Spotify is translating Russian artist names into Latin characters, why?

[sebbivism]

Hey,

Recently, like a couple of weeks back, Spotify is not longer showing the original Russian artist name in the library (Cyrillic characters), all artists with a cyrillic (mainly Russian) name has been transcripted into Latin characters, why is that and how do I change it back to original format? I found this issue only on the mobile app (iOS) in the beginning, but now it's also an desktop issue.

Track titles and album titles are still in Russian cyrillic, but the artist name is "translated" into Latin characters, which is annoying if you use platforms suchs as Last.fm, it stores incorrect scrobblings.

When I search for a specific artist in the Spotify API, I see they are storing the original artist name and an "English/Translated" name so I understand this is something that has been added into the data, but again; how do I change every Russian artist name back into their original format? I tried to change the software language but it doesn't make any effect.

Korean names are still Korean, and Japanese names are still Japanese, why this issue with cyrillic names? It's really annoying.

[rakujitsu]

I have the same issue, all of a sudden ALL russian/ukrainian/belarussian artist names in my library were transliterated into latin script and it's annoying because 1) the song titles are still in cyrillic so if you couldn't read the artst's name when it was in cyrillic you still won't be able to read the titles, 2) latin script is NOT EVERYONE's default/native script, plus 3) it absolutely messes up my last.fm scrobbles - it started counting them again, plus it merged some artists with completely unrelated ones, so now e.g. instead of https://www.last.fm/music/%D0%9B%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B0 her tracks are scrobbled to https://www.last.fm/music/Luna, together with apparently 13 other artists who share the same latinised name, and since the most popular Luna is some K-pop gal, whose name is actually 루나, most of the pictures on the artist page look like soft-core 80's **bleep** (-____-)

I don't believe it was the "artists choice" as it happened suddenly and to ALL artists. I hope Spotify will give us the CHOICE of whether or not we want to have the names transliterated into latin script, and then apply the same rules to ANY script - be russian, korean, japanese, or hebrew.

[sebbivism]

I agree with you that this most likely is not artist choice, as you said, it applied to ALL artists and some of the artists even got English names. For example; ВИА Гра is now listed as "Nu Virgos" which is definitely incorrect.

One potential reason might be that Spotify is not launched in Russia and therefore they don't have any use in listing content in cyrillic? But on the other hand, Spotify is used world-wide by users not having Latin-alphabet as their primary alphabet and if artists release their songs in cyrillic it should be that way (incl. artist name)

I find it odd that artist names are in Latin script but the actual song title can stay cyrillic? I don't see the point in that, and I think it's some kind of bug in their system.

Last but not least, it definitely messes up Last.fm-accounts. Many of us are Spotify Premium-users and if I pay for a service I expect it to at least provide correct data...

[kekemeke]

Same problem here!
Its rly annoying, when last.fm scrobble one indentical song as 2 different.
do some1 solve this problem??

[sebbivism]

Can we please get a Spotify representative to answer our questions and perhaps make a solution for this issue?

For example ВИА ГРА (on Spotify; incorrect name "Nu Virgos") just released a new single, but I "can't" listen to it because it will scrobble incorrect data.

Nu Virgos is a name they haven't used since their "outside USSR"-promotion in 2002. Seriously, why not just transcript their name into VIA Gra if that's the case cyrillic names is not permitted on Spotify?

I am a Premium-member adding money every month for my subscription, I think the least detail I should take for granted is correct metadata for the artists and songs I'm listening to. It's ridiculous, artist name is translated into "English" but the albumtitles and songtitles remain cyrillic. People who want to listen to Russian/Ukrainian music can use the search field, all you Spotify-programmers need to do is to add the latin name as a search hint.

Spotify, I am waiting for you to answer my concerns! 

[sebbivism]

An update on this issue because it still annoys me!

The update or the discovering I made recently is that the cyrillic artist names are back - but only for Russian territory or if you change the software language to Russian.

Why is that and why is there not any option in the Settings-section where you as a user can choose if you want artist names (and song titles) translated to "international"-standard or if you want artist/song names displayed in "original" format?

I now have to use the Spotify software for Mac all in Russian - a language I don't even can read... I still want to use Spotify in English or Swedish but have all the metadata in "original" format. Last.fm has this feature in their platform where users can check/un-check in settings to switch between translated/transcripted names and original format.

It can't be that difficult for you on Spotify to add this feature in the Settings-field, you have all data alread in your database. At least offer this as a Premium-feature.

Any Spotify-representative who can comment this?

[dfdrv]

Same problem here.
I use English as my Android phone's UI language and many (but not all for some reason) Russian/Ukrainian artists' names are transliterated using Latin characters. For example "Кино" becomes "Kino", which completely messes up my Last.fm scrobbles.

If i switch UI language to Russian, the names are shown in Cyrillic characters. What's even stranger, the song titles are always listed in Cyrillic characters whatever the UI languages is.

Please add an option to disable this non-Latin names' transliteration cause it's very annoying!

[JosephSchwarz]

ВИА Гра is now listed as "Nu Virgos" - this is what they call themselves for the international audience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nu_Virgos

[rakujitsu]

uhhh, 2 years and it still annoys me. honestly, Spotify, let us choose if we want stuff transliteratedd or not. Not all of us are liguistically challenged and only able to read one script!

[Numtaro]

I would like to share my experience. I have both Last.fm Pro and Spotify Premium (Russia region) subscriptions and use Spotify on my two devices.

1. If iOS interface is in English, Russian artists' names will scrobble incorrectly and inconsistently across the library:
   • Most names are translated. "Diskoteka Avariya" instead of "Дискотека Авария" which is incorrect and messes up my scrobbles. Some of them can be auto-corrected by Last.fm but not all of them. As it was explained earlier, "Luna" and "Луна" are two different names and Last.fm will not auto-correct scrobbles if "Луна" on Spotify is translated as "Luna".
   • Some names are not translated. "Данко" is shown as "Данко" which is correct but inconsistent with another "translated" names on Spotify.
   • "John Williams" is scrobbled as "John Williams" which is expected as we all come here to complain about Cyrillic characters translated into Latin ones, right?
2. If iOS interface is in Russian, then all Russian artists' names are scrobbled correctly which is great.
   • But wait, how about "John Williams"? He is scrobbled as "Джон Уильямс" now! That's a Russian translation of his English name. It is incorrect and messes up my scrobbles. Again! Some English names are translated into Russian.

I need a feature that will stop this translation madness, please.

[_sall_]

what a shame! Almost 4 years and not even the problem was not solved but Spotify officials didn't even bother to make any comment about it.

[Shinytiger]

Yeah, it's really annoying. I don't want my money tobe paid to citizens of the terrorist state. 

[norazz]

ugh 2023 and it still isnt fixed

[andyisme]

up up up

[vxsy1ra]

It's been years and no one has even explained why this is a thing in the first place