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On this topic, I'm sick and tired of Spotify's recommendation algorithm and ready to jump to a superior service, would love to hear HN's recommendations. Happy

by 23B1 2y ago

On this topic, I'm sick and tired of Spotify's recommendation algorithm and ready to jump to a superior service, would love to hear HN's recommendations. Happy to pay for a good service. My listening style basically comes down to vibe, e.g. "I want to imagine myself as a jaded ex-con planning my next heist" and "I'm duking it out with an aggressively hegemonizing von Neumann swarm in the asteroid belt"

Schiendelman 2y ago
Apple Music is quite good. Better masters, good recommendations, no fuss - and they pay artists more, supposedly.
- pjm331 2y ago
  Recently made the switch and have been very happy with the service.
- fundatus 2y ago
  > they pay artists more, supposedly They don't. Spotify pays out roughly 66% of their revenue as royalties, while Apple Music only does about 50%. [1] [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-music-reveals-how-much-it-pays-when-you-stream-a-song-11618579800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-music-reveals-how-much-it... https://archive.is/lRZns https://archive.is/lRZns
  - 23B1 2y ago
    Dang that sucks. Man, I really, really hate this situation.
    - Schiendelman 2y ago
      No, they misread.
  - ivanbakel 2y ago
    That percentage doesn’t really explain anything. What if Apple has more revenue? What if Apple users stream less, so royalty costs per subscription are lower? In both cases the AM payout could be fairer for artists and the percentage could still be lower. The article you cite actually claims the latter is true, so it seems looking at just that statistic is misleading.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Did you even read what you posted ? "Its average per-stream payout rate is lower"
    - mustyoshi 2y ago
      That comes down to Spotify being mostly ad supported users and Apple being all paid. If Spotify got rid of their free tier their 60-70% rev share would be more than Apple's 50%. But then the number of streams would go down by 50-60%, counterintuitively the total payout would only go down like 10-15% tho.
- Avamander 2y ago
  Desktop app that doesn't work any more suddenly and there's no actual support to speak of. That's already five steps below Spotify. Plus actually shitty UX/UI people like to call good, but it lacks plenty of really really basic features. Like having control over if a song is added to the queue to be played next or last, or just being able to preview what stations are going to play (it's a minefield of an UI to try and find new songs while also not interrupt the current one).
  - Schiendelman 2y ago
    I'm not sure I can reproduce some of these complaints. Play next and add to queue are both there for me. What do you mean by "doesn't work any more"? I just opened it; it's definitely in need of a UX update but seems to work fine.
    - Avamander 2y ago
      Maybe it's just the tvOS version that lacks the option I described? I was disappointed in Spotify on tvOS so I'm using Music there. I guess platform inconsistency is an another negative of Music. And by "doesn't work" it just says "an error occured" and nothing helps. I've even reinstalled it. Judging by reddit posts about it, it's a common issue. (Its logs also provide 0 hints about the error it encounters.)
- benhurmarcel 2y ago
  A big drawback is that they erase your data whenever you stop subscribing (playlists, liked songs, etc).
  - Schiendelman 2y ago
    Oh that's fascinating. That's a privacy trade, isn't it?
Kelteseth 2y ago
After nearly 10 years of Spotify I think I have heard it all. Now my discover weekly is filled with rock covers of pop songs or music I'm just not into. So either the algorithm got bad or I discovered all music I like. I can recommend everyone this video by Rick Beato: The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse https://youtube.com/watch?v=1bZ0OSEViyo https://youtube.com/watch?v=1bZ0OSEViyo
- Rastonbury 2y ago
  That pop cover stuff is getting out of hand, it's was nice dose of nostalgia at first but I now skip every one because its such spam and I don't want to be recommended them
- Loughla 2y ago
