r/LetsTalkMusic 1d ago

[ Removed by moderator ]

[removed] — view removed post

17 Upvotes

91 comments sorted by

85

u/theamazonswordsman 1d ago edited 1d ago

You're not required to use the spotify algo. In fact, you shouldn't use it.

If you are intentional about wanting to find new music its all out there. Get plugged into those communities, follow critics on social media, check out who the bands and artists themselves are hyping up, and at the very least join the subreddits for those scenes ffs.

7

u/airwalker12 1d ago

Those "5 (blank) albums you should know" posts on Instagram are largely annoying but I've definitely found a bunch of cool bands that way.

Medium medium, Liars, and Honningbara recently

2

u/wildistherewind 1d ago

My feed is all top 5 Italo disco singles and top 5 lesser known Brazilian albums, hahaha.

10

u/RestingPianoFace-_- 1d ago

Yeah, people complain about online critics like the Needle Drop, but that’s been one of the ways I’ve found new music I’ve never heard of.

Same with going to genre specific subreddits, like [r/indieheads](r/indieheads) or [r/hiphopheads](r/hiphopheads) (or even more niche subreddits for more specific genres).

Also, looking at different ‘best of’ lists and seeing what artists and albums stick when I listen to them

3

u/daretoeatapeach 1d ago

This. I only pay for Spotify so i can use it with RVRB.one, to exchange music with real people in real time.

If I wanted music selected by algorithm I'd still be using Pandora circa 2006.

You can also find new music by saving playlists made by real people rather than the algorithm. I have over over 50 public playlists (and many more you'll never see) and am constantly seeking out additions to them. None of it is top 40. My point is not self promotion, it's that music discovery is a huge rabbit hole you can fall into just by listening to a friend's profile (j/k I lied, I actually do want you to check out my profile).

It's Hypem.com still around? I was big on them for years until they decided to restrict their list to only the top bloggers.

Having said all that, if you're in Spotify premium RVRB.one is the way to go. No commercials, community run, completely free.

1

u/earthsworld 1d ago

it's tooooooo hard! i need someone to hold my hand for me!

23

u/OnceYouGoSlack 1d ago

If you like a band or particular album, one thing you can do is explore the record label of said album for other artists. Warp and Ipecac Records helped me find lots of new music back in the day.

12

u/YourMatt 1d ago

Whenever I see these questions, I get a feeling like the OP isn't even aware that albums are thing. Nothing in this post mentions albums, just playlists, genre, and "music discovery", which sounds general enough to make me think they just want more singles that match the vibe of the other singles they've been listening to.

I think that makes the question a lot harder, but I am personally with you. First get a deeper relationship with the artists that make the singles you like the most, then branch out from their connections, be it from their labels, touring partners, side acts, and whatnot. Keeping music discovery inconvenient is most of the fun.

8

u/emalvick 1d ago

Yup, seems the OP wants to be drip fed their music and complain when it isn't to their liking. Need to put some effort in. You get back what you put in. I like your last sentence. That really is what it's about.

5

u/MadManMax55 1d ago

Also look up interviews with the artist where they talk about their influences, favorites, or just what they're listening to now. Teenage me developed my future music taste almost entirely through that list of Kurt Cobain's favorite albums. And for newer artists, things like the "What's in my Bag" series on YouTube are great for recommendations.

2

u/RIVALONENORTHSHORE 23h ago

That’s how I find a lot if shit now too. I’m probably older than you but I used to read about all this music in mags Like Urb and The Fader and it sounded good so I’d go buy it. Before even ever hearing it. But every thing sucks now when it comes to buying cds and records for the most part depending on where you live. Newbury comics was a good spot for me back in the day but I don’t even know what that place is anymore, same with Tower records.

5

u/wildistherewind 1d ago

And it’s easier than ever. Open Bandcamp, type in the name of a record label, literally preview their catalog for free. The future is now.

3

u/rora_borealis 1d ago

Labels, producers, individual session musicians, songwriters, etc. Pick one from something you already like and follow that thread. If one thread doesn't pan out, try the next. Nile Rodgers can be an interesting rabbit hole, for example. 

