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Comment by Benjamin_Dobell | Hacker News Reader

Not just YouTube, Google Play Music's recommendations are truly terrible. I'm regularly being recommended whatever is popular, rather than anything I'll actually listen to. The only time I've ever witnessed Google Play get a recommendation right is when a band I've already added to my library releases a new album.

It irks me that after being a subscriber for many years, Google Play still doesn't have anything like Spotify's Discover Weekly. The Google Play Music recommendations are just so god-damn awful. I don't know if it's actually the case, but they come across as ads, not recommendations i.e. Some record label paid lots of money to be "recommended" frequently.

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Can I ask what music?

It's been pretty good for me with new releases. I mean, it's not perfect but I listen to mostly indie rock and it's turned me on to a lot of stuff I enjoy, and it never suggests top 40. I also never use the thumbs up/down.

Perhaps one of the problems is that the music I listen isn't well defined in terms of genre - songs on the same album can vary significantly. However, I guess mostly post hardcore and progressive rock - there are bands/artists in these genres I like, but others I have absolutely no interest in. However, I also have lots of "rock", punk rock and some pop rock stuff in my library. I mostly get a lot of metal and hardcore recommendations which I'm simply not interested in. It's also not unusual for me to see rap and R&B recommendations, which I'm unlikely to be interested in (although some songs I like may be defined as such).

You need to use the thumbs up to train it, Also if you play the artist's radio it does play similar artists and i have found some new artists that way. But there is no structure to it, the home page only suggests things that are already in my library, mostly i doubt anybody cares about play music at google.

I thumbs down bad recommendations every time I try them. I must admit I don't thumbs up music frequently, but absolutely everything I like I add to my library. I've been doing this since Google Play Music was first launched.

One glaring issue is that you can only easily thumb-down individual songs. There used to be a "Not Interested" button hidden the 3-dot drop down menu, I used that all the time but it never seemed to work - probably why they removed it.

So I guess this actually trumps my previous point, which was music is easier than video. But if you say now google is garbage at recommending music too... then I guess they are not as great as I thought on ML.

im going to have to disagree here. ive trained my google play by hitting the like button on songs i like. My music taste is wide ranging but often quite selective within a genre and its really blown me away with how good its been with providing me with subtley new music i.e just similar enough to interest me but different enough that i dont get bored. This also feeds into my weekly 'new music that i might like' menu. I really dont get suggested anything thats in the charts anymore much to my pleasure!

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