I am in an intense love-hate relationship with Spotify. It makes good mixes for me, I have found a lot of great bands that way. BUT IT KEEPS REGURGITATING THE SAME SONGS IN THERE. I know about Song Radios and Artist Radios, so please don’t recommend those. Smart Shuttle doesn’t cut it, either.
The best thing would be several randomness sliders. One for randomness in bands, the other for randnomness of their songs, one for genres. Please tell me some music service has implemented something like that. I am dying over here.
I’ve been having the same issue. Then I saw a meme implying it’s laziness is a caching issue? I’m going to try clearing the cache daily (or more often if I am using it a lot) and seeing if that helps Spotify be more spontaneous
I use Tidal and it shares the same problem, especially if you are using it in drive mode in your car (Android Auto). I guess they do it to minimize data transmission costs by buffering your favorite songs on your device, but it annoys the hell out of me.
Also, Tidal has a Hip-hop/Rap bias that I was unable to remove after some 2 years of using it. I don’t have a single song from those genres in my favorites or playlists, but it will suggest them all the same. I will block the artists and they will pop up on the new releases page.
Regarding music quality it is miles ahead of Spotify. I don’t know if Spotify has finally released an hi-fi/lossless tier, but at the time Tidal was unmatched. After listening to Tidal hi-fi I could not go back to Spotify’s mungled up audio.
I really wanted to use Tidal because of the Linux thing and FLAC, despite the cost over Spotify etc.
Tried to sign up and had horrendous problems over such a simple thing. Gave up on them. Never had a problem with subscriptions before or since, unless you count insurance auto-renew!
I haven’t had any problem with my subscription.
Their player works very well for my use cases: I use it on my Android phone, on my car via Android Auto, on my LG TV with WebOS and on my Linux machine via Firefox.
That’s very good to read. It was only the sign-up that went badly wrong and getting on touch with them made it worse.
Hopefully I got a disgruntled Customer Service person on a bad day. One of those things.
Enjoy!
Spotify still has done nothing about their audio quality. I use it where I don’t have access to decent playback equipment.
I know it’s not tidal lossless quality, but have you set all the music quality settings to extreme in Spotify settings?
Very high is the maximum, that’s what I use. The same songs in 128kbps mp3 sound much better even in my crappy airpods, not to mention lossless files. My speakers give me a Bose soundbar experience when playing Spotify on them.
You’re right, I don’t know where I got the idea it was called extreme
Does tidal still have lossless? I remember they were replacing all lossless flac with their
qmamqa stuff, which isn’t lossless, and requires you to buy specialized hardware. That was the main reason I chose deezer instead of tidal.Yes, they have a 16bit/44.1KHz FLAC tier (€7.49), as well as a 320Kbps tier for lower data consumption and a 24bit/192KHz tier (€13.99) if you have the Hi-Fi gear to use it.
I have the same gripe with Spotify, you dare like a song and that’s all you get over and over.
I really miss Google Play Music!
Spotify: hey remember that song you accidentally pressed like on, you know the one you listened to for 5 seconds? Yeah, that’s gonna be all you’ll listen to now.
Songza FTW
This wasn’t what you asked for, but I have to add it in here: I switched to YouTube music because I was told the shuffle actually was random there. From my experience the past couple of months it seems to be the case, at the very least it’s better. But discovering new music (without putting in much effort) has been harder. Their playlist sorting is non-existent (you’re stuck with alphabetic order, no folders). And for some idiotic reason the playlists are shared with YouTube… Everything with it, except for its working shuffle, is horrendous.
How the fuck can Spotify just not have a true fucking random shuffle, it’s so annoying! It does everything else fairly well, but I’m not switching back to starting a playlist of 8+ hrs and getting a recognizable pattern depending on what I skip and don’t. Or whatever goddamn algorithm they think is better than /dev/urandom.
This gave me hope for a while, but I’ve now given up: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/4880594/page/103#comments
Thanks, maybe I should really Check that and Apple music out… still frustrating, as no option seems to be great. How can that be, after so many years of music services? What are all those developers doing? Are they stuck in scrum meeting timeloops?
https://spotifyshuffler.com/ this is what I use. To shuffle liked songs, use the desktop app, go to liked songs, ctrl-a, right click, add to new playlist. Then that playlist can be shuffled with that tool and you play it in spotify with shuffle turned off (since the song order is already random). I’ve heard a lot of songs I haven’t heard in forever so it’s super nice
If you want to discover new music, use “Start Radio” in lieu of shuffle.