  While I agree that music has become more homogenized and crap than ever before, I think Rick here is just applying incorrect beliefs to this process. I think the only point he makes that is valid is that finding signal through all the noise is harder than ever (and is something that can be said about music, tv, movies, writing, nearly every creative pursuit). Music is too easy to make? So people like producers and record executives don't have the power they used to. That's a good thing. The history of music proves this. Music is too easy to consume? I legit don't know how to respond to this. Just because music isn't part of kids' identities anymore doesn't mean that's because it's too easy to consume. Times change, Rick. Whereas they used to share music now they share streamers and YouTubers. The main argument that derails Rick here is in the first few minutes. He claims that music all sounds the same because of the tools available. He claims that music sounds the same because someone is comfortable with sounds that are familiar. He doesn't really say whether it's record companies or artists or consumers. Just some nebulous 'they'. It's always been like that. Always. When a band gets popular, other bands pop up just like them to try to steal their popularity and money (Fats Domino and Chubby Checker is the oldest example I can think of without googling it). There are 'sounds' of decades. You can name sounds from the 50's, or 60's, or 80's, **all from way before this technology he's blaming existed. Overall that video comes across as an old person who longs for the better days of their youth and is upset they can't make money in ways they want to. Welcome to the fucking world. Times change. Change with them or don't, it's your problem.
nothercastle 2y ago
Try tidal. Their app is a bit worse in terms of device compatibility but their discovery is better and seems to give you more on theme similar tracks.
nunez 2y ago
All of the streaming services are awful at discovery. They'll introduce you to stuff that you already like or stuff that people in your cohort like, which, 90% of the time, is what you already like. I landed up going back to college/community radio for true discovery (i.e. you'll find stuff you hate AND stuff that you love from genres that you didn't know existed). I use Bandcamp to find/buy new music in genres I love and know well. For people reading this who are interested in trying this out, these are the stations that I listen to: - KEXP (Seattle, WA/Bay Area) - KTRU (Houston, TX) <-- home station - KPFT (Houston, TX) <-- home station - WMSE (Milwaukee, WI) - WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA) - KVNO (Omaha, NE) <-- classical - KCSM (San Mateo Area) <-- jazz - SomaFM Indie Pop Rocks! - SomaFM Metal Detector You can also try scanning the lower end of your radio dial (under 93 MHz), as this is usually spectrum that's reserved for community and college radio stations. Some college stations still broadcast in AM, though this, and AM radio writ large, is dying out. --- While I'm on this soapbox: Apple Music's shuffle absolutely biases towards bigger/more popular artists. I once had a few (like, between 10 and 20) Taylor Swift songs in my library in a 2000+ song playlist I used to shuffle in the mornings. I don't listen to her very often, and I didn't have any of her albums in my library at the time. EVERY SINGLE TIME I'd shuffle all of the songs in this playlist or my library, Taylor Swift would get queued up way more than she should have given my listening history. I removed all of her songs from my library to get it to stop. I get much more variety when I shuffle all of my _downloaded_ songs (which, I believe, is everything in my library).
- 23B1 2y ago
  Thank you for your thorough and informative post!
- binarymax 2y ago
  Thanks for plugging local radio that also stream! I support my local radio as well and for the same reasons: discovery. Listener supported also has the benefit of zero ads. Here are my two stations that I listen to: - WBER https://wber.org https://wber.org - WITR https://witr.rit.edu https://witr.rit.edu
  - nunez 2y ago
adnanaga 2y ago
I’ve been a big fan of the shows on Apple Music! They have a pretty decent variety and you can listen to a backlog of shows and with their own distinct vibe. There’s a couple I tune into but my favorites are Matt Wilkinsons daily show at noon GMT and classical connections with Alexis Ffrench. I do appreciate the human curation with a lot of these programs they’ve been putting out.
peheje 2y ago
My best experience is deezer
skibz 2y ago
This is a seriously left-field suggestion, because, it's neither a streaming service nor a recommendation algorithm, but over the years I've never found anything better than last.fm for classification of music. For as long as I can remember, last.fm has had the ability to show you similar artists when given any one particular artist. And it's remarkably good, in my opinion. With it, I've discovered so much great music that I'd have never stumbled upon organically. It's also totally free to browse and without signing up. For example, browse artists similar to Jean Knight: https://www.last.fm/music/Jean+Knight https://www.last.fm/music/Jean+Knight (scroll down to "Similar Artists", or just tack on /+similar to the URL)
- 23B1 2y ago
  Damn. Nice. Thank you.

