How to get good recommendations on Spotify

[Multicore]

Very little progress. I loaded "Your Library" with hundreds of artists, albums and songs and a week later Spotify still thinks I need to discover the last 40-years of euro chamber jazz.

But it has managed one useful thing. Yesterday while making dinner I put on a couple of favorite songs from The Mermen (Ocean Beach, Everbody Seems to Wonder, ...) and Spotify suggested B52s Rock Lobster, its first good idea.

I'm starting to think that the bottle neck is Spotify's user interface, it's not convenient to supply the volume of data required to train an AI about my interests.

And I find myself worrying that I must be careful how I interact with music in case it gets the wrong idea. For example, I play plenty of music that I don't like as a matter of research or education. It's silly to be tiptoeing around like that.

 

[bluefuzz]

Very little progress

Perhaps it's just a question of time? I have a decade's worth of listening history on Spotify ...

My 'default' listening choices (for my sins) the last few months have been the crunchier end of Scandiwegian experimental Jazz/Rock plus a fair bit of good old Canterbury Scene/Rock in Opposition prog. Don't ask ...

Here's most of what I've added to my Spotify library in the last couple of weeks through Spotify's recommendations:

6 - Dans Dans
You Never End - Moin
World of Work - Clarissa Connolly
Flickering Resonance - Pelican
Kew.Rhone. - John Greaves
Fritids - Pumpegris
Awo - Ukandanz
Abyss - Anika
Noble and Godlike in Ruin - Deerhoof
Remembered in Exile - Mairi Morrison, Alistair Roberts, Pete Johnston
Furvent - Le Grand Slam
Berceuses des deux mondes - Rien Virgule
My Method Actor - Nilüfer Yanya
The Film - Sumac & Moor Mother
Malaguena - Narciso Yepes
Episod i Vikens Kapell - Teodor Wolgers
Nick Hart Sings Ten English Folk Songs - Nick Hart

Obviously there are artists/albums here I know well but most are new to me. There's also nothing here that radically upends my musical world but most of it is eminently pleasing and well worth listening to again IMO. Perhaps I'm less picky than you? I'm well willing to listen through a couple of hours of 'Discover weekly' without anything truly sparking joy, but now and then something interesting does turn up that makes it all worthwhile. As long as nothing truly objectionable gets recommended then I'm OK. Like listening to the John Peel Show back in the day ...

 

[Timcognito]

The Mermen (Ocean Beach, Everbody Seems to Wonder,

Like Surf music so do I. IMO Food for Other Fishes is the Mermen's best album.
I typed Surf into KFJC reviews page and got 34 pages ~200 -275 one to two paragraph reviews. You find most of it on Qobuz, that also compensates artists much better the Spotify.

KFJC 89.7FM

Try other genres

 

[Multicore]

Like Surf music so do I. IMO Food for Other Fishes is the Mermen's best album.

Yes, excellent album.

But I think calling Mermen surf music is like calling Pink Floyd blues music. It's in there but sublimated and subordinate to a significantly different aesthetic.

 

[Multicore]

Perhaps I'm less picky than you?

I don't think that's it. Spotify is being extremely narrow with me. It's like it thinks I should listen to only one kind of thing but it's a kind of thing I don't want to listen to. I can only guess that somehow it figures I should focus on a comprehensive sampling from ECM and similar chamber jazz and neoconservative romantics because I listened to some Dolphy, Monk and Zorn. I don't know why one leads to the other but that's my best guess how it got the idea. Or maybe it noticed that I like Hassell.

Idfk and I really don't want to have to spend my time guessing how it works so as to try certain sequences of UI interactions that might eventually train it to be useful.

Like listening to the John Peel Show back in the day ...

That would be good.

I undertook this effort because of your various posts describing your experience with the recommendations and how you value them. That seemed like something I would like.

 

[Timcognito]

Yes, excellent album.

But I think calling Mermen surf music is like calling Pink Floyd blues music. It's in there but sublimated and subordinate to a significantly different aesthetic.

Generally agree they have a variety styles over time. They are local band and I have seen them many times.

 

[Multicore]

Generally agree they have a variety styles over time. They are local band and I have seen them many times.

I think they've fused a few influences together with their own unique expressionism into something really unusual that stands quite apart from other stuff I know.

I absolutely love this short video of Ocean Beach in 1994. It's got everything. Great tune. Good sound. Wonderful location. A big sail boat glides by. And watching Jim Thomas is left hand is ... freakish. Watch carefully what happens at 3:00. How ?!?!

I was so taken with it that I composed a song derived by it for a band I wanted to put together called The Enticement Industry that never got off the ground. Here's the dots for it.

 

[Berwhale]

And I find myself worrying that I must be careful how I interact with music in case it gets the wrong idea. For example, I play plenty of music that I don't like as a matter of research or education. It's silly to be tiptoeing around like that.

Make a playlist for the 'research and education' tracks and then exclude this playlist from your 'taste profile'... https://support.spotify.com/uk/article/your-taste-profile/

 

[Timcognito]

But I think calling Mermen surf music is like calling Pink Floyd blues music. It's in there but sublimated and subordinate to a significantly different aesthetic.

Okay, if you know the descriptors for your favorite types(s) of music use them to search the KFJC database and I guaranty you will stay busy finding new stuff. Many bad but some real good stuff from around the world.

 

[bluefuzz]

Spotify is being extremely narrow with me.

I have noticed that Spotify does tend to get in a rut on occasion and then suddenly starts recommending completely different tracks and genres. No doubt there is some kind of processing time or 'lag' to the algorithm. In the end I don't think it's worthwhile trying to game the algorithm. Just listen to what you want and enjoy what (if anything) new that turns up.

As previously mentioned, I do find the artist/song radio functions worthwhile on occasion as well as the autoplay function. It can always be turned off if you don't want it on all the time ...

While Spotify is far from perfect with regard to discovery/recommendations, it's the least worst compared to the competition ...

 

[Multicore]

Make a playlist for the 'research and education' tracks and then exclude this playlist from your 'taste profile'... https://support.spotify.com/uk/article/your-taste-profile/

Hah! So can I copy paste everything from Discover Weekly to taste profile exclusion?

 

[Berwhale]

Hah! So can I copy paste everything from Discover Weekly to taste profile exclusion?

Yes, I think you can maintain a 'don't like' playlist and exclude it from your taste profile. The article says that past or future plays of tracks in an excluded playlist will have *less* impact on your taste profile (but I note that it doesn't say no or zero impact).

 

[Honken]

Episod i Vikens Kapell - Teodor Wolgers

This one stood out to me as it's title is in my native language and the title implies it's recorded near where one of my friends live (Strömsund, remote but nice place apart from the mosqitos in the summer). I don't have much else to add to the thread, but thanks - I quite like this album!

 

[dasdoing]

funny. I just learned about this song in the other topic: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...sound-like-the-real-thing.63520/#post-2329107

It made me remember "What's a woman" which I probably didn't remember for 20 years. And I put It in Spotify, and clicked "radio". And what appeared there pretty close to the top of the list? I's rather go blind. other singer though.

In my personal experience the radio is great if you are not too deep into the genre. When you are you just get unusual recommendations you already know about.