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Spotify has financial incentive to obfuscate their UI to tilt people toward mindlessly consuming playlists. This is because labels pay Spotify to put certain so

Spotify has financial incentive to obfuscate their UI to tilt people toward mindlessly consuming playlists. This is because labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists, and Spotify knows playlists are a good habit to push onto their users. Radio was used to discover new music decades ago, but paying a radio station (directly) to play a song is illegal (payola), so DJs had to break new songs, styles, and have a wide array of music offered (within the theme of the station). Spotify now has the ability to engage in a legal version of "digital" payola, so their handcrafted group of artists by major labels are peppered into their hundreds of in-house playlists, disguising this business practice as a wide array of music selection. This is detrimental to music discovery, because discovering a song is a lot less meaningful than discovering a new album and consuming the project as a whole and appreciating its composition. So you're discovering new music, but none of it is memorable, because listening to music in 2024 (for a lot of people) is often a wall of slightly groovy background noise, with the occasional standout track that you probably toss into your own personal playlist. How I fixed this: 1. Disable the 'autoplay' feature 2. Don't use playlists and listen to albums (except for when I'm in a pinch or hosting a party) 3. Intentionally discover a new genre every few months and go down a rabbit hole. My current new genre is South African Amapiano. Excellent stuff. 4. Discover music across different genres and time periods using RateYourMusic.

