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Comment by rumblerock | Hacker News Reader

On top of that, if you listen to a wide range of genres the attempt to shoehorn your history into 6 Daily Mixes yields some comical results. Like Doobie Brothers followed by Nirvana.

Give me a home screen with 12 or more Daily Mixes that segment my listening behavior at a finer resolution, and I'd be a lot happier with the service.

I understand why all the other playlists exist, but I generally have an idea of exactly what I'm trying to listen to, so these low effort curated playlists are pretty useless for my listening style.

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> Like Doobie Brothers followed by Nirvana.

What's inherently comical about this?

One of my least favorite experiences is having a radio station based on a song and getting nothing but songs that sound just like it.

Unless you have only played 90s grunge or 70s soft rock I'm not sure why this juxtaposition is not considered a feature.

I agree. I love the wider scope of Spotify’s mixes. If I wanted a narrow scope then I’d just have created the playlist myself like the old days (or just thrown an album on). The reason I use Spotify mixes is for a variety within an approximate mood. And I’ve discovered so many good news tunes and artists through their mixes.

That all said, I do wish I could turn off their podcast recommendations. I never listen to podcasts and worse yet they keep shoving that same comedians is absolutely hate (and there aren’t many comedians I dislike; which just goes to show how far off the mark their podcast recommendations are)

Or even search for someone else's playlist!

Not happy about being forced ads though (on some podcasts)... I thought the idea of paying monthly was the value exchange for the content.

The local classic rock radio station I listened to growing up has continued to slowly expand what they consider "classic"; whenever I go back home, it's always interesting to hear stuff like grunge and some metal (like certain Metallica songs). Hearing a Nirvana song right after the Doobie Brothers is exactly the type of thing I've probably heard before from them!

If you are listening to these songs back to back, you aren't getting the value either one offers.

It's like watching a movie that's half Fred Astaire and half Freddy Kreuger.

That example might be OK, but my daily mixes include "Weird Al, Nerdcore Comedy, and also Radiohead" and "60s/70s/80s Rock and also Broadway Show Tunes". The transitions are very bizarre.

I made the example up, but this is a better example of the phenomenon I was getting at.

My recent favorite was an auto generated “Soul playlist.” It had some super old school R&B tunes…then Dark Souls boss battle music.

Well for me at least, I listen to music depending on mood. It's not generally that I dislike mixing, quite the opposite actually. But when I'm in the mood for metalcore, I'm not in the mood for happy hardcore. And when I'm looking for something quick, I don't want a slow song mixed in.

I like the idea of mixing genres, but Spotify seems to totally miss on what aspects I want mixed.

Then you can simply find a song that matches what you're exactly wanting to listen to and start the "song radio" from there. For me the problem is exactly the contrary, I can't find enough diversity in the daily mixes, it's mostly all songs I've either explicitly "liked" or heard a couple times before.

Diversity in daily mixes is an issue for sure. I do use the song radio feature but find it's hit or miss - they usually start off strong, but seem to lose the thread at a certain point.

It's a fine balance between existing liked songs and expanding within sub-genres, but I have at least noticed the recommendations improving over the past few years.

I suspect it would help to port over my entire pre-Spotify music library into Spotify to provide a bit more data, my current library is all post-Spotify so it fails to capture the breadth of my music taste. I've just never gotten around to it.

I've considered getting a spotify family account, using separate accounts for major genres and one for browsing. I have a browsing profile for Netflix so I can freely explore without messing up the suggestions.

For me, I listen to a lot of 40s, 50 - 60s lounge / exotica, early to mid 90s hip hop, 80s metal, and the standard indie stuff... then I have a bunch of chillwave and synthwave stuff that throws another wrench in the mix. The daily mixes I get are a total mess, much like yours.

The genre-specific mixes they make are pretty decent, but discovery is low.

I use my family account for other uses too.

I have a separate account just for Amazon Echo because I don't want my kid's selections to influence my main account suggestions.

I also have my own account for the car, where explicit songs are disallowed. This allows me to listen to the music I like, but it avoid explicit songs for when my kids are in the car and that setting doesn't affect my main account.

it’s crazy that we need to jump through hoops. these providers should allow an opt out for specific devices or at least the ability to apply context.

I like the variety of them so I'm happy to have them mix genres like that, except they're too repetitive.

And for those that are actually into the sort of thing, I recommend Doobie Brothers + Linkin Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cXjcKTRWcg

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