Yes, I’m aware of the radio ability. I’m not using shuffle to discover new music. I’m using it to play random songs from a large playlist I have.
I use Virtual Shuffle. It forces Spotify to play truly random tracks. https://shuffle.virock.org
I’m ready for downvotes but I use Apple Music and it plays me new music all the time. And if it repeats a song I just say suggest less and it goes away. I play my station and it’s a nice mix of music I like and new stuff.
I’ll second Apple Music!
Even as a primarily Android user, I agree. I have tried most music streaming services at this point and Apple Music has been the best for helping me discover music. Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.
Another plus is Apple Music is one of the last remaining music platforms that is not trying to shove podcasts down my throat.
Thanks, I think I will try it for a bit. Other people recommended YouTube music, I’m a bit torn between those rn
I’m using Appel music as well and I think it’s great for the most part. It sometimes has a weird bug where it won’t play downloaded music unless you have internet though.
Spotify has that bug too, and it’s infuriating. Whenever I’m on a plane or something I have to put Spotify in “offline mode”, otherwise it just refuses to play all the music I’ve downloaded.
That makes it even weirder. Probably some DRM thing.
And it is free to stream!(2015)And it is only 2.99 $(2018)And it’s only 4.99!(2020) And it’s only 10.99! (2023)We went from free to 132$ in 8 years for (check notes) listening to the radio.
Is everyone cool with paying 20$ a month in 2028?
The service has improved every time though in Apple’s defense…and if there’s one company I actually trust to improve on its services it is Apple (not a fanboy, they have their own issues, just delivering quality consistently isn’t one of them).
I think most people use it in bundles with other Apple subscriptions like iCloud and TV
They have all gone up in price:
The most marked increase is in the overall Apple One bundle. Its lowest, or individual tier, used to cost $16.95 per month but as of now, it is $19.95 per month.
Similarly, the Family Apple One tier has risen from $22.95/month to $25.95/month. And the Premier tier is now up from $32.95 to $37.95.
The price rise for Apple One comes at the same time as increases for many of its major constituent services.
Apple TV+ was $6.99/month, now $9.99 Apple News+ was $9.99/month, now $12.99 Apple Arcade was $4.99/month, now $6.99
We’ll have to see how long subscription services will be able to raise prices. I hope that there will be some disruption soon.
Agreed, my new music mix is usually pretty good too.
It’s also got actual radio stations. This is how I found out about Studio Brussel.
The discovery radio works really well too as long as you’ve been liking and disliking things.
Plex without Chromecast.
I’m enjoying Plexamp
I have been using https://spotifyshuffler.com/. This allows you to create a shuffled version of your playlist, then you play through that version once with Spotify’s shuffling disabled.
Is the idea that it’ll break Spotify preference to play only certain stuff?
The idea is that you don’t rely on Spotify shuffle at all. A separate app reads your playlist, shuffles it once, and puts that shuffled version into your library. Now you can play this new version with the in-Spotify shuffle disabled. Once you’ve heard all the songs, just rinse and repeat.
I don’t suppose you’ve tried the “DJ” feature? It’s usually pretty good for me, but of course your mileage may vary.
I’ve run into the same problem of the shuffle (and “smart” shuffle) just plays the exact same thing all the time, even in a playlist with thousands of songs. Tried out YouTube music for a while, and it’s not much better. So I’ll be interested in what others say here.
The best one for me a long time ago was Pandora - for some reason I was under the impression they weren’t around anymore, but it looks like they are. But, I don’t know if they are still as great as they were back then.
I was enjoying the DJ feature until it started cramming in top 40 shite into my mix that doesn’t even come close to resembling anything I would ever listen to. And not just one song - usually three or four in a row. I used to love Pandora’s shuffle play feature but it’s no longer available in my country.
Is it weird that I don’t use any of these streaming services and just use my own library via FTP (if I’m not at home)?
Where do you get the (new) music from, CDs/albums?
While I primarily use streaming services, I almost always still buy albums on Bandcamp for the day when I need to go back to running my own music. You can save up for a Bandcamp Friday when more goes to the artist. Bandcamp has been the best place for music for awhile. Best to get in before Songtradr continues the destruction Epic started.
