Discover Weekly has been abyssmal

[ddr84]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone

Operating System

iOS

My Question or Issue

I've had weeks where my Discover Weekly was not the greatest - but it was at least good enough to listen to. But for over the last two months, every Discover Weekly has been fantastically bad and nothing I do seems to help fix it.

Every week for the last 6-8 weeks, I have gone into my Discover Weekly and 
hid every song. I would also go down to the bottom of my discover weekly, right click on the atrocious recommendations provided and select "Exclude from Taste Profile." Then for the last 3 weeks, in addition to doing both of those things, have gone into every single artist on my Discover Weekly and selected the "Don't play this artist." Daily Mixes and Radio recommendations are inexplicably spot on for my taste, so I've been listening to them, liking songs along the way, but still my Discover Weekly just gets further and further from what I like. It is truly bad.. like it's the equivalent of loving the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac but Discover Weekly plays Death Metal. Any ideas for how to fix this?

I do not have private session turned on when I'm listening to music I like, I've changed my passwords twice in the last 4 months and each time, I select the log out every device option.

[TanyaS]

Hi @ddr84 ,

Thank you for reaching out to Spotify Community,

I appreciate the steps taken from your end. Discover Weekly is just a reflection of what you already listen to. To change it up, you'll need to change the type of music you regularly play. This is not trying to imply you listen/modify music, it might be you just play a rather small amount of tracks/artists. Discover Weekly will work better with more input from you, as the user, in the form of playing more varied content that you've picked out. Lastly, I would request that if you happen to be frustrated by the inability to reset Discover Weekly - please visit this Community page +vote for the  Reset profile page idea.

[bederr]

I just want to say, my discover weekly has been fantastic, in a good sense. And, believe me, that’s not to discredit or insult you. I hope

your listening experience gets better and im sure it will improve the more you interact with it and hide/like songs. It think it also helps to dive into songs you liked and try to give that artist more likes. I hope this helps!

[ddr84]

Gladly added my vote! 
I’m perplexed at just how far off base the weekly suggestions are. My account did get compromised for a short period of time by someone in India, but that was months ago - I guess it was enough to destroy my discover weekly’s. But it was strange how quickly and stark the difference was - like my weekly went from really good one week to me hating every song the next. My music tastes weren’t/haven’t included at all in the mix. I’m curious how long it will take for my taste in music to regain its foothold.
Perhaps another thing that would be helpful is the ability to go into your listening history and delete songs, especially for those whose accounts were compromised. The only other option of creating a fresh account isn’t a good option. 

[TanyaS]

Hi,

Thank you for actively sharing your opinion, Spotify continues to modify and tweak features. Hopefully the experience improves with the time.

[ddr84]

A few questions...

1. Does "hiding" songs actually affect my taste profile?

2. Does selecting the "Do not play this artist" affect my taste profile?

I do these 2 things every week and nothing ever changes so curious if the actions I'm taking are futile.

3. How long does it take for new songs to affect your taste profile? The number one and three songs on my top 5 track list haven't been played in over two months, when my account was compromised.

4. Is there a way to remove songs from a listening history so as to correct a taste profile?

5. What else can I do to fix the issue with my taste profile?

I've been listening to music that I actually like nearly every day (even when my account was compromised) and my discover weekly is still complete garbage. Another week of hiding songs and hating artists...:(

[TanyaS]

Hi,

You can only exclude playlists from your Taste Profile. If you exclude a playlist from your Taste Profile, past and future streams from that playlist will have less impact on your music recommendations and taste summaries. Some recommended content such as Discover Weekly may not be affected until the following week. 

Hide a song prevents that song from playing whenever you listen to that playlist. This feature will not affect the music that plays when you listen to that playlist. 

Note: If you listen to songs that are on an excluded playlist but do so from outside the playlist, such as in Liked Songs, those streams will still be included in your Taste Profile.

Hope this helps

[ddr84]

Tanya, So what can I do to correct my garbage recommendations and Discover Weekly's? Spotify has made it impossible for users to actually impact the sort of recommendations they get. If users are not able to, is there a way for developers to go into someone's listening history and delete songs? Is there something I can do to tell the algorithm that I hate a song, artist, or genre?

I will say that your statement about Discover Weekly may not be affected until the following week is not correct. I've been listening to music that I like, as I said almost every day and nothing ever changes with the recommendations. It's just very frustrating to be using Spotify almost daily for 10 years only to have my account be compromised for 2 weeks and that somehow has destroyed my taste profile. 

[suvulo]

Exactly the same issue here. I've tried everything that has been mentioned above and the songs that pop up on my Discover Weekly playlist do not reflect my tastes/play history/genres at all. Which is a shame because up until last year Discover Weekly was spot on.

Something has changed on the way they calculate music suggestions and changed for worse. Is there an undo button around there? 🙂

[yonzy]

remember this option? you removed it this week for some reason. how am i gonna get personalized playlists if the algorithm doesnt know what i like and i dislike anymore? instead of adding features you remove them? it makes no sense to me.