The way it was supposed to analyze the music you liked and recommend similar stuff, and how it sort of but didn’t really work that well. Is there anything like that out there that does work?
Spotify (Artist) radio?
Was also gonna suggest Spotify. You can make a radio station from an artist, a playlist or a specific song and I’ve found it works very well. I switched from Pandora ages ago when I found it was getting too repetitive.
I just subscribed (paid) to Spotify for the first time. I wish the sound quality were better, but I am impressed. They even let you download tracks beforehand (i.e. on wifi) so you don’t use too much data when you’re on the move!
I thought the thing about Pandora was it was supposed to be people driven as opposed to algorithm driven.
Have you checked your settings, there’s an HQ setting you can set, it looks like they’ve moved to automatic v. choosing codec but you can set it force HQ
I thought Pandora worked really well. You just had to accept that sometimes cool bands really sound like some lame bands.
I used Pandora for a month or so when it first launched in… 2005? 2006? I can thank it for introducing me to The National before they were cool (pre-Boxer). So I will always think of it fondly for that and not much else.
I used to adore Pandora, and learned about a lot of new artists from it, but these days it really does play the same catalog of ~100 songs at me, pretty much regardless of which station I’m on.
Inspired by this thread, I signed up for a spotify account for the first time, but I don’t see how to use it for discovery of this sort. Little help, kind folks of QT3?
Well you have to find a song or a playlist, then right click it and go to artist/song/playlist radio.
Oh I see, the key word here is “radio.” If you just go to the artist, it only plays artist tracks, but if you go to artist radio then it plays artist tracks AND related stuff. Thank you!
Also, when looking at an artist, there’s a “Fans Also Like” tab that can be illuminating.
As you listen more, and Follow more artists, your weekly Discovery Mix will also start to slowly fill up with more stuff they think you’ll dig (some of which will be new, and some of which won’t).
Spotify could be fine if fucking Spotify Connect basically just. . . wasn’t at all there. Or at least could be fully turned off. And if it let me upload mp3s to a private, cloud-accessible library. And it wasn’t green.
Also very useful to know, thanks!
This would be great. I miss Amazon Music allowing this. I’ve used it a lot less since they stopped.
This right here is one of the best things about Spotify. Every Monday it gives you a new discovery playlist, and I’ve found so many new artists that way.
New Release Radar or whatever Spotify calls it is also excellent for keeping up with new album/single drops from artists you follow. The one on Google Play Music was amazing because it not only suggested new works from artists I liked, but new releases it thought I’d dig based on existing tastes. The Youtube Music Shitshow Variant suggested top-100 billboard artists exclusively and basically ignored my tastes. Sigh. RIP GPM.
Oh I didn’t know that’s what it did! I just thought it would be a bunch of newly-released shit I didn’t care about! I’ll have to check that out, thank you!
Honestly, a pretty great selection for me this week. Admittedly, there’s nothing there from an artist I don’t already like, so not gonna discover truly new stuff, but when you’re following 809 artists on Spotify (I like music!!), it’s pretty easy for new releases to get past you.
This frequently also adds songs from artists you don’t like as they are using the name of or collaborating with someone who is using the name of an artist you like. Seems mostly hip-hop/dance stuff in my Release Raday as a result, a couple weeks ago I had 3 songs like this show up. Spotify still isn’t great about separating artists that use the same name.
That’s awesome, I gotta follow more artists just to make this work better, I usually just like albums or songs. Thanks!
Oh yeah, name confusion is the bane of streaming services. I am so grateful that Thrailkill changed from their old name (Mammoth), because holy fuck there are a bunch of bands I don’t like called Mammoth.
Of course, it goes the other way, too; Spotify insanely distributes Devin Townsend’s backlog across like four different artist pages because he changes the name of the act he performs with every few years. . .