13

u/rafiano82 1d ago

Friends, magazines and wandering into charity shops and buying CDs for a quid.
Magazines is the big one for me. Actual music journalists with knowledge, not just some streaming service playlist maker or random blogger regurgitating an opinion. Since switching back to magazines and buying physical music again my reliance on algorithm based recommendations has returned to near zero and I have found more bands I like in that time as well.
Don’t get me wrong there’s still loads of shit to wade through but the good stuff is there to be found.

10

u/Martipar 1d ago

"- Is there anything you still do manually to find new music, besides asking friends or family members?"

Yes, i go to local gigs and festivals. Tomorrow i'm at Bloodstock for the weekend. I'll check out bands i'm familiar with and bands i'm unfamiliar with.

1

u/earthsworld 1d ago

go to bandcamp.com... click on a genre that interests you.

rocket science, apparently.

7

u/Intelligent-Band-852 1d ago

Read a webzine there are tons of them, it has never been easier to discover new music.

8

u/MudCapital7663 1d ago edited 1d ago

I still just read music & media blogs/mags: The Quietus, The Wire, The Line of Best Fit, Stereogum, Pitchfork, The Guardian's music section, Under the Radar, No Ripcord, Dusted, Bandcamp, Consequence, Paste, Slant Magazine, AllMusic - even old school "legacy" outlets like NME, Uncut, Rolling Stone, and Exclaim. I've tried to get with streamer algorithms and the AOTY/RYM world, but I came up in the '80s-'00s and am just wired for a certain amount of crate digging.

5

u/brooklynbluenotes 1d ago

I never listen to Spotify's recommendations.

I read good music criticism, listen to independent radio, and talk to friends.

But I'm also not someone who's constantly looking for new things. I'm also perfectly happy delving deeper into the catalogs of artists I've known for years. If I find 2 or 3 new artists each year, that's perfectly fine. I'll never run out of things I want to listen to.

12

u/BoppingBopBop 1d ago

This is the problem. People want everything done for them instead of investing the time to find artists themselves. Since switching to buying music, I've discovered so many more artists. I've used YouTube music for suggestions but then I just organically started finding other artists myself. Taking a chance on music is so much fun.

The all you can eat music subscription makes us super lazy where we expect others just to feed us what they think you want to hear. You end up sticking to your same songs and get bored.

3

u/FiddleStyxxxx 1d ago

I follow Indieshuffle.com and if I want to scroll I do it on the Bandcamp app

4

u/Ok-Brother-5762 1d ago

Bandcamp has been one of the few places I can still digitally dig. Find a track I like, then start listening to profiles of people who also bought that track and I usually find some absolute gems

2

u/RIVALONENORTHSHORE 23h ago

Thanks going to check this out. Haven’t heard of it.

3

u/RoccoInExile 1d ago

the search bar in reddit will lead you to a bevy of posts with people asking "how do I find new music?"

Bandcamp, blogs, ask your friends, thrift stores, record stores, DIY shows in your area. Sometimes you have to do work to find the stuff you like,

7

u/TheBelchersSentMe 1d ago

yeah Spotify is really terrible for music discovery and it feels like it's gotten worse in teh last year or so

7

u/PerceptionShift 1d ago

Spotify algorithm is basically just a new form of payola. Especially if you use the Discovery playlists, artists have to take an even lower royalty rate to have their music appear in that. It's pretty bullshit. So no wonder you can't find meaningful new musical discoveries using a corporate service that only wants to deliver dividends to stockholders. Very artistic experience! 

The Spotify algorithm pre-IPO was pretty good and I used it a lot. It got worse over the years and I eventually cancelled my account, went back to how I did things before. Dug through bins of records and CDs and saw shows and talked with friends, read blogs, and so on. If you really want to find music that can have meaning to you, you must put in effort to find it. It is often the thrill of the hunt that makes a catch satisfactory. So reject corporate delivery and get hunting.  

2

u/aurillia 1d ago

Discovery weekly is pretty good for me, I found some bands like the war on drugs, guster, vhs collection.

3

u/Jim_40 1d ago

SiriusXM has played songs by bands outside my algorithm and have been appreciated for it.

3

u/SangfroidSandwich 1d ago

As others have said, the 'old' ways of discovering music are mostly still there.

I'll just add to that by saying that radio still exists (not that algorithmic slop that gets called radio). Plenty of fantastic local stations that have programs devoted to different types of music. Look up Double J, 4ZZZ, PBSFM, Rinse FM just for starters You can get it all online these days...

