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I just wish Spotify could serve up a stream of recommended tracks, based on your listening history, like Last.fm can. Spotify's "Radio" feature compounds my di

by frou_dh 15y ago

I just wish Spotify could serve up a stream of recommended tracks, based on your listening history, like Last.fm can. Spotify's "Radio" feature compounds my dislike of "genres" as a means of navigating and discovering music. Radio, play me a stream of "Rock / Alternative / Pop / 70s" What the ---- does that even mean? Guaranteed you'll be skipping 9 out of 10 tracks it serves up. I hate genres. Every file in my local music collection has that tag blanked.

2arrs2ells 15y ago
Not only is "Radio" iffy - it doesn't even exist in the iPhone app. On mobile, there's essentially no way to discover new music.
alexmuller 15y ago
I can't agree with this strongly enough. Why doesn't Spotify have any kind of recommendations? I'd also love to see iTunes Genius implemented in Spotify, but instead of just using my library for similar songs (like iTunes does) they could pull from the whole catalog.
- rhizome 15y ago
  I don't know the details here, but I do know that Pandora has some patents in this area.
socillion 15y ago
Have you tried Pandora? It is an absolutely amazing service that has an uncanny ability to find very similar music, occasionally finding gems from a different genre. They also have tons of small, high quality bands. The biggest con is that a specific "channel" can start to repeat the same 50 or so songs, but that is easily solved by making a new one. It is well worth the $36/year for the paid ad-free version, and the adobe air desktop app is lightweight and responsive. Nice bonus: you can have up to 2 or 3 computers streaming music on the same account simultaneously. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how awesome Pandora is. Windows 7 in the US; YMMV elsewhere.
- randallsquared 15y ago
  On Linux and the Mac, the command line Pandora client "pianobar" works really well, and while API updates break it, it's always been mere hours before it was fixed, in my experience.
  - larsberg 15y ago
    If you're on a mac and want something in the menubar (or whatever they call the thing on the top), try PandaBar. Very nice, has keybindings, and the dev adds features requested as quickly as Apple will turn around updates through the App Store.
- meeeu 15y ago
  I've been using Pandora since before they went public and just love the service. Prefer the old Flash version better than the current one but it is good none-the-less. I noticed Spotify on Facebook and became interested in trying it. Evidently I knew very little about Spotify because I thought it was a web app. Long story short never did try Spotify because I didn't want to download client on every machine that I work on. Pandora is still the best solution to the 1 playlist anywhere problem for me.
- tallanvor 15y ago
  Pandora is nice, but I refuse to pay for a service where I have to vpn to the US in order to be able to use it. I'm also not overly impressed with the Android app. --It works, but it's not wonderful.
  - ryanhuff 15y ago
    Pandora on android routinely skips songs half way through for me. Its unusable.
- pnathan 15y ago
  Pandora contracted with Facebook and started showing what my friends were listening to (I had used the same emails in both). That same day I quit Pandora. At that point in time, they did not even have a mechanism to kill your account, so I had to email the company personally. I quit my Facebook account not long after. I refuse to willingly partake in a surveillance society.
frankdenbow 15y ago
This is the main reason why I am using Rdio now. Their radio functionality is awesome and they now have a free version with no ads. Finding lots of new music through them.
cwb71 15y ago
"Discovery," both social and machine-generated, is MUCH better on Rdio. I suspect (but have no proof) that they use Echonest for the latter. There is also a slick Chrome extension that puts the Last.fm "Similar Tracks" under the currently playing song.
scelerat 15y ago
Mog does this now. We recommend based on play history and, if you have Facebook connected, we offer you recommendations based on your Facebook likes, as well as a separate collection of recommendations based on your friend's likes. We also tell you which friend recommended which album, so you can immediately tell whose tastes are more in line with yours and whose are poo.
- lancepantz 15y ago
  Mog blows spotify away. You say "we", so good work!
  - ryanklee 15y ago
    It appears that I /must/ use Facebook to try out mog with a free account... is this true or is the site just overly convoluted? If it is true, yikes. If it's not true, still yikes.
    - scelerat 15y ago
      True for the present time. Was not true in the past.
      - eisbaer 15y ago
        Based on your comments and looking around the site, I was excited about checking Mog out. Requiring facebook is a deal breaker for me. Why restrict the way users can join?
cdk 15y ago
I've been using Spotify for 2 weeks now after using Rdio for 6 months and I rather like Spotify's Radio feature a lot. The recommendations I get from it seems no better or worse than Rdio's (for me) but I don't mind it and skipping tracks seems so seamless that I barely notice it. What really sold me on Spotify was Boxee support.
pbreit 15y ago
Spotify's "artist radio" is a bit better but it still has a ways to go to displace Pandora. Once it does so (if ever) I'll be upgrading.