by 23B1 2y ago

Schiendelman 2y ago

Apple Music is quite good. Better masters, good recommendations, no fuss - and they pay artists more, supposedly.

pjm331 2y ago
Recently made the switch and have been very happy with the service.
fundatus 2y ago
> they pay artists more, supposedly They don't. Spotify pays out roughly 66% of their revenue as royalties, while Apple Music only does about 50%. [1] [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-music-reveals-how-much-it-pays-when-you-stream-a-song-11618579800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-music-reveals-how-much-it... https://archive.is/lRZns https://archive.is/lRZns
- 23B1 2y ago
  Dang that sucks. Man, I really, really hate this situation.
  - Schiendelman 2y ago
    No, they misread.
- ivanbakel 2y ago
  That percentage doesn’t really explain anything. What if Apple has more revenue? What if Apple users stream less, so royalty costs per subscription are lower? In both cases the AM payout could be fairer for artists and the percentage could still be lower. The article you cite actually claims the latter is true, so it seems looking at just that statistic is misleading.
- threeseed 2y ago
  Did you even read what you posted ? "Its average per-stream payout rate is lower"
  - mustyoshi 2y ago
    That comes down to Spotify being mostly ad supported users and Apple being all paid. If Spotify got rid of their free tier their 60-70% rev share would be more than Apple's 50%. But then the number of streams would go down by 50-60%, counterintuitively the total payout would only go down like 10-15% tho.
Avamander 2y ago
Desktop app that doesn't work any more suddenly and there's no actual support to speak of. That's already five steps below Spotify. Plus actually shitty UX/UI people like to call good, but it lacks plenty of really really basic features. Like having control over if a song is added to the queue to be played next or last, or just being able to preview what stations are going to play (it's a minefield of an UI to try and find new songs while also not interrupt the current one).
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  I'm not sure I can reproduce some of these complaints. Play next and add to queue are both there for me. What do you mean by "doesn't work any more"? I just opened it; it's definitely in need of a UX update but seems to work fine.
  - Avamander 2y ago
    Maybe it's just the tvOS version that lacks the option I described? I was disappointed in Spotify on tvOS so I'm using Music there. I guess platform inconsistency is an another negative of Music. And by "doesn't work" it just says "an error occured" and nothing helps. I've even reinstalled it. Judging by reddit posts about it, it's a common issue. (Its logs also provide 0 hints about the error it encounters.)
benhurmarcel 2y ago
A big drawback is that they erase your data whenever you stop subscribing (playlists, liked songs, etc).
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  Oh that's fascinating. That's a privacy trade, isn't it?

Kelteseth 2y ago

After nearly 10 years of Spotify I think I have heard it all. Now my discover weekly is filled with rock covers of pop songs or music I'm just not into. So either the algorithm got bad or I discovered all music I like. I can recommend everyone this video by Rick Beato: The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse https://youtube.com/watch?v=1bZ0OSEViyo https://youtube.com/watch?v=1bZ0OSEViyo