I pirate. I buy only what I really really like, and I’d like to have a hard copy (CD, vinyl), not digital download. If there is only digital download available, I pirate it.
I’m (slowly) working my way towards that too (it’s hell to classify though) but how do you discover new music?
Like I’ve always done, through friends or the internet 🤷.
I don’t have a small collection BTW. Things weren’t always discovered through app suggestions 😂.
Cool!
But if I understand you correctly you have a load and loads of stuff? How do you deal with it?
I mean, awhile ago I shazamed songs I liked and I got everything they ever produced and got cluttered up. It’s not the disk space but I don’t have the time to classify it all (in some perfect way) and I don’t even have a way to classify songs, some are good but only in a party setting, but another is both for a party setting, a long car ride and for outdoor business etc etc.
Any help greatly appreciated:-) !
Oh, yeah, classification takes some time. I classify by style (Pop, Rock, Metal, Techno, etc.). And I have 2 different “classification directories”, lol 😂. One is for albums/compilations. They are also sorted by style, but there are whole albums. The other one is with singles (like single tracks, not singles as in releases, lol 😂). Like, let’s say I like just 1 track from a certain artist and I don’t think anything else is worth it from that album (or EP, whatever). I download the whole thing, then delete everything else and just keep that 1 single track. So, let’s say this artist is a pop artist. I have a folder named Pop + Hip-Hop + House + Etc. and I just put it in there 😂. There’s like thousands of tracks there 😂.
So, let’s say I’m in the mood for something specific. I know where it resides, whether it be a whole album or a single track in the “randomness” directories (😂), I find it and I play it. If I’m just in a mood for music, in general, nothing specific, I usually just load the Pop + … directory in the playlist, set random and just hit play. Something I don’t like pops up, I just hit next 🤷.
I hope I helped. Sorting by style is what works for me 🤷. Sure, it’s not perfect, but I really don’t see any other sort style as better than that.
I installed Navidrome for that
I could google that, but I’m in a chatty mood 😂, could you explain what that is?
I think this article can help you https://www.newvisiontheatres.com/spotify-shuffle-plays-same-songs
Thank you. I didn’t know about the Automix setting, and it’s enabled by default
Turn off Automix in your settings and the Playlist work much better
Automix doesn’t do what you’re saying it does, it is only an advanced version of crossfading the end of one song and the start of another.
No, it isn’t crossfade. It adds random music to your Playlist. I found this fix on Reddit the other day and it made a big difference, I’m now hearing songs on my liked song Playlist that I’ve not heard in a long time.
deleted by creator
Same gripe. I recently requested all my data from Spotify, scraped play counts out of it (thanks for not providing that in the API) and made a playlist of my liked songs in ascending play count order. Shuffling that, I’m hearing songs I love which I haven’t heard in years. Sucks that it takes so much effort
I’ve been thinking about something like that as well. Can you create playlists and add songs via the API? Really have to check that out.
But yes, it’s a frustrating trend, I have that with smart home stuff as well. Huge vendors sell powerful enough hardware, but it’s dumbed down and after some point you get so frustrated you start tinkering with their API. Almost seems like a ploy to get all abled people distracted, so they don’t use their time and energy to work on building guillotines
I’m pretty sure you can create playlists and add songs via the API. For my purposes, because I wasn’t otherwise using the API, I found it easier to just manually copy a list of URLs in/out of playlists on the desktop app.
Vim + grep + tiny python snippet = good enough
Now though, I’m thinking a little script which did a “true shuffle” on a playlist, via the API, that could then be played in playlist order could be just as useful…
Even better, one already exists…
Shuffle no repeat on my 60 gb ipod classic. Also shuffle no repeat using VLC for android on my phone.
YouTube Music is what I use. You can start a radio from a song, and it’ll play new music. You can also change the Up Next to different styles if you want familiar or new music.
Man I didn’t even know those buttons existed. I thought I always had to go through the music tuner to land in a “discover” playlist tuned to certain artists. This is so much easier, thanks!!
I should also add that with YouTube Revanced you can make the app ad free, which is the primary reason I use it over other music streaming
deleted by creator
This is kinda how I operate. Just listen to pandora while I’m doing other tasks and see if new songs grow on me, then every few weeks, I put all my thumbed up songs on spotify playlists.