ryandrake 2y ago
> So you're discovering new music, but none of it is memorable, because listening to music in 2024 (for a lot of people) is often a wall of slightly groovy background noise, with the occasional standout track that you probably toss into your own personal playlist. Yea, I tried streaming for a while, and found exactly that. When I play some genre-specific stream with a goal of discovering new music, I find it's basically full of unremarkable, generic musak, punctuated by maybe 0.1% memorable, great tracks that I'm motivated to bookmark for later. Are these few needles worth slogging through hours of haystack? After a few years I have sadly concluded "no." Not sure why this is. Has it always been this way (0.1% great stuff in a sea of mediocre?) or are "content creators" of today just more focused on churning out quantity than artists of the past?
- jonathankoren 2y ago
  You’ve discovered the Pareto Principle. It’s true about literally everything.
  - qwertox 2y ago
    So now I was on the German and the English Wikipedia entry of the Principle and noticed a noteworthy difference: English: While it is common to refer to pareto as "80/20" rule, under the assumption that, in all situations, 20% of causes determine 80% of problems, this ratio is merely a convenient rule of thumb and is not, nor should it be considered, an immutable law of nature. German: The 80-20 distribution in the Pareto principle often leads to the false assumption that a sum of 100 is mandatory. In fact, however, any other distribution is possible, in which, for example, 50 % of the efforts lead to 90 % of the effect, and again 50 % of the efforts lead to the remaining 10 % of the effect. This is easy to see in the trivial case that 100% of the efforts are the cause of 100% of the success. [0] It's interesting how this explanatory information is lacking in the English version. Should be a cool project for an LLM to transfer information between the different language versions of a Wikipedia entry. [0] Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    It's "true", yes, for almost everything, but there is a lot to gain from recognizing the difference between 80/20 and 90/10 or even 99/1, etc. Just like 99%, 99.9% and 99.99% uptime are VERY different promises to meet, while looking virtually identical to a layman.
mattpallissard 2y ago
I'll add one more 5. Once you find a band you like, pull their tour dates. See who they're opening for or who their openers are.
- horsh1 2y ago
  6. Go to whosampled.com and figure out the originals. Whom do they cover, whom do they sample.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    Younger artists cover older artists all the time; when older artists cover younger ones, that's probably a recommendation. Examples: Dolly Parton covering Joan Jett; Alla Pugacheva and Sofia Rotaru covering t.A.T.u.
zer00eyz 2y ago
>> labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists What are you talking about. IM going to need you to back this one up with some proof. 1. The labels have a giant back catalog that remains popular. It does not need promotion. Huge long tail profits there. 2. The labels dont have a lot to sell any more. The big artists tend to get out of the system (and make money on tours) and small artists get nothing. And lots of artists have bought back their catalogs, again long tail. The album, as a vehicle is mostly dead. Hell songs are mostly dead, if you cant hook someone in the time of a ticktock video your going to have a lot of trouble getting them. And there you need to be "background music" with a groove.
- noah_buddy 2y ago
  Anecdotal, but I was close friends with someone who managed a niche (but popular) artist’s social media and streaming service presence. We discussed this fact and this person mentioned it could be $10k+ to be on some playlists 1st song spot for just a few days. I doubt it’s only Spotify official playlists.
  - zer00eyz 2y ago
    Or, you know, Spotify lists suck because they dont want you consuming. The optimal state for Netflix, Spotify, any other bandwidth intensive fixed price service is for you to PAY for it and NOT USE IT. These services are optimized for maintaining subscription numbers, not your enjoyment.
harles 2y ago
I’ve wondered for a while if Spotify skews playlists in favor of cheaper songs. I have no evidence of this, but it’d make business sense to use the equivalent of store brand music (even if that just means outsourced to a cheap agency) for generic study music playlists and such.
- Euphorbium 2y ago
  I think they tend to play what is cached locally, to save on streaming costs.
  - harles 2y ago
    That’s certainly possible, but I’d expect licensing costs to dwarf bandwidth costs.
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      You have no idea how little artists make from selling music on platforms. The money is in the live performances and merchandise.
- resource_waste 2y ago
  I noticed Google Play do this with Soundcloud Rap. Their amorality has caused me to enjoy SoundCloud Rap at a formidable age, now I cannot shake it. My kids listen to it, swear amorally, and the cycle continues. All because Google Play didn't want to shell out an extra 60 cents per year for paid Rappers.
  - tripdout 2y ago
    What???
- re 2y ago
  > it’d make business sense to use the equivalent of store brand music They've been accused of almost exactly this: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-its-own-recordings-and-putting-them-on-playlists/ https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-i... Spotify denies doing this but you can google to find a lot of controversy over fake artists on Spotify. A more recent variation on the theme: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/19/swedish-composer-johan-rohr-becomes-spotifys-most-famous-musician-youve-never-heard-of https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/19/swedish-comp...
doublepg23 2y ago
> so DJs had to break new songs, styles, and have a wide array of music offered (within the theme of the station). I'm an older Zoomer and this was never the case for radio in my lifetime [1]. I heard "college radio stations" being a bastion of this but I've never listened to one myself. One of the earliest internet services I remember loving was Pandora because it recommended me artists I never heard on the radio and was the start of my love of music. [1] I'm guessing it was related to all radio stations being owned by the same companies.
- dmd 2y ago
  Correct - this sort of thing was basically over-and-done by the mid 90s.
- TehCorwiz 2y ago
  Late Gen-X/Early Millennial here; there was a time before the consolidation of radio stations and invasion of iHeartMedia (at the time named Clear Channel) where DJs had the final word in what got played and most were quite good at introducing new music. Here's my experience form the outside of the industry: once consolidation started there was a push to use canned (pre-recorded) intros, outros, and interstitial announcements to reduce costs. Stations often kept some talk shows, but few kept real DJs. This let stations use a small number of voice actors for a large number of stations. Combined with centrally controlled playlists they were able to push the costs down and increase profits to the point that older style stations with bespoke DJs couldn't compete financially and either adopted the same model or they sold out. EDIT: I may be misremembering, but there used to be a limit on how many stations a company could own in a given market.
  - StuffMaster 2y ago
    Yep. I recall this happening. Let's all praise DEREGULATION and the dollars it brought us.
  - joshmarinacci 2y ago
    You are correct. There used to be a limit. Radio was deregulated in the 90s and by the early 2000s local DJ selected music was essentially gone.
Kiro 2y ago
> This is because labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists Source? This is what Spotify says about it themselves: "We want to make something crystal clear: no one can pay to be added to one of Spotify’s editorial playlists." https://community.spotify.com/t5/FAQs/How-to-get-your-music-in-a-Spotify-playlist/ta-p/4594127 https://community.spotify.com/t5/FAQs/How-to-get-your-music-... Sure, they could be lying but then all the labels and their employees would need to be in on the lie as well.
- qzx_pierri 2y ago