Rastonbury 2y ago
That pop cover stuff is getting out of hand, it's was nice dose of nostalgia at first but I now skip every one because its such spam and I don't want to be recommended them
Loughla 2y ago
While I agree that music has become more homogenized and crap than ever before, I think Rick here is just applying incorrect beliefs to this process. I think the only point he makes that is valid is that finding signal through all the noise is harder than ever (and is something that can be said about music, tv, movies, writing, nearly every creative pursuit). Music is too easy to make? So people like producers and record executives don't have the power they used to. That's a good thing. The history of music proves this. Music is too easy to consume? I legit don't know how to respond to this. Just because music isn't part of kids' identities anymore doesn't mean that's because it's too easy to consume. Times change, Rick. Whereas they used to share music now they share streamers and YouTubers. The main argument that derails Rick here is in the first few minutes. He claims that music all sounds the same because of the tools available. He claims that music sounds the same because someone is comfortable with sounds that are familiar. He doesn't really say whether it's record companies or artists or consumers. Just some nebulous 'they'. It's always been like that. Always. When a band gets popular, other bands pop up just like them to try to steal their popularity and money (Fats Domino and Chubby Checker is the oldest example I can think of without googling it). There are 'sounds' of decades. You can name sounds from the 50's, or 60's, or 80's, **all from way before this technology he's blaming existed. Overall that video comes across as an old person who longs for the better days of their youth and is upset they can't make money in ways they want to. Welcome to the fucking world. Times change. Change with them or don't, it's your problem.

nothercastle 2y ago

Try tidal. Their app is a bit worse in terms of device compatibility but their discovery is better and seems to give you more on theme similar tracks.

nunez 2y ago

All of the streaming services are awful at discovery. They'll introduce you to stuff that you already like or stuff that people in your cohort like, which, 90% of the time, is what you already like. I landed up going back to college/community radio for true discovery (i.e. you'll find stuff you hate AND stuff that you love from genres that you didn't know existed). I use Bandcamp to find/buy new music in genres I love and know well. For people reading this who are interested in trying this out, these are the stations that I listen to: - KEXP (Seattle, WA/Bay Area) - KTRU (Houston, TX) <-- home station - KPFT (Houston, TX) <-- home station - WMSE (Milwaukee, WI) - WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA) - KVNO (Omaha, NE) <-- classical - KCSM (San Mateo Area) <-- jazz - SomaFM Indie Pop Rocks! - SomaFM Metal Detector You can also try scanning the lower end of your radio dial (under 93 MHz), as this is usually spectrum that's reserved for community and college radio stations. Some college stations still broadcast in AM, though this, and AM radio writ large, is dying out. --- While I'm on this soapbox: Apple Music's shuffle absolutely biases towards bigger/more popular artists. I once had a few (like, between 10 and 20) Taylor Swift songs in my library in a 2000+ song playlist I used to shuffle in the mornings. I don't listen to her very often, and I didn't have any of her albums in my library at the time. EVERY SINGLE TIME I'd shuffle all of the songs in this playlist or my library, Taylor Swift would get queued up way more than she should have given my listening history. I removed all of her songs from my library to get it to stop. I get much more variety when I shuffle all of my _downloaded_ songs (which, I believe, is everything in my library).

23B1 2y ago
Thank you for your thorough and informative post!
binarymax 2y ago
Thanks for plugging local radio that also stream! I support my local radio as well and for the same reasons: discovery. Listener supported also has the benefit of zero ads. Here are my two stations that I listen to: - WBER https://wber.org https://wber.org - WITR https://witr.rit.edu https://witr.rit.edu
- nunez 2y ago

adnanaga 2y ago

I’ve been a big fan of the shows on Apple Music! They have a pretty decent variety and you can listen to a backlog of shows and with their own distinct vibe. There’s a couple I tune into but my favorites are Matt Wilkinsons daily show at noon GMT and classical connections with Alexis Ffrench. I do appreciate the human curation with a lot of these programs they’ve been putting out.

peheje 2y ago

My best experience is deezer

skibz 2y ago

This is a seriously left-field suggestion, because, it's neither a streaming service nor a recommendation algorithm, but over the years I've never found anything better than last.fm for classification of music. For as long as I can remember, last.fm has had the ability to show you similar artists when given any one particular artist. And it's remarkably good, in my opinion. With it, I've discovered so much great music that I'd have never stumbled upon organically. It's also totally free to browse and without signing up. For example, browse artists similar to Jean Knight: https://www.last.fm/music/Jean+Knight https://www.last.fm/music/Jean+Knight (scroll down to "Similar Artists", or just tack on /+similar to the URL)

23B1 2y ago
Damn. Nice. Thank you.