[Radio] Radio algorithim still sucks - same songs are still playing.

[swanky-n-spanky]

Hey there!

Since it's nearly 2021, and it's been a hard year, do you think you guys could finally fix the **bleep**ing radio algorithms?

It's been like this forever.

Forget all the features you don't add; Forget all the bugs you don't fix: I just want to be able to get an actual variety of songs!  An end to knowing that every single generated list or radio station will give me the same thirty-odd songs from the same thirty-odd artists. Not even, y'know, different songs by all those artists - the same songs.

It's like Spotify keeps on dipping into my listening history, and then directly dumps the most listened songs back into my playlist; Or, not even that. It's like Spotify hand-picks some great songs it thinks I'll like, after knowing my tastes; and then just throws them at me on repeat, until I start to hate them.

God, I could name about a dozen songs right now that I keep getting, every single time I turn on some kind of generated radio. I'm not even joking; maybe 20-50% of the selections I get. For every single session, on every single device, from nearly every song or artist or otherwise generated radio, forever and ever, and ever and ever. Unto infinity.


Drives me crazy. Anyway, thanks!

[msmit132]

I completely agree with you! I listen to a few different genres of music, so it sucks when I'm vibing to some slow jams and then trap music starts playing out of nowhere. It would be nice if the radio introduced you to new music by similar artist - or at the very least artist already in the playlist. 

I'm not sure how the functions work for the radio, but maybe try focusing on the most recent songs/artist added to the playlist, or artist (and/or similar artist) most prevalent in the playlist.

[swanky-n-spanky]

I don't think the Spotify devs know either, and they're the ones that built this **bleep**.

I know that the generated radio CAN work; I've heard of friends using abstract tricks to make it generate a wider or more relevant variety of songs, and prevent constant repeats.

So, my question is this: If the USERS can find a way to make the radio stations work, why can't the assholes that designed it?

[Alex]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for reaching out.

Spotify constantly strives to improve the user experience with its features and the easiest way to achieve this is by regular app updates. That’s why we appreciate you taking the time to share your suggestion with the Community. 

If you think other users might also like to have a way to influence what their Radio recommendations offer, go ahead and create an idea on the relevant idea board. We always take new ideas and feedback into consideration to improve the app. Here you can read more on how ideas work.

We also suggest checking this help article for useful tips on how to submit an idea. As a heads-up, it's good to know that the higher the number of votes an idea gets, the more likely it is for the idea to be implemented.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.

[Emmaje]

This doesn't help anything Alex. People have been making idea requests ever since this issue first began, and have been complaining about it since. That was a long time ago.

To be frank, it honestly feels like Spotify just doesn't give a shite about its community at all.

[Mihail]

Hey @Emmaje,

Thanks for posting.

The way the radio generates playlists is that it includes songs based not only on the artist and genre, but also on your personal library and likes and those of other users who have started such a radio. Because of this certain iterations might have similarities, but you can help the algorithm avoid those by expanding your music collection. So if you keep liking more song and following new artists, you should start seeing an improvement after a while.

If you have suggestions on how to improve the radio, you can request that a feature be added or altered by posting and idea as @Alex suggested. That way we can keep an eye on how popular it is and pass the feedback in the thread to the developers.

Hope this shines a bit of light on the matter. We'll be here if you have any other questions.

[matan1]

Holy **bleep**. If I listen to Mamboo Sun and Hold On one more freaking time I'm going to explode. I used to love these songs!

[veronicalsc]

SAME! It's overplaying things I like so much I hate them. Spotify created our own personalized brand of Top 40 **bleep**.

[jorishin]

Same here. Every time I click on a pre-90 song and choose "go to song radio", I got the same songs I never even liked. I am forced to broaden my musical horizon. 

[jorishin]

I think I found a workaround for this mess: instead of creating a "song radio", go to the artist and create a "artist radio". Result is a completely different list

[swanky-n-spanky]

Right on. I appreciate the trick.

You know, for a company that sacrifices every single part of the user experience for better tastemaking, Spotify's radio generation can be shockingly bad.

[swanky-n-spanky]

@Mihail

Not sure why you chose to hit people with that little copy + paste nugget. It's so blatantly deaf that it's offensive. You're clearly not listening - and if you're not listening, why should we?

[daltonsolo]

It would be nice if it played similar songs based on the composition / genre / style of the song more than the users listening history. I want to hear similar songs I’ve never even considered, maybe from an artist I’ve never heard of. That’s what I thought the whole point was. I don’t mind if the algorithm uses other users listening history & favorites as a way to gently influence the generated playlist, but it feels very heavily weighted towards songs I’ve already listened to & favorited. But like take Planet Caravan by Black Sabbath for example - it’s a super mellow song that differs from most of their catalogue, yet I get a bunch of heavier songs thrown in the playlist. It should be based on what the actual ****ing song sounds like!!

[Soundchasr]

Just joined Spotify hoping its "radio" was better than Deezer's.  Doesn't sound like it from the complaints..... Deezer constantly played the same songs even though I have 1,200 favorites with everything from Kate Bush to Slayer.  

[Soundchasr]

Spotify should look at a feature like LiveXLive.  You can completely customize everything about your "radio".  

[Digamma]

I'm sorry, have you EVER seen the idea on the spotify community forum that says we want to listen to more of the music we've already listened to?
Tell me straight, is there a singular popular thread here that says "oh gee, golly wiz, I sure hope spotify gives me a playlist of all the songs I've already listened to instead of something new?"

"Oh boy, I sure hope my radio makes a playlist consisting entirely of my liked songs and my previous listening history"
"Hey, neat, I love that my discover weekly is 90% repeats from 6 months ago"

This has been a problem for over three years, and we still get generic responses and no implementation of the feedback. What exactly gives?

I had this exact problem just now, where I tried to make a radio out of a piano jazz song, thinking it would give me more piano jazz. No, spotify just rips out half my electro library and says "you wanted electro right? And not that one good jazz song?". What if I want to stop listening to electro for a week? I can't even ask the damn software for suggestions, because the algorithm just looks back six months and goes, "ah yes, more electro", and refills my listening history with more electro.

Can we get a serious response about this, because there's a new post about it once per week?

[daquan33]

I have the same problem. The "autoplay similar songs" option used to have great variety and helped me discover so much new music. Now it just goes to a "station based on (song)" playlist, which has a couple dozen songs. These playlists never change/refresh, and always play in the same order. You can't even shuffle them

No matter where I go, it's the same music I've played hundreds of times. Daily Mixes? Same songs. Radio Stations? Same songs. All those colorful playlists cluttering the home page? Same songs. I've played tens of thousands of songs yet they put me into an echo chamber with a tiny fraction.

I really liked Spotify and the cross platform capabilities, but I'm not paying $180 a year for this. If you have this problem, you should probably get out while you can. It's been reported to Spotify for years and they've continually made it worse.

That $180 doesn't mean anything to them of course, but it definitely means something to me. Let's put our money into a service that's evolving, instead of one that's self destructing.

[Pelam]

I found https://everynoise.com/ on reddit. It uses Spotify's data to generate play lists for all genres based on what people listen AFAIK. So far very nice.

[AndreasNey]

what a fing disaster. by the time they started spending hundreds of millions on podcasts instead of focusing on finally having a reasonable radio function , i knew i would NEVER renew my subscribtion at this point. useless management and leadership , nothing's improving. the competition is already ahead

[TheSessionOhio]

PLEASE DEAR LORD. 

Spotify it's been a year since this has posted and the radio algorithm is even worse!

I don't want a list of songs I've already saved. Please make it how it was before. Give me some new songs/new artists please.

The radio function is broken!