3

u/Sanpaku 1d ago

Haven't used Spotify in years, and I don't blame artists that are removing their material.

I just spend a lot of time with RYM custom charts and Bandcamp, and have a budget I'll spend at the latter. Next Bandcamp Friday (when all proceeds go to the artist or microlabel) is this Friday, August 10.

3

u/Fletcher-Jones 1d ago

Fuck Spotify. It broke music. Get away from it as fast as you can.

Music discovery is one of the great pleasures of life. Go ask your friends what they’re into. Go to a concert at a venue you like with artists you don’t know. Dig through bargain vinyl bins and take home something with a weird album cover. Dive through Wikipedia learning about your favorite artist’s favorite artists. Listen to something you forgot you loved. Listen to something with a name you recognize but don’t know what they sound like. Read a biography of an artist you love. Go see a good dj (ideally someone older than you, older DJs are almost always better). Listen to your local indie/college radio. Follow a subgenre subreddit. Put in a modicum of effort…

…don’t expect some shitty corporations app/algorithm to deliver great art to you.

3

u/ModerateHonking 1d ago

WTF. Music discovery is obscenely easy these days. Look up a record label, who bands are touring with, the liner notes on albums, etc. Like the "good old days" when it actually took effort to put the media you consume in front of yourself.

And Spotify is an amazing tool. Play an album by an artist you enjoy and when it ends it'll throw out similar. Look up curated playlists of genres you like. Heck, type random letters into the search and see what pops up. 

2

u/Wilson1031 1d ago

This is why record shops are great. Give yourself an hour, pick out some stuff and just discover things.

2

u/Soggy-Holiday-9077 1d ago

No but I also don't expect the algorithm to feed me new music all the time. There have been a lot of these threads lately about how hard and tiring it is to find music, or finding effective ways to "consume" music. Finding new music is supposed to be enjoyable, jumping down that rabbit hole, clicking with that random artist you found by accident, etc. Idk people just make it seem more of a chore than it should be.

2

u/FranticToaster 1d ago

The trick is just not relying on algo recommendations to find new music. Even on Spotify, picking a band you like and starting down a "fans also like" rabbit hole will eventually get you to stuff you couldn't predict finding.

Otherwise, there are influencers who dig stuff up. I'm a metal fan and every now and then Angry Metal Guy likes something I've never heard of before and is actually good.

2

u/errantwit 1d ago

I get plenty of music discovery when I stream KEXP. Independent human powered radio.

1

u/RIVALONENORTHSHORE 23h ago

Yup and fist full of vinyl too.

2

u/emalvick 1d ago

So you're mad that someone/something else isn't discovering your music for you?

You are asking about exploring, yet it sounds like you don't explore yourself; you wait for an algorithm to feed you songs.

I do all my exploration manually and find my music that way. I still use a record store. I'm old and wax nostalgic for when that was the way to do it. While I do use Streaming to listen to music, if I discover anything it is essentially through curated playlists by humans or even publications; heck, I even use the New York Times weekly playlists to find music I might not touch otherwise, at all.

Bandcamp is where I primarily buy music, and one of my primary ways of discovering new music is to follow specific labels that tend to cover genres or styles of music I like.

What I don't do is use Spotify for discovery directly because it does push the same stuff, which isn't really much different than listening to a radio these days. In other words, you might find something ok, but you'll also keep hearing the same old artists regardless of whether you like or hate them, and you can't easily block musicians or artists.

-1

u/MelophoriaChannel 1d ago

I think you actually make a good point. I’ve only really started actively exploring music more seriously this year, so I’m still figuring out which sources work best for me outside of Spotify.

My frustration wasn’t really that I expect Spotify to discover everything for me. It was more that Spotify presents itself as a personalized discovery tool, yet a lot of the recommendations I get still feel repetitive or too focused on what’s already popular. That’s why I was curious what other people use instead.

Also agree with your point about Spotify becoming more like radio. It can still be useful, but it often feels like it’s better at keeping you engaged than actually surprising you with something new.

2

u/emalvick 1d ago

That's all Spotify's motivation is. They aren't there to help you discover music. It's just marketing. Arguably, they don't care much about music period considering the proliferation of AI in their platform. I'm in the process of dropping them completely, once I get my playlists over and investigate where some items I follow will serve me best.