  This is the same defense used in radio. Note the wording ... "no one can pay". Favors and indirect payment are used excessively in the music industry. Note that I also said that payola was the act of "direct payment". An example of indirect payment in radio would be the record label gifting a set of expensive tickets to the station. Remember those contests in the 2000s where the radio station would play a collection of songs over the course of a few hours, and if you could call in and be caller number 15 and name all the songs, you could win free concert tickets? The record label didn't pay the radio station with money - The tickets were gifted to the station for free. But as a result, the radio station played [insert band name]'s songs for 2 hours straight (and possibly other artists on the same label). This is a win-win, because a ton of people talk about this contest with their family and friends, so the station gets free promo, and the artist gets exposure. I don't know how Spotify is doing this in the digital era, but ask anyone connected to the music industry. This 100% happens. For a lot of casual listeners, Spotify editorial playlists are the new radio station.
  - Kiro 2y ago
    So in other words: you're just speculating and have no basis for the claim.
onion2k 2y ago
mindlessly Or mindfully. You have no idea why people choose what they listen to, and suggesting they're doing it without thinking is just your snobbery showing.
- qzx_pierri 2y ago
  Read my comment again. If you're listening to a playlist, you're not mindfully choosing each song. There's nothing wrong with playlists, but my point was to describe how listening to music from Spotify's playlists often isn't a mindful experience (excluding when your attention is grabbed the occasional standout track). A GOOD playlist can keep your attention, and those are often handcrafted by other users. Just look at some of the other responses in this thread. Plenty of people have the same experience. I also said that music from playlists is often (not always) groovy background noise - This isn't a mindful experience - And that's okay.
domador 2y ago
I'm listening to some Amapiano now... and loving it. Care to share some of the other genres you've tried before this one?
- qzx_pierri 2y ago
  My previous genres were dozens of Techno subgenres. Check out the 2023 Coachella lineup. That year had a strong focus on 'World Music'. I went last year and that's how I discovered Amapiano. If you like Amapiano, check out a song titled 'Ungowami' by Sha Sha Check out 'Big Flexa' by Costa Titch. Awesome music video too. Huge dance culture in South Africa. Also check out 'Abo Mvelo' by Daliwonga (this song gets me hype during workouts) And check out Uncle Waffles' Boiler Room mix. Truly awesome performance.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
jncfhnb 2y ago
> This is detrimental to music discovery, because discovering a song is a lot less meaningful than discovering a new album and consuming the project as a whole and appreciating its composition. This is a very silly statement. As someone who prefers to listen the full albums and does so 95% of the time and basically never seek to play a specific single; I’m definitely not going to listen to an entire albums of new artists at a time. I look at the discover weekly / release radar. If I like a song, I’ll listen to the album. If it I like the album, I’ll listen to the discography. Most music is not great, but it’s easy to sample and dive deeper.
- qzx_pierri 2y ago
  >If I like a song, I’ll listen to the album. If it I like the album, I’ll listen to the discography. Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort. Design decisions are often, if not always, centered around the path of least resistance. [1] 1: https://www.usertesting.com/blog/why-users-wont-go-where-you-tell-them https://www.usertesting.com/blog/why-users-wont-go-where-you...
  - bheadmaster 2y ago
    > Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort. How is that more effort than listening whole albums? I personally do my Spotify discovery exactly that way - I listen to "discover weekly", and when a song stands out, I just click on the artist and listen more. I can't imagine any way of putting less effort than that into discovering new music.
    - qzx_pierri 2y ago
      Albums aren’t what Spotify recommends. Path of least resistance. See my comment above.
      - bheadmaster 2y ago
        Albums are literally one tap away - you tap on the song title and the album opens. > See my comment above. Please either reply to my comment with new words, or not at all.
tptacek 2y ago
I don't know about the Spotify analysis here, but certainly cosign RateYourMusic, which I just learned about this last weekend and am now a little bit obsessed with. It's like IMDB crossed with Pinboard, and the list of new stuff I have to listen to now is long and intricately connected to what I already listen to. It's a pretty amazing resource, even if everyone there is wrong about Uncle Tupelo's "Anodyne".
- raffraffraff 2y ago
  I pay for it because it's dirt cheap and you get track ratings. If I discover an artist I use RYM to get the best 3 songs of their best 3 albums on YouTube. if I still like the band after that I'll buy the highest rated album.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    I used it for like 5 minutes before paying for it, it's obviously great, and the "pro" upgrade has the funniest best feature ever (exclude ratings by the age of the rater).
    - raffraffraff 2y ago
      Haha yep, and I also exclude an entire genre and all of its sub-genres.
divbzero 2y ago
The old school way still works too: 5. Listen to the radio.
- masklinn 2y ago
  Nah, most people only have consolidated radio stations, they play national playlists of soup. If you still have independent stations which pay actual radio DJs empowered to craft their sets, cherish them.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    Three D Radio, local independent radio station in Adelaide, South Australia is the source of most of my discovery. They play a lot of styles, and there's a lot I don't like, but there's a very high chance you haven't heard it before - and that counts for something. https://www.threedradio.com https://www.threedradio.com
nemothekid 2y ago
>My current new genre is South African Amapiano. How did you discover Amapiano? I ask because Tyla has become massively popular in the last year and I'm wondering if the discovery was truly coincidental or undercover marketing?
- qzx_pierri 2y ago
  Uncle Waffles @ Coachella 2023
rsanheim 2y ago
Also - just don't use Spotify. It has a UX that is just consistently opposed to album-centric listening. Or any sort of focused listening, really. There are alternatives. Apple music is fine. Tidal + Roon is also pretty good. For discovering music, Roon provides a much more album-centric way to browse and learn about different albums and genres. I use that combined with subreddits for particular genres and good old fashioned album reviews and artist interviews.
gaudystead 2y ago
Since I'm not seeing anybody mention it yet but it's one of my favorite ways to find new genres, I'd highly recommend everyone check out everynoise.com because they seem to have scraped Spotify's genres (you'll need Spotify to listen to more than 30 second samples, but probably still useful even if you don't use Spotify). The number of genres they have listed in the THOUSANDS, and I guarantee they will have something you've never heard of, but it's a great rabbit hole to go down when looking for new music. If you like a genre, they'll already have multiple playlists for it, and if you like a particular artist, they'll have those too. I am not affiliated with the website, but try to turn everyone I know onto it because there's just so much out there to discover that I wouldn't have otherwise. (everynoise.com developer, if you're reading this, I love you <3)
hboon 2y ago
I see this in https://everynoise.com/#updates https://everynoise.com/#updates > 2024-01-05 status update: With my layoff from Spotify on 2023-12-04, I lost the internal data-access required for ongoing updates to many parts of this site. Most of this, as a result, is now a static snapshot of what, for now, will be the final state from the site's 10-year history and evolution, hosted on my own server. Some pieces may get disabled and reenabled over time, and some that only made sense with current data may never return. But we'll see.
cm2012 2y ago
Strongly disagree with your take on albums. I'm a music lover, spotify wrapped always puts me in the top 5% for most artists. I never search by album, always song, and if it's great I'll click in to check to see if the album is to my taste. I have discovered so much music on spotify. I'm not going to listen to a whole album to see if I like a new artist, lol.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

