Spotify - anyone heard of it?

*throws embarrassing tantrum*

why is the web app so much worse now, releases on artist pages are now automatically sorted by popularity mixing singles and albums and EPs all together. you can click on the "popular releases" heading to get through to a better organised discography like before but only if they have enough releases and the text space for release titles is limited enough to be annoying which it wasn't before

my desktop version has been being pretty erratic over the last couple of weeks. I'm getting duplicate podcasts turning up in my queue.
& they don't delete.
NOt sure what is going on . Pretty annoying having to correct it.

why is the web app so much worse now, releases on artist pages are now automatically sorted by popularity mixing singles and albums and EPs all together. you can click on the "popular releases" heading to get through to a better organised discography like before but only if they have enough releases and the text space for release titles is limited enough to be annoying which it wasn't before

― ufo, Thursday, October 1, 2020 7:06 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is the case - and indeed highly annoying. They did, yesterday, at least change one thing back, which is putting the latest release on the left again (that had also disappeared, so you had to scroll through popular to find the latest one yourself). It's a mess.

So a lot of artists "popular releases" now list the same (the newest) album twice, on the left side. Prob because it's both most popular (because it's new) and the newest. It looks like this, and it's ridiculous imo:

https://i.imgur.com/irSt4ee.png

https://i.imgur.com/CVBF62B.png

i expect that those pages are used only a tiny fraction of the amount that the big playlists are, so they become an afterthought. anything considered 'niche' functionality - even something as basic as an artist page - will get deprioritized

You're probably right, but it was good the way it was? Sorted by release year, descending in order from left to right. If it doesn't have a big priority, just leave it be, it was ok the way it was.

wtf Loveless has gone

Don't worry, it'll probably be back soon in fifteen years time.

Wha? I can still see it, here in the US at least.

nope, not here in the UK. guess the thought of someone listening to it at 320kbps finally got to him.

All the MBV albums have been gone from Spotify since spring 2019 for me.

if you ever want to check which regions an album is available on Spotify, for making a playlist for people overseas etc, there's this tool:

http://kaaes.github.io/albums-availability/

These are the current limits of Kevin Shields' empire:

https://i.imgur.com/AQsT4Bl.png

I think the tool needs to be updated, as the grey seems to indicate countries where Spotify itself is unavailable, but Ireland and North African countries have been added since then, I think. But good for checking US/UK etc.

Can a VPN get around that or is it based on verified billing address?

The latest MBV is not on US Spotify.

Onimo - I think it's based on IP address not billing country so yes I guess a VPN woild work in theory

No, it's based on where you pay.

Should have just waited for Glenn – apologies for bad information.

What the ....? https://open.spotify.com/show/2Zy2XZMKHDGBSv8ouqwZ0R

get that starred

android app having many issues with the playbar freezing

or maybe not freezing. just displaying the wrong songs and showing |> instead of || while playing. seems to be a real bug related to recent android update. it eventually happens after every reboot. anyone else notice this?

I've had this happen a few times recently

I usually have to exit and then force stop the app to clear it up

yes, me too

Oh, me too! I just assumed it was my shitty phone being shitty, glad it's just the Spotify app being vmic.

this happens to me constantly

app is borderline unusable now

Is this the latest Android update?

Not had any problems with it at all myself (on Moto G7)

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Spotify-displaying-incorrect-track/td-p/4632956

a master class in shit support

i'm not anyone in that thread. i just hate when the response is restart your app/phone/reinstall, when clearly everyone has already done that.

Yup. Check your power supply!

I never used playlists on shuffle until recently and have had the pleasure of discovering how shit the shuffle algorithm (or whatever) is. 207 song playlist, same ~40 songs play. It does a great job of shuffling those 40, though. #FFS

#GREATREVIVE

I find that shuffle works better or worse depending on the device.

If Spotify follow the standard tech company playbook for bugs, they'll do this "restart your phone/clean install/probably another app on your phone/manufacturer fault" gaslighting bullshit for a month or so then a new version will drop that fixes the bug and they'll act dumb about it. Their inability to just say"yes, there's a bug, we're working on it" is maddening.

That example was one of the worst though
- user shares screenshot showing full bar wifi and 4G
- "I see you are using 4G try using it with a strong wifi"
- user explains what wifi symbol means
- "try using it with 4G!"

In the absence of comprehensive year of release data on Spotify, I've started the epic task of putting every one of my Liked Songs into a playlist for its respective year. Am I crazy? I'll just do a few a day. It's then relatively portable, given the tools available for exporting playlists.

both the web player and the android app are a bit shit for me, constantly

specifically the android app just pauses playing for a few seconds every x minutes and on the web player I get "something went wrong, try reloading the page" if I try to look at an artist, album etc.

I most often listen to Spotify on my Roku, which has all sorts of limitations - can't make playlists or adjust queues, etc. You have to use the (very simple) Roku remote for everything.

Anyway, was thrilled to find Brooks' Red Tape is back on Spotify (one of my fav albums from the 2000s)...if only they would add the ep's and You, Me and Us as well. Brooks should not be forgotten.

What is this Time Capsule you speak of, my Spotify Hipster Friend?

Today I was offered a daily drive/daily commute playlist - your favourite songs interspersed with news and sports updates. Turns out you get to hear adverts you've paid to avoid as they're embedded in the bulletins. Ads aside though, I kind of like the idea for early morning listening.

(my daily commute is from my bedroom to my bathroom to the kitchen to the dining table)

I'm very confused by this song that showed up on my Release Radar today, mostly for the third artist listed on the track.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2DztFyWY3hyCArDb9VINk2?si=5iQU6VydSoiSIyl8nR8Hjg

That's gotta be some sort of glitch, right? It seems highly unlikely that there is another group with that name...

I don’t even need to click on that link to know that I was served the same track.

^^ thirded.

Ah Moveek! I’m familiar with Moveek. He’s a Nigerian artist who sometimes tries to boost his streaming numbers by tagging a famous Afropop artist’s name (like Starboy/Wizkid, Tiwa Savage or Tekno) to his songs, without them actually being on the track (but he’s also done this with Major Lazer, for instance). In the years I’ve been following Nigerian pop there’s always been a few of these types around. Many of these tracks are taken down from Spotify eventually, but some of them remain.

So why have he and this “Caravan” type now gone for Stars of the Lid, an act in a totally different genre, not particularly well-known or popular, and also not a name with other connotations that I’m aware of? I’m guessing for the same reason he’s also been tagging artist names like “Feist”, “The Cab” and “Regard” (and of course “Caravan” is an established artist name in its own right as well).
Maybe picking artists outside of his own genre that have a popularity of some significance, but not so much that they might have people actively looking out for activity like this (like I imagine a Major Lazer might), is his way of laying low while still picking up the extra streams he wants from fans of those acts that make it 30 seconds into his track.

Gotta respect the hustle!

Gotta respect the hustle!

Do we? Don't think SotL fans - nor people who like Feist or whoever he tags - will particularly appreciate this hustle tbf.