A single ambience track has ruined my suggested songs and Discover playlists. Any fix/workaround?

[ramikadyc1]

I have a playlist with a single white noise track I used listen to on repeat while I sleep. I did this pretty much every night for several months. But I moved and haven’t listened to it now for a few months.  

Shortly after I began listening to that track, I noticed my suggested songs and Discover Weekly playlists became polluted with other random ambience/soundscape/white noise tracks, and the problem kept getting worse and worse every week to the point that now I’d estimate that 90% or more of Spotify’s suggestions are ambience. 

I chalked the problem up to a crappy algorithm that said “oh hey this dude listens to white noise 80 times per night, here’s even more!” and asinine logic that led to it deciding to start completely ignoring my thousands of saved songs, dozens of playlists, and normal daily listening habits. I figured weeks of not playing that single ambience track would fix the problem, and I’ve given it months instead.

Nope. Problem still exists somehow, even with me listening to “normal” songs for a few hours per day on average. I’m getting… well, I’m pretty annoyed about it. Is there any way at all to convince the system that listening to, literally, ONE SINGLE track from a specific “genre” and ONLY the one single track—regardless of the number of plays—shouldn’t lead it to the ridiculous conclusion that all I want to hear is MORE of that genre and essentially ONLY that genre? It’s such a stupid, stupid thing to do and now putting it into words makes me realize the extent of that stupidity is beyond my comprehension.    

Thanks.

Plan

(Premium)

Country

(US)

Device

(iPhone 11 Pro Max)

Operating System

(iOS 15)

[Kiril]

Hey @ramikadyc1,

Thanks for reaching out on the Community!

We understand your frustration form this experience as a user, but such things can happen especially if you have exposed the algorithm of your profile to a heavy rotation of one and the same content for a longer period of time. You were probably unaware that you can take advantage of our Private listening feature, that prevents certain streaming sessions from being reported, thus preventing situations like this from happening.

As the algorithm has already moved in that direction for you, now you'll need to reverse this and to start actively using the other options available for improving the playlists made for you. Basically you'll need to "heart" more of the content you'd really like to hear and to skip, block or unfollow the artists/content that is irrelevant for you at this point. Results from this "teaching" of the app should be notable for your account in one to three weeks time.

Hope this helps clarify things. Don't hesitate to give us a shout if there's anything else we can help with.

[ramikadyc1]

I appreciate the info, @Kiril  

I was afraid this was gonna be the solution, but I’m glad to have some confirmation that it might actually work. Thanks for the info.  

If you wouldn’t mind, I had a few other questions regarding your answer:  

1. I primarily use my phone and the iOS app to navigate these things. Can I block/dislike a track without playing it…? 
2. …And if not, is there a sorta “threshold” of time where the algorithm won’t clock me as actively listening to a track I only started just so I could dislike it? I’d like avoid making my problem worse before I start militantly going on a purge.   
   
   
3. Is it effective if I were to, hypothetically, spend an hour or two just straight-up Liking/Saving tracks I like and Disliking/Blocking things I don’t? Or is the algorithm designed to sorta filter my actions in a way where that wouldn’t be any more effective than spending whatever day-to-day time I’d normally spend doing those things?  
   
   
4. Actually, all of these questions and any other questions I have could probably be summed up like this: Is there a resource that’ll give me as much insight as possible into how the algorithm functions? I realize Spotify probably hasn’t spelled out the specifics of every facet of their system, but any hard info would help me.  

Thanks again for your time.  

(Edited to @[user] in case that’s needed for notifications.)

[Ver]

Hey @ramikadyc1,

Thanks for getting back to us.

There isn't any info that we can share regarding this at the moment.

You can check this idea as it's about adjustable toggles for more personalized recommendations and add your +Vote to it. You can also Subscribe to the thread so you can stay up-to-date with any news about this.

If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[cmcollier]

I've just had my Discover Weekly playlist wrecked by this very thing. I used to use an Amazon track on an Echo smart speaker for brown noise at night, but it seems Amazon put that song into its Prime Music catalogue, which I do not subscribe to, so I found something suitable on Spotify to use for the same purpose. In short order 100% of the playlist is music I have zero interest in. This is disappointing, as I used the playlist every week to identify new songs. 

[ramikadyc1]

It’s been almost ten months since I made this post, and since then, Spotify’s suggested songs and algorithm-compiled playlists  have gotten better, but I still get a few ambience tracks mixed in. The problem hasn’t resolved itself completely, but it does seem to be getting there.  

What sucks is that it feels like there’s very little I was able to do to influence it fixing itself. In those ten months, only the last six weeks or so have brought me playlist and Discover/Release Radar tracks that are listenable without constant skips.  

[Mbazzano88]

How hard would it be to add an "Exclude this artist" feature for discover and yearly wraps?

Source: My 2022 Wrapped is more than half sleep music. I do use private sessions every night but definitely have forgotten a handful of times. Sounds like it's going to take an entire year of diligent work to make Discover Weekly and any recommendations useful, that kinda bites.

[reganspearing]

My standard sleep playlist has ruined all my suggested tracks. Agree with the above, an ‘exclude artist’ or ‘exclude playlist’ option to not mess with the algorithm. Having to go into private listening mode each time is not super convenient. 

[cvam1985]

Almost ten years on Spotify and all of my daily mixes and Discover weekly are totally ruined from a few nights listening to ambient sleep. I guess their magical algorithm never was as good as I thought it was. I’m really starting to hate Spotify. 

[Alex]

Hi there @cvam1985,

Thanks for your post. 

On Spotify you can turn on Private Session when you're listening to music for sleep/studying/ work/ at parties etc. Anything you listen to while Private Session is switched on won't be added to your recommendations and won't affect your Wrapped at the end of the year. More info here.

If you want to stop getting recommendations about certain music, you can now exclude such playlists from your taste profile. More info here. 

Hope you find this information helpful 🙂

[Kevin1123]

My suggested playlists are also ruined after a few nights of ambient noise.  Anyway I can just reset my preferences.  Its been months since I listened to it.  I am gonna switch to another platform if this can't be fixed.