by frou_dh 15y ago

2arrs2ells 15y ago

Not only is "Radio" iffy - it doesn't even exist in the iPhone app. On mobile, there's essentially no way to discover new music.

alexmuller 15y ago

I can't agree with this strongly enough. Why doesn't Spotify have any kind of recommendations? I'd also love to see iTunes Genius implemented in Spotify, but instead of just using my library for similar songs (like iTunes does) they could pull from the whole catalog.

rhizome 15y ago
I don't know the details here, but I do know that Pandora has some patents in this area.

socillion 15y ago

Have you tried Pandora? It is an absolutely amazing service that has an uncanny ability to find very similar music, occasionally finding gems from a different genre. They also have tons of small, high quality bands. The biggest con is that a specific "channel" can start to repeat the same 50 or so songs, but that is easily solved by making a new one. It is well worth the $36/year for the paid ad-free version, and the adobe air desktop app is lightweight and responsive. Nice bonus: you can have up to 2 or 3 computers streaming music on the same account simultaneously. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how awesome Pandora is. Windows 7 in the US; YMMV elsewhere.

randallsquared 15y ago
On Linux and the Mac, the command line Pandora client "pianobar" works really well, and while API updates break it, it's always been mere hours before it was fixed, in my experience.
- larsberg 15y ago
  If you're on a mac and want something in the menubar (or whatever they call the thing on the top), try PandaBar. Very nice, has keybindings, and the dev adds features requested as quickly as Apple will turn around updates through the App Store.
meeeu 15y ago
I've been using Pandora since before they went public and just love the service. Prefer the old Flash version better than the current one but it is good none-the-less. I noticed Spotify on Facebook and became interested in trying it. Evidently I knew very little about Spotify because I thought it was a web app. Long story short never did try Spotify because I didn't want to download client on every machine that I work on. Pandora is still the best solution to the 1 playlist anywhere problem for me.
tallanvor 15y ago
Pandora is nice, but I refuse to pay for a service where I have to vpn to the US in order to be able to use it. I'm also not overly impressed with the Android app. --It works, but it's not wonderful.
- ryanhuff 15y ago
  Pandora on android routinely skips songs half way through for me. Its unusable.
pnathan 15y ago
Pandora contracted with Facebook and started showing what my friends were listening to (I had used the same emails in both). That same day I quit Pandora. At that point in time, they did not even have a mechanism to kill your account, so I had to email the company personally. I quit my Facebook account not long after. I refuse to willingly partake in a surveillance society.

frankdenbow 15y ago

This is the main reason why I am using Rdio now. Their radio functionality is awesome and they now have a free version with no ads. Finding lots of new music through them.

cwb71 15y ago

"Discovery," both social and machine-generated, is MUCH better on Rdio. I suspect (but have no proof) that they use Echonest for the latter. There is also a slick Chrome extension that puts the Last.fm "Similar Tracks" under the currently playing song.

scelerat 15y ago

Mog does this now. We recommend based on play history and, if you have Facebook connected, we offer you recommendations based on your Facebook likes, as well as a separate collection of recommendations based on your friend's likes. We also tell you which friend recommended which album, so you can immediately tell whose tastes are more in line with yours and whose are poo.

lancepantz 15y ago
Mog blows spotify away. You say "we", so good work!
- ryanklee 15y ago
  It appears that I /must/ use Facebook to try out mog with a free account... is this true or is the site just overly convoluted? If it is true, yikes. If it's not true, still yikes.
  - scelerat 15y ago
    True for the present time. Was not true in the past.
    - eisbaer 15y ago
      Based on your comments and looking around the site, I was excited about checking Mog out. Requiring facebook is a deal breaker for me. Why restrict the way users can join?

cdk 15y ago

I've been using Spotify for 2 weeks now after using Rdio for 6 months and I rather like Spotify's Radio feature a lot. The recommendations I get from it seems no better or worse than Rdio's (for me) but I don't mind it and skipping tracks seems so seamless that I barely notice it. What really sold me on Spotify was Boxee support.

pbreit 15y ago

Spotify's "artist radio" is a bit better but it still has a ways to go to displace Pandora. Once it does so (if ever) I'll be upgrading.