ryandrake 2y ago

> So you're discovering new music, but none of it is memorable, because listening to music in 2024 (for a lot of people) is often a wall of slightly groovy background noise, with the occasional standout track that you probably toss into your own personal playlist. Yea, I tried streaming for a while, and found exactly that. When I play some genre-specific stream with a goal of discovering new music, I find it's basically full of unremarkable, generic musak, punctuated by maybe 0.1% memorable, great tracks that I'm motivated to bookmark for later. Are these few needles worth slogging through hours of haystack? After a few years I have sadly concluded "no." Not sure why this is. Has it always been this way (0.1% great stuff in a sea of mediocre?) or are "content creators" of today just more focused on churning out quantity than artists of the past?

jonathankoren 2y ago
You’ve discovered the Pareto Principle. It’s true about literally everything.
- qwertox 2y ago
  So now I was on the German and the English Wikipedia entry of the Principle and noticed a noteworthy difference: English: While it is common to refer to pareto as "80/20" rule, under the assumption that, in all situations, 20% of causes determine 80% of problems, this ratio is merely a convenient rule of thumb and is not, nor should it be considered, an immutable law of nature. German: The 80-20 distribution in the Pareto principle often leads to the false assumption that a sum of 100 is mandatory. In fact, however, any other distribution is possible, in which, for example, 50 % of the efforts lead to 90 % of the effect, and again 50 % of the efforts lead to the remaining 10 % of the effect. This is easy to see in the trivial case that 100% of the efforts are the cause of 100% of the success. [0] It's interesting how this explanatory information is lacking in the English version. Should be a cool project for an LLM to transfer information between the different language versions of a Wikipedia entry. [0] Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
- listenallyall 2y ago
  It's "true", yes, for almost everything, but there is a lot to gain from recognizing the difference between 80/20 and 90/10 or even 99/1, etc. Just like 99%, 99.9% and 99.99% uptime are VERY different promises to meet, while looking virtually identical to a layman.