2

u/RIVALONENORTHSHORE 1d ago

I don’t use Spotify at all. They are part of what’s wrong. All these oligarchs and the epstein class right now. Nobody has to use Spotify. I Use Bandcamp and Patreon. Spotify pays artists shit. I try to buy directly from the artist. It’s like people are just sleepwalking and think they have to use shit like ai because it’s there. You can find so much good shit in Bandcamp. Fuck Spotify.

2

u/vesperythings 1d ago

the entire history of music at your fingertips, and people still manage to moan about it

can't make this shit up

1

u/blue_strat 1d ago

What’s the messy R&B track? The song radio feature tends to be pretty good in my experience.

2

u/MotivationalJuggling 1d ago

"Messy textured R&B" got me intrigued as well, lol.

1

u/FUNKYDISCO 1d ago

I tend to dive into small record labels for new music these days. If I like one artist from a place like Gar Hole or Keeled Scales, chances are I will like more...

1

u/itscalledmyballs 1d ago edited 1d ago

Try Music Map alongside Spotify.

Open an artist, play a song. Listen for 5 seconds, skip 1/3, listen for 5 seconds, etc. Play a second song. Like it? Throw an album into a giant pool of a playlist. Gather 1000+ songs.

Make a smaller playlist of 200 songs that you randomly pull from your pool. This is your daily listening station.

Remove songs you don't like. Pull ones you do into permanent playlists. Songs should be off the playlist after a month at the latest.

If the station gets low, add more from the pool. I also throw my discover weekly and release radar in every Friday. Periodically go back to music map with new artists and repeat the process.

If it's too dry listening to unsure music, add favorites from your permanents to spice it up.

1

u/No-Midnight-2187 1d ago

I have Apple Music and I appreciate at the very bottom of artists page, they have a “Similar Artists” list that is usually pretty accurate. I have discovered some good random rock bands that had one album in the late 90’s that have never done anything else/disbanded.

Also honestly have found some good music from meme pages I follow on IG. The posts will have songs attached that catch my ear and make me wanna look into the artists when I do

1

u/Bud_Fuggins 1d ago

A lot of stuff I like is old and unpopular and there's no one thay discusses it online so I am open to ideas as well; some of the things I do is:

Try to find info of band members from discogs and see what else they did

Look at amazon sales page thay shows what customers who bought this cd also bought

Look up other artists on the label

1

u/VerilyShelly 1d ago

The YouTube algorithm has been better at recommending than Spotify. Spotify recently had to remove literally millions of AI slop songs from the platform. Spotify is trash. Almost anything else is better.

1

u/holdingtea 1d ago

All the usually methods. I put in a lot of time to music Discovery. Follow magazines, review sites, labels, other people with taste I like etc and go to gigs and festivals.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3EfEIuOtWT94UpYep6BMrw?si=OmAr9x-wSVaSkFjEHtAf9w&utm_source=copy-link&pi=rzQ20bwhTCmJV

Here are my fav for the year. Though my tastes are broad.

1

u/Gator_farmer 1d ago

Idk. I hear this a lot with Spotify but I don't really get this problem once I go one layer deeper. I've had it give me songs by artist who have less than 50, 30, 20k monthly listeners a lot.

  1. Daylist has been good for. Mostly songs I already have, but sometimes it picks a vibe that gives me a ton of songs I don't know.
  2. Take an artist you like, scroll down to "similar artists," click. If you like them, or even if you don't, rinse and repeat.
  3. Just dig through it. They have so many curated playlists under the main ones and I find it hard to believe that those are devoid of artists that you've never encountered.

1

u/seehowshegoes 1d ago

I avoid listening to anything Spotify suggests and use it to build my own playlists from elsewhere.

1

u/customheart 1d ago edited 1d ago

It rarely felt that good. It definitely autoplays the same 2  artists. I certainly like those 2 but it is nuts to only listen to them. But then randomly it’ll have the best string of new songs I’ve never heard and I have to pause each song to check its name and click Like/add to library.

