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This is why I refuse to play the Discover Weekly playlist. I strongly believe that Spotify is getting money out of made up artists, with songs put up by algorit

This is why I refuse to play the Discover Weekly playlist. I strongly believe that Spotify is getting money out of made up artists, with songs put up by algorithms in some way, and that's the best way to get them to you. Regarding the 'hacking', it never happened to me, but it's easy to see how troublesome that may be. But that's what we get for trusting an application that promises to get us free music forever. It had to have drawbacks, eventually.

SyneRyder 8y ago
I wouldn't be afraid of the Discover Weekly playlist. I think it's Spotify's best feature. For me, it surfaces great songs & artists I hadn't heard before, and sometimes it's almost spookily accurate. For Discover Weekly to work though, it helps to feed it good data. It's based on a PageRank-like system, but instead of webpages it's based on user playlists [1]. If you create some of your own playlists, it will go and find other songs that appear regularly on similar playlists. Personally, I've made a large 800-track playlist of music I listen to while coding ([2] if anyone else is interested), and another with every song ever played at a goth/industrial nightclub I used to go to. I rarely see "made up" artists, but I often like the ones I have been recommended - I really like "Time" on Nowi's EP called Reunion. It's actually made by Firefly Entertainment [3], a Swedish music production company that usually makes film & TV show soundtracks. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/30/9416579/spotify-discover-weekly-online-music-curation-interview https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/30/9416579/spotify-discover-... [2] https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/5YpeoHyEHG7ttNgvzAkW72?si=qORllZUrROmEepbH0gaajw https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/5YpeoHyEHG7... [3] http://hellofirefly.com/ http://hellofirefly.com/
- peapicker 8y ago
  You should share that goth/industrial list too, I love that stuff.
  - SyneRyder 8y ago
    Seems I'd accidentally made the goth nightclub playlist public anyway - here's the link, though it isn't as well maintained as the other playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/3AOszFh3njRxaO9vvs8T8S?si=IqMRukuxT4mJ5eXDDsXwSA https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/3AOszFh3njR...
breakingcups 8y ago
Do you have any proof whatsoever to support your bold statements? My Discover Weekly is usually great every week and I've discovered many (real!) cool artists that I like through it. It's possible there's a lot of low quality filler music on Spotify and that your account got algorithmically lumped in the bucket to get there recommended, but to say Spotify is "in on it" seems like a very big leap.
- sandrobfc 8y ago
  I just can't trust it when an instrumental song by a band that I can't find anywhere else kicks in. I'm not saying that Discover Weekly can't provide you great artists that you don't know, but I can't trust it. It leaves me with the sense that I've been tricked and I'd rather avoid it all together.
peteretep 8y ago
> This is why I refuse to play the Discover Weekly playlist. I strongly believe that Spotify is getting money out of made up artists, with songs put up by algorithms in some way, and that's the best way to get them to you. Flesh this out for me, because it's hilarious. How are Spotify making money from that, exactly? I listen to Discover Weekly most weeks, and if Spotify is generating them, then: A) They're creating some amazing music, so more power to them B) They're putting a hell of a lot of work into creating back stories for these bands
- sandrobfc 8y ago
  They are not making money from Discover Weekly, but they make money from made-up artists, since they don't have to pay anyone to have that music up there. It's easy to do the math from there. The work they have in making a few artists up is nothing compared to what they would have to pay for an actual artist to have their albuns there.

SyneRyder 8y ago

I wouldn't be afraid of the Discover Weekly playlist. I think it's Spotify's best feature. For me, it surfaces great songs & artists I hadn't heard before, and sometimes it's almost spookily accurate. For Discover Weekly to work though, it helps to feed it good data. It's based on a PageRank-like system, but instead of webpages it's based on user playlists [1]. If you create some of your own playlists, it will go and find other songs that appear regularly on similar playlists. Personally, I've made a large 800-track playlist of music I listen to while coding ([2] if anyone else is interested), and another with every song ever played at a goth/industrial nightclub I used to go to. I rarely see "made up" artists, but I often like the ones I have been recommended - I really like "Time" on Nowi's EP called Reunion. It's actually made by Firefly Entertainment [3], a Swedish music production company that usually makes film & TV show soundtracks. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/30/9416579/spotify-discover-weekly-online-music-curation-interview https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/30/9416579/spotify-discover-... [2] https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/5YpeoHyEHG7ttNgvzAkW72?si=qORllZUrROmEepbH0gaajw https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/5YpeoHyEHG7... [3] http://hellofirefly.com/ http://hellofirefly.com/

peapicker 8y ago
You should share that goth/industrial list too, I love that stuff.
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  Seems I'd accidentally made the goth nightclub playlist public anyway - here's the link, though it isn't as well maintained as the other playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/3AOszFh3njRxaO9vvs8T8S?si=IqMRukuxT4mJ5eXDDsXwSA https://open.spotify.com/user/syneryder/playlist/3AOszFh3njR...

breakingcups 8y ago

Do you have any proof whatsoever to support your bold statements? My Discover Weekly is usually great every week and I've discovered many (real!) cool artists that I like through it. It's possible there's a lot of low quality filler music on Spotify and that your account got algorithmically lumped in the bucket to get there recommended, but to say Spotify is "in on it" seems like a very big leap.

sandrobfc 8y ago
I just can't trust it when an instrumental song by a band that I can't find anywhere else kicks in. I'm not saying that Discover Weekly can't provide you great artists that you don't know, but I can't trust it. It leaves me with the sense that I've been tricked and I'd rather avoid it all together.

peteretep 8y ago

> This is why I refuse to play the Discover Weekly playlist. I strongly believe that Spotify is getting money out of made up artists, with songs put up by algorithms in some way, and that's the best way to get them to you. Flesh this out for me, because it's hilarious. How are Spotify making money from that, exactly? I listen to Discover Weekly most weeks, and if Spotify is generating them, then: A) They're creating some amazing music, so more power to them B) They're putting a hell of a lot of work into creating back stories for these bands

sandrobfc 8y ago
They are not making money from Discover Weekly, but they make money from made-up artists, since they don't have to pay anyone to have that music up there. It's easy to do the math from there. The work they have in making a few artists up is nothing compared to what they would have to pay for an actual artist to have their albuns there.