mattpallissard 2y ago

I'll add one more 5. Once you find a band you like, pull their tour dates. See who they're opening for or who their openers are.

horsh1 2y ago
6. Go to whosampled.com and figure out the originals. Whom do they cover, whom do they sample.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Younger artists cover older artists all the time; when older artists cover younger ones, that's probably a recommendation. Examples: Dolly Parton covering Joan Jett; Alla Pugacheva and Sofia Rotaru covering t.A.T.u.

zer00eyz 2y ago

>> labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists What are you talking about. IM going to need you to back this one up with some proof. 1. The labels have a giant back catalog that remains popular. It does not need promotion. Huge long tail profits there. 2. The labels dont have a lot to sell any more. The big artists tend to get out of the system (and make money on tours) and small artists get nothing. And lots of artists have bought back their catalogs, again long tail. The album, as a vehicle is mostly dead. Hell songs are mostly dead, if you cant hook someone in the time of a ticktock video your going to have a lot of trouble getting them. And there you need to be "background music" with a groove.

noah_buddy 2y ago
Anecdotal, but I was close friends with someone who managed a niche (but popular) artist’s social media and streaming service presence. We discussed this fact and this person mentioned it could be $10k+ to be on some playlists 1st song spot for just a few days. I doubt it’s only Spotify official playlists.
- zer00eyz 2y ago
  Or, you know, Spotify lists suck because they dont want you consuming. The optimal state for Netflix, Spotify, any other bandwidth intensive fixed price service is for you to PAY for it and NOT USE IT. These services are optimized for maintaining subscription numbers, not your enjoyment.

harles 2y ago

I’ve wondered for a while if Spotify skews playlists in favor of cheaper songs. I have no evidence of this, but it’d make business sense to use the equivalent of store brand music (even if that just means outsourced to a cheap agency) for generic study music playlists and such.

Euphorbium 2y ago
I think they tend to play what is cached locally, to save on streaming costs.
- harles 2y ago
  That’s certainly possible, but I’d expect licensing costs to dwarf bandwidth costs.
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    You have no idea how little artists make from selling music on platforms. The money is in the live performances and merchandise.
resource_waste 2y ago
I noticed Google Play do this with Soundcloud Rap. Their amorality has caused me to enjoy SoundCloud Rap at a formidable age, now I cannot shake it. My kids listen to it, swear amorally, and the cycle continues. All because Google Play didn't want to shell out an extra 60 cents per year for paid Rappers.
- tripdout 2y ago
  What???
re 2y ago
> it’d make business sense to use the equivalent of store brand music They've been accused of almost exactly this: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-its-own-recordings-and-putting-them-on-playlists/ https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-i... Spotify denies doing this but you can google to find a lot of controversy over fake artists on Spotify. A more recent variation on the theme: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/19/swedish-composer-johan-rohr-becomes-spotifys-most-famous-musician-youve-never-heard-of https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/19/swedish-comp...

doublepg23 2y ago

> so DJs had to break new songs, styles, and have a wide array of music offered (within the theme of the station). I'm an older Zoomer and this was never the case for radio in my lifetime [1]. I heard "college radio stations" being a bastion of this but I've never listened to one myself. One of the earliest internet services I remember loving was Pandora because it recommended me artists I never heard on the radio and was the start of my love of music. [1] I'm guessing it was related to all radio stations being owned by the same companies.