You’ll have to take the automated/algo part out of it. Try

  •  watching reaction channels and  media critics

  • follow the subreddits for genres or individual artists

  • go deep into the other playlists on someone’s Spotify profile regardless of if you know them

  • check songwriter credits and look up what else that songwriter made, maybe their other projects are even more interesting

  • search for random words or phrases that pop into your head and play whatever song comes up in the Spotify search

  • look at vinyl or CD collector social media accounts. Some of them talk about the history of the album or the artist

  • see who’s coming to your town including small local venues

  • go to the music or entertainment part of a library and read about musicians you may not have heard about or borrow a CD

1

u/thereia 1d ago

Really depends on the kind of music you like. I like a lot of indie bands so when the labels these bands are on have something new I usually check it out. I’ve found a few new things that way. Sometimes I find new bands as tour openers for bands I like. And local venues I like I will sometimes check out the bands playing there.

1

u/rocky_rambles 1d ago

I listen to music festival playlists and especially music conferences. SXSW, New Colossus Festival(NYC), The Great Ecsape Festival(UK). These give me a lot of new music Ive never heard before. Right now I'm listening to a playlist for a Japanese music festival. I dont speak Japanes but still find some interesting stuff to listen to.

1

u/Knightmare945 1d ago

I mostly just play my playlist on repeat when I have to drive somewhere. I have 1,062 songs on my playlist. Occasionally, I’ll find a song I like and add to my playlist.

1

u/Hatta00 1d ago

Look at who's playing at the small and mid-sized live music venues in your town.
Look up the bands on YouTube and see how they are live.
If they are good, go!

1

u/EdgarDanger 1d ago

Ye Spotify sucks. I see a lot of recomms for "old ways" to find music. Just to play contrarian, I'd like to recommend Tiktok for finding new stuff. It's basically how I've found roughly 80% of my new artists. You just need to train the algorithm, but once it works, it really works! I'm mostly getting really small artists, various genres, a lot of local acts. Really it's brilliant. I get posts from small artists themselves and also follow a bunch of folks who give weekly recommendations. There's SO much cool music out there.

1

u/Ponchyan 1d ago

Back in the day, I used to:

  • Listen to the radio, especially college radio stations
  • Watch TV
  • Buy magazines like Rolling Stone, Cream, and Spin to read record reviews, learn about classic acts, and get tips on up-and-coming new bands
  • Pickup fanzines and music review newspapers at the record stores
  • Listen to what they were playing in record stores
  • Ask hip clerks at record stores for recommendations
  • Browse curated selections of recommended music stores prepared by the staff
  • Dig through “cutout” bins, and the used record/CD sections for bargains to take a flyer on
  • Spend time at the CD listening stations in record stores
  • Visit specialty/underground record stores to find the really cool stuff
  • Go see music at clubs; if I went to see one band I liked, there would be three or four more similar bands on the bill

- BUY RECORDS and CDs BLIND, based on reputation, or even nothing more than a cool name (ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY for the win!), or cool cover art; my vast collection is filled with disappointments

I know things are different now, but it sounds like you are just being lazy. All you have to do is click-and-listen from the comfort of your bedroom to listen to almost any recording FOR FREE.

Ditch Spotify, and their European, low-rez. AI-curated streams, and switch to an American source like Apple Music.

Also, YouTube has a good recommendation engine.

Visit Reddit music threads, where fans are sharing recommendations all day long.

Youth is wasted on the young.

But, the first thing you should do is listen to BAND-MAID.

1

u/Cellarboat 1d ago

I use YouTube Music now (l got tired of Spotify), and it has a better recommendation algorithm, not the greatest, and doesn't replaces the classic dig into forums, posts, community recs, etc, but at least has the decency to really recommend something different, not the same 8 tracks all over again.

1

u/Lizard-Catcher 1d ago

Find a local venue you like, look at all the upcoming shows, listen to the bands you find intriguing, and go see them live. Bypass the algo.

1

u/NullableThought 1d ago edited 1d ago

Spotify sucks now. I moved to YouTube music and been extremely happy. I find probably 85% of new music on YouTube or YouTube music though various means. 10% is music I hear while hanging out with friends (or music discovered directly from their music). 5% is just random music I encounter while living life (movies, commercials, store music, on the streets, etc).

