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Spotify (and I assume others) doesn't exactly serve a random playlist, but one that favours/returns more revenue back to them. So older releases, "burned out" s

Spotify (and I assume others) doesn't exactly serve a random playlist, but one that favours/returns more revenue back to them. So older releases, "burned out" songs and so on. Create a playlist with 10 songs, add 8 before the 90s (e.g. Cure, U2 etc.) and add some newer ones (after 2000 - e.g. Radiohead). You'll be living in the 80s for most of the time... If you search the Spotify forums, there are a few posts on the issue with no official answer from Spotify whatsoever.

hadrien01 7y ago
One way to mitigate that is to play music in alphabetical order, it's more random than "random" and you can listen to artists you wouldn't ear with the "random" order
- ngomez 7y ago
  This doesn't work too well if someone adds Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV or Kendrick Lamar's untitled unmastered to their playlist.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
I also suspect this is the case. I also feel like it's part of the reason Spotify has aggressively wiped out easy discovery of user-curated playlists in favor of their own playlists. Just about every playlist you see when browsing around is one authored by Spotify. It used to be that you could find lost of community-made content in the Browse tab. If you want a good, user-maintained playlist now, you have to know its exact name in order to find it. There is no community behind the platform anymore, only an algorithm that maximizes margin for the company.