Blocked artist showing up in recommended and radio

[jaaeeger]

I blocked an artist (Lemon Demon) and the songs are still showing up in my "recommended songs" under my playlist, despite the playlist including ZERO songs by Lemon Demon.

Spotify is also still attempting to auto-play Lemon Demon in this playlist's radio, which causes the radio to just stop altogether, displaying "we can't play this until you allow this artist in the Spotify phone app."

Yeah, duh, I told it to stop playing that artist, why would it keep trying to? Contracts or something? Please fix this horrendous, glaring issue, I don't want to switch music streaming services and rebuild all my playlists, but y'all are making it real hard not to.

Premium / USA / Macbook 10.13

[Elena]

Hey @jaaeeger!

Thanks for reporting this to us.

Does the Recommended songs section look the same for you on all your devices, and if it do, we'll need to know your devices' modes, OS and Spotify versions? Could you let us know if you've recently blocked the artist that you're seeing or if you've had them blocked for a while?

We'd also recommend to try a clean reinstall to clear any old files that might be causing issues. 

  
Keep us posted on how it goes.

[jaaeeger]

Same issue on iPhone 6s iOS 12.4.2, Spotify v8.5.85.836. The artist has been blocked for months, probably 6 or greater.

Just reinstalled Spotify on my computer and updated the app on my phone, and it's still happening on both. In addition, all of the radio and recommended channels still sound like echo chambers, playing songs that are already in the playlists or off albums featured in the playlist. Ridiculous.

[Mihail]

Hey @jaaeeger,

Thanks for getting back to us.

We recommend that you navigate to the artist page on a mobile device and select Allow to play this from the three dot menu in the upper right corner of the screen. Log out and back in two times in a row and enable Don't play this again. This should prompt a resynch with our servers and the artist shouldn't come up again.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on how it goes.  

[JayMPro]

I've tried the suggested solution of allowing the artist, resetting everything, then blocking them again to get it to resync, and I'm still constantly getting recommended the blocked artist (in my case, a ton of Steam Powered Giraffe even though I don't listen to any of their music). Is there any other way to try to fix this other than the "off and on again" recommendation?

[Kiril]

Hey @JayMPro,

Thanks for posting in the Community!

Keep in mind that the recommendations are generated using independent algorithms and might still include artists that you've recently disliked for your profile, or artists who are similar to others that you've already liked and have included in your listening preferences.

In any case even if a recommendation of such a disliked artist is presented for a playlist or in a Radio playlist for you, still it shouldn't be played out for you (if you have blocked that artist). In other words, the app should just skip it as it takes into consideration your personal profile preference. This behavior should normalize in time and you should stop getting those recommendations, but the algorithm needs at least one to three weeks to adjust itself and to reflect the changes in your listening behavior. 

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

[speedracer350]

I've blocked artists years ago, and they still show up in my recommendations.  I'm not jumping thru any hoops to prevent this.  It's absurd that a massive computer system such as Spotify can't exclude a short list of blocked artists for each user.  

[itz_lexiii]

Also having this issue with some but not all artists I block, please fix this issue or implement blocking on desktop app ASAP.
Artist has been blocked for well over a month and still continues to show up in Release Radar/Discover Weekly almost every time it updates despite me continuously selecting "Hide this song; I don't like ____" every time it shows up, artist is also blocked.

[Freeami]

Same they keep recommending, sexual offenders and Christian music, as well as bland disregard for my personal beliefs, it’s outrageously offensive, and out right disgraceful 24/7, please fix the issue and pull these monsters outta the algorithm 

[oldmankit]

Can I just check what the status of this is? A week ago I blocked an artist called Deuter, as after listening to about 3-5 tracks I realised I don't like any of it. But as you can see from this screenshot Deuter has completely taken over my recommendations for a specific playlist. Am I just supposed to ignore all of these? Or will they slowly go away over time?

[kingofallbirds]

This issue is a huge pain point for me. When I block an artist, they continue to show up all over the list of recommended songs based on playlists. If I have an artist blocked, shouldn't it be easy to exclude them from my recommendations?

I don't block often, it's something I reserve for artists who are NSBM or have committed SA. I don't want to be reminded that these artists exist. One blocked artist in particular shows up in my "based on what's in this playlist" recommendations almost at least once per refresh! I don't want to keep remembering what this guy did lol

I really love the recommendations feature, I've found music I really love through recs, so I use it often... so this is an issue I encounter often.

[onlytocomplain]

Same issue. I never want to see anything from a blocked artist. Why isn't it possible to just hide all the tracks of blocked artists on user level? I don't want to even be reminded that these people exist 

[onlytocomplain]

Why the **bleep** is this playlist on my home screen?

It's **bleep**ing empty and there's this note that says that I should go to home "to find playlist made just for me".  Why the **bleep** can't you just hide blocked artists? How the **bleep** can a million dollar company be incapable of implementing such a basic data management feature?

[NononononoN3v3r]

I am having the same issue, the artist has been blocked for weeks but STILL shoes up on my recommended...

[onlytocomplain]

@Kiril: it doesn't answer anything at all. If I block an artist, that has nothing to do with my listening behaviour. If I block an artist, there is in fact no listening occurring related to that artist, because I blocked him. Seems like a fundamental flaw in the implementation (of a blocking feature), if it doesn't take effect immediately 

[#16]

I listened to an artist a lot, but I don't like them anymore so I blocked them back in February. Unfortunately when I listen to my playlist they keep being added to my queue even tho they aren't in my playlist anymore.

[Young_nhopeless]

I'm recommended albums and songs from artists I have blocked. I see their albums on my main page, I get their songs as recommendations to add to playlist. For example Ethel Cain. I get Ethel's album recommended on my main mage under 'Specially for you' or 'Albums based on your taste'. I don't want to see them on my Spotify! How can I truly block an artist?