Spotify - anyone heard of it?

My friends and I SMS playlists and tracks with comments to each other all of the time.

I used to be able to do that in Spotify, but for some reason they decided that if you didn't have a Facebook account you wouldn't be able to.

well, mildly critical writing on anyone who is not the industry cycle's current designated target of critical writing

xp you can't copy a link without facebook?

(asking because I don't know how to test this myself, and I am genuinely curious)

You can copy a link without fb.

Didn't explain myself very well. You used to be able to send and receive tracks, playlists etc direct to other users from within Spotify now they need to have a Twitter, fb etc account.

I see. I guess I never liked the in-app messaging very much. I'd rather have fewer messaging interfaces to check, so I am fine with sending links via those. I suppose the value was that you could have a spotify tier of friendship, i.e. a list of people you only cared to share your spotify username with. Now you'd have to share an email address at least.

Just got email confirmation thingy

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-denies-its-playlisting-fake-artists-so-why-are-all-these-fake-artists-on-its-playlists/

That is interesting. But it seems to be happening only in the "yoga moods" kind of music that one would see as $10 CDs in check out lines named after different biomes. It doesn't seem like the kind of music that requires large investment from actually good labels, and I guess I don't really care if Spotify's practices discourage those kinds of outfits from existing.

https://surveys.spotify.com/affinity

http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/streaming-music-cheat-codes.html

This is somehow both surreal and inevitable.

Good article.
I can forgive and navigate around the "20th C. Schizoid Man" stuff, but the official Spotify playlists being stuffed with artists who don't exist outside the service itself seems particularly anti-working musician, which kind of sucks

http://musically.com/2017/07/11/spotify-fake-artists-traced-back-swedish-producers/

isn't the fake artist thing basically just the musical equivalent of netflix and other video streaming services offering their original content? I'm having a hard time being outraged here

Netflix doesn't automatically play Netflix content, you have to navigate to it and select it yourself. Also, own content is clearly indicated.

The problem is not so much that Spotify commissions filler, but that it hides its origins and feeds it to listerers by stealth to reduce payout to real artists.

On a different note I A/B'd Spotify extreme against a 256 MP3 and the latter won. Just more crisp, even with the Spotify EQ on. Not sure why I never did that before.

more crisp you say

Netflix certainly puts its own content on prominent display on every interface

netflix clearly identifies netflix original content because it attracts users to the service. What spotify does is just add bland filler and hope nobody notices, which is very different. So I guess my comparison upthread is probably not so apt.

(now I'm imagining Netflix inserting random cheaply made episodes of Friends or Planet Earth or whatever within current seasons of those shows and just assuming nobody will notice)

I like the idea that AI will provide these fake filler songs in the future.

(now I'm imagining Netflix inserting random cheaply made episodes of Friends or Planet Earth or whatever within current seasons of those shows and just assuming nobody will notice)

― silverfish, Tuesday, July 11, 2017 8:10 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

With C-actors, vaguely familiar looking sets etc. Now I want to see this!

Srsly the Netflix comparison isn't helpful in any way.

I also don't see how this is substantially different than library music, which people love and even collect

actually, what this reminds me most of is The Sims 2 -- a lot of their Simlish tracks were recorded by actual pop artists, for the hype, but at least a couple of them were recordings by "fake artists," I guess we're calling them. the funny thing is now they've developed actual fanbases for their one song that isn't even in any real language, although it's hard to tell how much of that is astroturfed (fake bios/photos/"follow-up tracks" that are other artists' mislabeled work), and then whether that was EA astroturfing or just someone trolling

I wish that Spotify wasn't paying money to anyone for the white noise track we stream to my son's bedroom every night. The spotify software is infinitely more important to that endeavor than the recording we use.

If this stuff is bland and unidentifiable, why are people so upset about who records it in the first place? I'm more upset about Spotify removing useful functionality and apps.

Really enjoying the playlist that this thing generates: https://surveys.spotify.com/affinity

👍

isn't it just a "daily mix"? some faves with some recs?

No? Presumably they leverage the Likert scaling to fine tune the output in a more sensitive manner.

Also I'm assuming that it doesn't just produce the 'you've got great taste' playlist but also feeds into your entire individual recommendation profile, so has some effect on discover weekly, release radar, etc.

In any case the resulting playlist is a lot better than the daily mix, for me so far

http://spotify.me/

I CAN'T STOP RATING SONGS HELP

I know! I spent a couple of hours doing it last night, and it was so addictive I had a hard time getting myself to go to bed. Something about the near-immediate feedback of having the playlist update itself after every batch of ratings.

on the one hand this is a useful feature; on the other hand I am clearly not the intended audience because I use Spotify for reviewing albums, so I'll get a bunch of what I normally listen to and then Harry Styles

a lot of my assessments were fairly spot on but it listed my lifetime top album as neil young, harvest moon, which i've only streamed a handful from there, if ever. not sure how they computed that

If this stuff is bland and unidentifiable, why are people so upset about who records it in the first place?

Another problem, due to the setup that Spotify works as two big pools, premium and free, is click farms that play their own music 24/7.

Spotify could fix that by directly linking subscription fees and plays by account (ie, your money, minus Spotify's cut, goes to the artists you play), but apparently that's too much admin.

where do you get the option to rate songs? this must just not be working for me... do you have to stay in the web browser?

According to spotify.me, my most listened to genre is Escape Room. I have no I idea what Escape Room means, so I'm guessing it's one of the things Glenn made up.

it's a genre of video games and/or live-action recreations where you solve puzzles to get out of a room. not sure what the soundtrack for that would be, let's ask Spotify's gaming section

...the answer appears to be Rag'n'Bone Man

well, you're only human after all

https://festivalpeak.com/what-is-escape-room-and-why-is-it-one-of-my-top-genres-on-spotify-a886372f003f

Song ratings is a browser based thing originally posted by caek upthread: https://surveys.spotify.com/affinity

So, basically, Glenn McDonald has control over the future of dumb musical genre names?

vp over the future of dumb musical genre names is a cool job. or job title, maybe.

dammit, now I have to get new business cards made again

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15961416/spotify-fake-artist-controversy-mystery-tracks

I like the idea that AI will provide these fake filler songs in the future.

― silverfish, Tuesday, July 11, 2017 2:13 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.koat.com/article/alexa-credited-for-calling-911-but-amazon-says-she-cant-do-that/10289228

to post something in here that is not endless complaining: I do appreciate that they're trying, and trying different things. even if this particular version, with tracks I've already listened to about 1000 times interspersed with recommendations, is a bit uncanny-valley

There's this certain very specific type of modern R&B--lazy, completely (and annoyingly) unquantized beats with always a little too much time between the kick and the snare/clap/snap (you can just imagine the producer hovering over his MPC congratulating himself on his own genius), with "woke" borderline slam poetry style vocals--that Spotify desperately and insistently thinks I'll love, and keeps offering me over and over again. Get the hint, algorithm!