressing customer concerns.

3) Spotify's support reps don't follow through, either on this thread or on the correspondence.

I may have to give the competition a real chance. I would love to discover new music. I miss Turntable.fm... 😞

[user-removed]

Thanks Tamar. At least you responded. I know my post was unrelated to the radio repeats you experience and no I don't have it on repeat.

Happy listening! happy listening, happy listening. Oops repeat repeat repeat.

[tamar]

Yeah sorry, I didn't mean to offend 😞 I would definitely post that elsewhere for the right attention, especially if it is a bug. Sounds like Spotify has a lot of issues to address, but nothing ever seems to be prioritized by them. A facade? 

[user-removed]

Oh no offense taken! Facades are for lazy bums, so you might be onto something there. 🙂

[OnBeat]

@tamar, you make some good points. I have also noticed several aspects of Spotify's radio that need some "nerd love".

I want to:

- Create a playlist of "good" music / music that people who really like that genre listen to. Kudos if the station is also specific to my taste. 

At the very least, I would like to:

- Categorize radio song rejections as either "inappropriate to genre" or"this song sucks"

Because......

- Songs that don't fit the genre of the radio station seem to make up the bulk of my radio playlists

- These "inappropriate" songs repeat even if I give the "thumbs down"

- The same songs repeat on every radio station, regardless of the genre. 

In general, though, I really like Spotify and I hope that my suggestion isn't difficult to implement.

PS I've also posted this in the "ideas" forum under "Idea to Improve Radio Song Discovery" 

[Peter__]

@OnBeat - Ideas forum is the perfect place to suggest changes. I will be sure to add my vote! 🙂

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[tamar]

So now I migrated away from the lesser known stations (Calvin Harris, Florence + the Machine) to 90s Radio.

I have listened to maybe 30 or 40 songs. And I'm already hearing Praise You by Fatboy Slim twice. Once yesterday, once today. I should also note that I listened to two songs today. This was the second.

I don't understand. Is Spotify Radio manually curated and a forgotten field, or is it based on some sort of algorithm that doesn't recognize how many gazillion songs Spotify has in its library to truly make Radio a freakin' awesome tool?!

Spotify, if you improved your Radio experience, you could be an amazing music contender.

But instead, you could care less.

I should note that I sent this forum URL to Spotify's community team, but twiddle dee, twiddle doo, twiddle thumbs..NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Come on, Spotify, get your act together.

[link_]

Another day where the urge of hate and destruction comes up when using this radio option.

I'm using and paying Spotify since two years or so, and nothing changed in the radio option. Nothing.

Please, Spotify, do something about that!

[SmallTriGirl]

I'm also very frustrated with the Radio.  I put it on Alternative and it seems like the only artists it plays are Foo Fighters, The Black Keys and The Killers.   Granted, I really like all those artists, but if I only wanted to listen to them, I'd be listening to their albums and not the radio.There are lots of alternative artists out there putting new stuff daily, why does the radio stick to the same 3?

[Mix-Tape-Tom]

I too think the radio feature in Spotify is poorly executed.  I hang onto my Pandora subscribtion and listen to it as much as I do Spotify.  Pandora simply does a way better job with new music and not repeating the same songs over and over.