dmd 2y ago
Correct - this sort of thing was basically over-and-done by the mid 90s.
TehCorwiz 2y ago
Late Gen-X/Early Millennial here; there was a time before the consolidation of radio stations and invasion of iHeartMedia (at the time named Clear Channel) where DJs had the final word in what got played and most were quite good at introducing new music. Here's my experience form the outside of the industry: once consolidation started there was a push to use canned (pre-recorded) intros, outros, and interstitial announcements to reduce costs. Stations often kept some talk shows, but few kept real DJs. This let stations use a small number of voice actors for a large number of stations. Combined with centrally controlled playlists they were able to push the costs down and increase profits to the point that older style stations with bespoke DJs couldn't compete financially and either adopted the same model or they sold out. EDIT: I may be misremembering, but there used to be a limit on how many stations a company could own in a given market.
- StuffMaster 2y ago
  Yep. I recall this happening. Let's all praise DEREGULATION and the dollars it brought us.
- joshmarinacci 2y ago
  You are correct. There used to be a limit. Radio was deregulated in the 90s and by the early 2000s local DJ selected music was essentially gone.

Kiro 2y ago

> This is because labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists Source? This is what Spotify says about it themselves: "We want to make something crystal clear: no one can pay to be added to one of Spotify’s editorial playlists." https://community.spotify.com/t5/FAQs/How-to-get-your-music-in-a-Spotify-playlist/ta-p/4594127 https://community.spotify.com/t5/FAQs/How-to-get-your-music-... Sure, they could be lying but then all the labels and their employees would need to be in on the lie as well.

qzx_pierri 2y ago
This is the same defense used in radio. Note the wording ... "no one can pay". Favors and indirect payment are used excessively in the music industry. Note that I also said that payola was the act of "direct payment". An example of indirect payment in radio would be the record label gifting a set of expensive tickets to the station. Remember those contests in the 2000s where the radio station would play a collection of songs over the course of a few hours, and if you could call in and be caller number 15 and name all the songs, you could win free concert tickets? The record label didn't pay the radio station with money - The tickets were gifted to the station for free. But as a result, the radio station played [insert band name]'s songs for 2 hours straight (and possibly other artists on the same label). This is a win-win, because a ton of people talk about this contest with their family and friends, so the station gets free promo, and the artist gets exposure. I don't know how Spotify is doing this in the digital era, but ask anyone connected to the music industry. This 100% happens. For a lot of casual listeners, Spotify editorial playlists are the new radio station.
- Kiro 2y ago
  So in other words: you're just speculating and have no basis for the claim.

onion2k 2y ago

mindlessly Or mindfully. You have no idea why people choose what they listen to, and suggesting they're doing it without thinking is just your snobbery showing.

qzx_pierri 2y ago
Read my comment again. If you're listening to a playlist, you're not mindfully choosing each song. There's nothing wrong with playlists, but my point was to describe how listening to music from Spotify's playlists often isn't a mindful experience (excluding when your attention is grabbed the occasional standout track). A GOOD playlist can keep your attention, and those are often handcrafted by other users. Just look at some of the other responses in this thread. Plenty of people have the same experience. I also said that music from playlists is often (not always) groovy background noise - This isn't a mindful experience - And that's okay.

domador 2y ago

I'm listening to some Amapiano now... and loving it. Care to share some of the other genres you've tried before this one?

qzx_pierri 2y ago
My previous genres were dozens of Techno subgenres. Check out the 2023 Coachella lineup. That year had a strong focus on 'World Music'. I went last year and that's how I discovered Amapiano. If you like Amapiano, check out a song titled 'Ungowami' by Sha Sha Check out 'Big Flexa' by Costa Titch. Awesome music video too. Huge dance culture in South Africa. Also check out 'Abo Mvelo' by Daliwonga (this song gets me hype during workouts) And check out Uncle Waffles' Boiler Room mix. Truly awesome performance.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

jncfhnb 2y ago

> This is detrimental to music discovery, because discovering a song is a lot less meaningful than discovering a new album and consuming the project as a whole and appreciating its composition. This is a very silly statement. As someone who prefers to listen the full albums and does so 95% of the time and basically never seek to play a specific single; I’m definitely not going to listen to an entire albums of new artists at a time. I look at the discover weekly / release radar. If I like a song, I’ll listen to the album. If it I like the album, I’ll listen to the discography. Most music is not great, but it’s easy to sample and dive deeper.