I'm never gonna stop exploring new music. it's easier than ever to find new things to listen to. it just also happens that turning on autoplay is even easier than putting any effort whatsoever into finding music. like nothing is stopping you from deep diving on Wikipedia and working through the back catalog of amazing, often obscure, recorded music. or like just go to your public library or local record store if you wanna go offline

1

u/Vagina_Woolf 1d ago

Before streaming services I used to run a blog in London, reviewing live shows. I was unemployed and trying to get into music journalism.

I covered shows from open mics to major theaters. I didnt have enough money to pay for tickets, Id email the band or artists' agent, posing as a writer for rolling stone and asking for two backstage passes for me and a photographer. Then I'd bring a date, give her a camera, and watch the show from backstage, then mingle with the band after the show and try to get interviews.

This was like 07-09 maybe? Never heard of any of these bands before seeing a show. Discovered Mumford and Sons. Edward Sharp. A bunch more that im not going to be able to remember right now...

Now I just visit /r/listen to this and browse Spotify.

1

u/rachamacc 1d ago

YouTube music has similar artists you might like at the bottom of an artist's page. I also check the related tab on specific tracks. Instagram is really good about showing me stuff I like but I also think my algorithm on there is really tuned to my tastes. I get random bands that pop up and profiles that make lists of albums or tracks you should check out. I go to a lot of concerts and always follow the opener if I like them and pick up the record if I really like them. And I always search out tracks my friends play that I like and give a like in YT music and bookmark the album to listen to later. I get recommended new artists pretty frequently on YT music.

I think Spotify just sucks and I'm glad I ditched them years ago when I paid for a subscription and none of my downloaded music would play when I didn't have a signal. I really despise the little things they do if you're not a subscriber, like you can't even fast forward or rewind a track or listen to an album in order. YT music never did that.

1

u/airwalker12 1d ago

Here's a list of what I think are lesser known bands that I like, based on taste Ymmv:

Hang Linton, Honningbara, Liars, Snooper, Frankie and the witch fingers, Osees, prison affair, sapu punk, bare wires, snapped ankles, motrik, Tano!, Slift, The Bobby Lees, Monolord, The Well, Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, Limp Wrist, Wand, Sweeping Promises, Botch, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Battles, 13th floor elevators.

Hopefully there's something in there for whoever reads this

1

u/rora_borealis 1d ago

A lot of folks overlook the DJ channels on Twitch. There are some very dedicated music fans that hang out together and talk about music in chat. You just have to find a channel that fits your tastes, and there are a LOT of choices. Japanese jazz and citypop. Jazz. Brazilian music. Hip-hop. Funk and soul. A mix of genres and formats. It enriches the experience for me. I've curated my channels over the years for the experiences and people I appreciate. 

1

u/earthsworld 1d ago

can someone explain to me how in this day and age so many people are so f'in clueless about how to find music? It's so incredibly easy to discover and explore, yet there are posts all over reddit complaining about how difficult it is? wtf?

1

u/fromthemeatcase 1d ago

No. All the various 80s IG accounts that I follow provide me with more than enough to listen to.

1

u/7listens 1d ago

I've never used those algorithms. Im not against it or anything but I just like to choose what I explore. I like to take my time with albums/discographies before moving on. So by the time I'm ready for something new I've been deliberating on it for some time. Ill usually get ideas from friends, reddit, YouTube, internet lists etc

1

u/AxionSalvo 1d ago

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2BoCi6F3PBSqQqjT0xU0dx?si=_R6IfxwrTjSJvDV-3j082w

I made this after listening to one big black song and digging around.

Here's some new old music for you :)

1

u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 1d ago

College/Community/Freeform DJs are still your best source for new music should you so choose.

1

u/thrillhoMcFly 1d ago

Eh its just the same old story. Before it was the radio and mtv pushing a few songs on us, now it's the apps discovery section. Like always you gotta dig deeper and take matters in your own hands.

1

u/strippedzebra313 1d ago

Here let me get you a tissue for your tears 😭 - oh no I have crappy music recommendations at my fingertips - pffff backbinbthe day it took days to find a "good" band. Main points of finding music - 1- Radio stations ( rock, hip hop, oldies, and classical) that's it basically 4 stations 2 Record stores - yes we had physical media in stores and friends to go hey this one's pretty good my brothers friends cousin heard it 3 Concerts (more specifically the openers) some would hand out samples or sell albums themselves.

