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Comment by 6581 | Hacker News Reader

> It keeps pushing playlists that feel generic, bland, more based on demographics than my years of consistent listening history.

I don't really agree with this point. The personal playlists (both Discover Weekly and the Daily Mix ones) are very close to what I usually listen to and have made me discover dozens of artists I didn't know before. Maybe they work better for some than for others, but they don't feel like being based just on demographics at all to me.

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I feel like both of you are correct. It feels to me that Spotify's recommendations easily gets stuck in a 'local maxima' where it just keeps recommending the same music over again with little variation. I found much more variation from other music streaming services where the playlists are supposedly actually human curated. Music just ends up feeling a lot more bland with Spotify, in my experience.

I don't even know what the Discover Weekly playlist is supposed to be. It frequently puts in not-new songs from not-new artists Spotify know I've been listening to.

Same experience for me.

I think the parent might be a new user. It was good for me for a few years but now it’s just stale as shit.

> I think the parent might be a new user.

I've been using Spotify since 2015.

I've had the same exact experience. I had to stop relying on Spotify-generated playlists because they just kept giving me the same familiar songs over and over again.

But spotify has human curated playlists for different genres, does it not?

The "local maxima" thing is interesting, because while with Spotify it is noticeable sometimes, it was a lot worse of a problem with Google Play Music which I previously used. By the time they shut that down, I almost felt trapped into listening to nothing but Tycho.

> I found much more variation from other music streaming services where the playlists are supposedly actually human curated.

Like which ones? I tried Tidal and music discovery sucks just as badly there too. I'm really craving a music discovery experience that brings back the humanity. Even when an algorithm suggests a good song, it still feels hollow and divorced from any cultural context.

I think Apple Music's playlists and algorithmic recommendations are much better and have more variation. Unfortuantely, Apple Music is terrible at playing music. OP can rightfully complain all they want about homepage customisation, but Apple Music, even on iOS, will just regularly refuse to play music files. Even worse with their embarrasing web or Windows clients.

I think Spotify's problem may stem from their quest from incresingly precise taxonomy for music https://pudding.cool/2023/10/genre/

Not sure if it's a different team building the feature or maybe it is because they are more constrained by the actual choices of the existing playlist, but the recommendations I get underneath a playlist that I am creating are MUCH better than the generic playlists for the same genre that get promoted on the homepage / search results.

Yeah I find these recommendations (which I think are the same ones that play after an album or whatever has finished) to be really good on the whole. There are some songs it keeps suggesting and after a while it can get a bit “stuck” on the same artists, but I’ve discovered so much good music through them. The main For You playlists aren’t much good for me. I thought it might be down to the stronger signal of “this is specifically what I want to listen to”

+1 discover weekly consistently delivers a few new songs to my like list - I actually look forward to it each Monday when I start work.

My main complaint with Spotify's recommendations algorithm is that you cannot provide any clear negative feedback to it anymore.

I played a single Christmas album from an artist that my mom wanted to hear over the holidays, but I don't like that artist or style of music otherwise.

Now, every time they release a new song it comes up in my release radar, and random similar things pollute my discover weekly.

There's no way to say "never recommend this to me" or to remove past listens from my history. I'm just forever doomed, apparently, to get jumpscared with Christian contemporary music anytime I try to play these playlists.

Yeah fair enough, I have had the occasional few months where it goes a little haywire (too skewed to a genre / style I was just curiously listening to, rather than wanting more of).

It does seem to fix itself - although a negative feedback mechanism would be nice!

I don’t agree with the author too. My Release Radar is totally on point with my type of genre, it has been this way. I’m curious if author has a generic taste in music?

Same, even if music is available freely through YouTube or else, Spotify's recommendations are the reason I am still subscribed

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