qzx_pierri 2y ago
>If I like a song, I’ll listen to the album. If it I like the album, I’ll listen to the discography. Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort. Design decisions are often, if not always, centered around the path of least resistance. [1] 1: https://www.usertesting.com/blog/why-users-wont-go-where-you-tell-them https://www.usertesting.com/blog/why-users-wont-go-where-you...
- bheadmaster 2y ago
  > Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort. How is that more effort than listening whole albums? I personally do my Spotify discovery exactly that way - I listen to "discover weekly", and when a song stands out, I just click on the artist and listen more. I can't imagine any way of putting less effort than that into discovering new music.
  - qzx_pierri 2y ago
    Albums aren’t what Spotify recommends. Path of least resistance. See my comment above.
    - bheadmaster 2y ago
      Albums are literally one tap away - you tap on the song title and the album opens. > See my comment above. Please either reply to my comment with new words, or not at all.

tptacek 2y ago

I don't know about the Spotify analysis here, but certainly cosign RateYourMusic, which I just learned about this last weekend and am now a little bit obsessed with. It's like IMDB crossed with Pinboard, and the list of new stuff I have to listen to now is long and intricately connected to what I already listen to. It's a pretty amazing resource, even if everyone there is wrong about Uncle Tupelo's "Anodyne".

raffraffraff 2y ago
I pay for it because it's dirt cheap and you get track ratings. If I discover an artist I use RYM to get the best 3 songs of their best 3 albums on YouTube. if I still like the band after that I'll buy the highest rated album.
- tptacek 2y ago
  I used it for like 5 minutes before paying for it, it's obviously great, and the "pro" upgrade has the funniest best feature ever (exclude ratings by the age of the rater).
  - raffraffraff 2y ago
    Haha yep, and I also exclude an entire genre and all of its sub-genres.

divbzero 2y ago

The old school way still works too: 5. Listen to the radio.

masklinn 2y ago
Nah, most people only have consolidated radio stations, they play national playlists of soup. If you still have independent stations which pay actual radio DJs empowered to craft their sets, cherish them.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Three D Radio, local independent radio station in Adelaide, South Australia is the source of most of my discovery. They play a lot of styles, and there's a lot I don't like, but there's a very high chance you haven't heard it before - and that counts for something. https://www.threedradio.com https://www.threedradio.com

nemothekid 2y ago

>My current new genre is South African Amapiano. How did you discover Amapiano? I ask because Tyla has become massively popular in the last year and I'm wondering if the discovery was truly coincidental or undercover marketing?

qzx_pierri 2y ago
Uncle Waffles @ Coachella 2023

rsanheim 2y ago

Also - just don't use Spotify. It has a UX that is just consistently opposed to album-centric listening. Or any sort of focused listening, really. There are alternatives. Apple music is fine. Tidal + Roon is also pretty good. For discovering music, Roon provides a much more album-centric way to browse and learn about different albums and genres. I use that combined with subreddits for particular genres and good old fashioned album reviews and artist interviews.

gaudystead 2y ago

Since I'm not seeing anybody mention it yet but it's one of my favorite ways to find new genres, I'd highly recommend everyone check out everynoise.com because they seem to have scraped Spotify's genres (you'll need Spotify to listen to more than 30 second samples, but probably still useful even if you don't use Spotify). The number of genres they have listed in the THOUSANDS, and I guarantee they will have something you've never heard of, but it's a great rabbit hole to go down when looking for new music. If you like a genre, they'll already have multiple playlists for it, and if you like a particular artist, they'll have those too. I am not affiliated with the website, but try to turn everyone I know onto it because there's just so much out there to discover that I wouldn't have otherwise. (everynoise.com developer, if you're reading this, I love you <3)

hboon 2y ago

I see this in https://everynoise.com/#updates https://everynoise.com/#updates > 2024-01-05 status update: With my layoff from Spotify on 2023-12-04, I lost the internal data-access required for ongoing updates to many parts of this site. Most of this, as a result, is now a static snapshot of what, for now, will be the final state from the site's 10-year history and evolution, hosted on my own server. Some pieces may get disabled and reenabled over time, and some that only made sense with current data may never return. But we'll see.

cm2012 2y ago

Strongly disagree with your take on albums. I'm a music lover, spotify wrapped always puts me in the top 5% for most artists. I never search by album, always song, and if it's great I'll click in to check to see if the album is to my taste. I have discovered so much music on spotify. I'm not going to listen to a whole album to see if I like a new artist, lol.

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