7 ms·

This is very sad, and another nudge away from Spotify for me. I remember the API being a motivator for signing up, and I've hacked together a few toys with it

This is very sad, and another nudge away from Spotify for me. I remember the API being a motivator for signing up, and I've hacked together a few toys with it over the years. Realistically now, the only benefit Spotify provides over my MP3 collection is that it's better organised.

theshrike79 2y ago
Musicbrainz Picard + PlexAmp is a pretty good solution. Picard sets _all_ the metadata on the music and PlexAmp uses it to create playlists with the OpenAI API.
- specproc 2y ago
  Nice, thanks for the rec. I'd seen beets as well which also looks good. Spotify is definitely the lowest hanging fruit for culling on my subscription list. The API was very much part of the value proposition. I don't believe it's even that good a deal for artists. I heard the mighty Snoop Dogg makes like USD 40K a year off it or something stupid like that.
  - bytefish 2y ago
    Snoop Dogg made USD 40k for one song, which also has multiple songwriters on it. There’s a good breakdown in [1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ba0ggi/comment/ktzcbq4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ba0ggi/...
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Key phrase from that research: > I'm not sure how much royalties you can expect when you're one of 17 credited songwriters on one song you don't even own which samples a song that also samples songs...I think $45k is pretty damned good.
  - paulcole 2y ago
    > I don't believe it's even that good a deal for artists. I heard the mighty Snoop Dogg makes like USD 40K a year off it or something stupid like that. What would be the non-stupid amount for Snoop Dogg to make off it?
- mr_monkey 2y ago
  I also want to add that MetaBrainz (the non-profit foundation that MusicBrainz and Picard are the base of) also have ListenBrainz, a music discovery platform that we built because of similar discontent over the way recommendations were going. Also has the advantage of being free and open-source ! (I work with MetaBrainz)
leoh 2y ago
Why? Iiuc this is just about APIs for the recommendation engine It’s never been easier to generate recommendations (eg via LLMs and other routes) The core functionality otherwise remains unchanged in the API
- specproc 2y ago
  On the API front, the endpoint that's being killed that was most interesting to me is actually their music analysis one. That was super-nerdy fun to fuck around with, I had a half-finished project on that with an old job. Totally interested in hearing of feature-parity alternatives I can run locally. I'd also thought I'd sometime get around to doing some network analysis with related artists too. I honestly don't find Spotify's recommendations all that great. I definitely experienced a broadening (perhaps deepening) of my listening early on, but my experience has been that the recommendations are pretty shallow. I find after throwing together a playlist with some stuff I like, it'll add a few more artists to my mental roster, then nothing. I'll get thrown around in the same loop with the same tunes and artists -- usually from the more famous albums. I don't want to sound too much like the grouchy aging hipster that I am, but recommendations engines are just one of many ways of discovering music, and I feel like y'know, the old ways were better than just paying some company to do it for me. I'm talking here about being a regular on a local music scene, smoking weed with musicians, trading MP3s on the sneakernet. Another thing where we just pay some money for "convenience", but are left with some hollow and empty algorithmic imitation of something we once loved. Your LLM suggestion made me do a little sick in my mouth.
  - leoh 2y ago
    Cool Good to know, I won’t mention it to you again Maybe you have ondansetron around
- echoangle 2y ago
  The cool thing that's gone now was the "Audio Features" endpoint ( https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/get-audio-features https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc... ). You could easily get some important values about every song, now you would probably have to run your own analysis for every song you're interested in. That's a lot harder and slower if you don't want to preprocess every single song available.
timeon 2y ago
> only benefit Spotify provides over my MP3 collection is that it's better organised. This seems like pretty low bar.

theshrike79 2y ago

Musicbrainz Picard + PlexAmp is a pretty good solution. Picard sets _all_ the metadata on the music and PlexAmp uses it to create playlists with the OpenAI API.

specproc 2y ago
Nice, thanks for the rec. I'd seen beets as well which also looks good. Spotify is definitely the lowest hanging fruit for culling on my subscription list. The API was very much part of the value proposition. I don't believe it's even that good a deal for artists. I heard the mighty Snoop Dogg makes like USD 40K a year off it or something stupid like that.
- bytefish 2y ago
  Snoop Dogg made USD 40k for one song, which also has multiple songwriters on it. There’s a good breakdown in [1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ba0ggi/comment/ktzcbq4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ba0ggi/...
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Key phrase from that research: > I'm not sure how much royalties you can expect when you're one of 17 credited songwriters on one song you don't even own which samples a song that also samples songs...I think $45k is pretty damned good.
- paulcole 2y ago
  > I don't believe it's even that good a deal for artists. I heard the mighty Snoop Dogg makes like USD 40K a year off it or something stupid like that. What would be the non-stupid amount for Snoop Dogg to make off it?
mr_monkey 2y ago
I also want to add that MetaBrainz (the non-profit foundation that MusicBrainz and Picard are the base of) also have ListenBrainz, a music discovery platform that we built because of similar discontent over the way recommendations were going. Also has the advantage of being free and open-source ! (I work with MetaBrainz)

leoh 2y ago

Why? Iiuc this is just about APIs for the recommendation engine It’s never been easier to generate recommendations (eg via LLMs and other routes) The core functionality otherwise remains unchanged in the API

specproc 2y ago
On the API front, the endpoint that's being killed that was most interesting to me is actually their music analysis one. That was super-nerdy fun to fuck around with, I had a half-finished project on that with an old job. Totally interested in hearing of feature-parity alternatives I can run locally. I'd also thought I'd sometime get around to doing some network analysis with related artists too. I honestly don't find Spotify's recommendations all that great. I definitely experienced a broadening (perhaps deepening) of my listening early on, but my experience has been that the recommendations are pretty shallow. I find after throwing together a playlist with some stuff I like, it'll add a few more artists to my mental roster, then nothing. I'll get thrown around in the same loop with the same tunes and artists -- usually from the more famous albums. I don't want to sound too much like the grouchy aging hipster that I am, but recommendations engines are just one of many ways of discovering music, and I feel like y'know, the old ways were better than just paying some company to do it for me. I'm talking here about being a regular on a local music scene, smoking weed with musicians, trading MP3s on the sneakernet. Another thing where we just pay some money for "convenience", but are left with some hollow and empty algorithmic imitation of something we once loved. Your LLM suggestion made me do a little sick in my mouth.
- leoh 2y ago
  Cool Good to know, I won’t mention it to you again Maybe you have ondansetron around
echoangle 2y ago
The cool thing that's gone now was the "Audio Features" endpoint ( https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/get-audio-features https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc... ). You could easily get some important values about every song, now you would probably have to run your own analysis for every song you're interested in. That's a lot harder and slower if you don't want to preprocess every single song available.

timeon 2y ago

> only benefit Spotify provides over my MP3 collection is that it's better organised. This seems like pretty low bar.