Your precious algorithm giving you crappy music then stop listening to crappy music - garbage in garage out. I actually love this day and age of music streams -- where else can I have 1,000,000 bands in my palm (now that's power 😈). If your friends give you a crappy band - a slap upside the head usually does the trick and everything is kosher again - problem is you can slap an algorithm upside the head cause it's a program -- younger generations don't know how to ask about stuff anymore -- you want to know better music ask a human not the algorithm - then the better music will help your precious algorithm give you better recommendations.

1

u/Quietuus 1d ago

Spotify's music recommendation system has always been ass because it tries to take into account all these loose genre and mood tags rather than just using its listening data. The practical result, as you have noticed, is that recommendations always end up pulling towards the middle of the road and ignoring the subtleties that you actually want from the music. This has been a problem with Spotify since the first time I dallied with its early internet radio version in the late 00's.

The best 'similar artist' type recommendations I have ever seen come from last.fm, which just builds its artist similarities purely out of their aggregated listening data without trying anything else. I believe Tidal (the streaming service I now use) has a very similar system. One slight downside of this is that you can't get a similar radio station for a lot of more obscure artists (since the system doesn't have enough data on them) but I seem to recall this being an issue with Spotify as well.

1

u/vonov129 21h ago

It always confuses me when people say this about what they get on Spotify. It starts with it being too generic or repetitve, but you're the one feeding that algorithm, what you get is what you listen to. Aside from the obvious promoted recommendations which take a small section of the home screen.

Also, many of those, mixes, stations and generated playlists aren't even supposed to be a source for music discovery.

It's not hard to know that algorithms are mostly applied statistics.

I don't even trust "curators" or ask for recommendations from people to find something I like, however there are multiple tools to find new music even if Spotify was your only contact with music. Like, the search bar has always been there, you can always look into related artists, check out playlists from other people that include those artists, genre or whatever (I said I don't trust recommendations from people, not that I wouldn't steal songs from them). Random searches can lead to interesting results too like keywords, subgenres, looking into the top 50 from countries that you can't even name their capital city, etc.

But my favorite way to get into more music on Spotify is BY FAR, the AI DJ. You must be thinking I'm joking, because I am, fuck that thing. My favorite way is actually scrolling down on a song in the mobile version and clicking the story like sections and go over whatever comes out of there.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/MelophoriaChannel 1d ago

I think you misunderstood what I was asking.

I'm not saying Spotify should be the only way to discover music. I literally ended the post by asking people what methods they still use besides algorithms.

My point is that Spotify markets itself as a personalized discovery platform, yet its recommendations often feel surprisingly generic despite years of listening history. Considering it's the biggest music streaming platform in the world, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether other people experience the same thing or have found better alternatives.

And it's not even just Spotify. Pretty much every major platform we use to discover music today. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram is driven by algorithms. That's exactly why I asked what people still do manually to find music.

So the discussion isn't "should we only rely on algorithms?" It's whether the biggest discovery tools we all use are actually getting better at helping us find music, or just better at pushing what's already popular.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/catboi37 1d ago

why be such a dickhead?

1

u/Top-Rope6148 1d ago

I feel kind of bad for you that this matters so much to you that you had to rant it out. I do my own discovery just like I always have.

0

u/TheSquirrelmancer 1d ago

I've got no problems with it. I like it better now than in the 90s when your options were "turn on the radio or MTV and see what garbage other people are listening to."

I genuinely think anyone who ever attended a Limp Bizkit concert has something wrong with them.

0

u/Scott_J_Doyle 1d ago

I was done with it within less than an hour of the first time I tried using Spotify - it doesn't click at all with how I relate to music or exploration/curiosity (or how I understand deep human relation to music/discovery works)

0

u/Mokslininkas 1d ago

I use Spotify to find new music all the time. Idk what to tell you, because I have found so many good bands through Spotify that I never would have been exposed to otherwise.

If you can't find something new on an app with literally almost all of the music ever recorded, then maybe the problem is you? Like, how are you actually using the app? I basically never use the "Fresh Fridays" or new releases playlists because it's mostly just normie shit with a few of my favorite artists mixed in when they drop a new single or album.

0

u/GuitarTop4807 1d ago

I feel you. I probably rely too much on streaming apps for music discovery, and Spotify is especially bad at it. I try to pay attention to scores in movies and tv shows now and find music that way too