Spotify - anyone heard of it?

Every time this thread gets bumped I just want to say “yes I have heard of it” but I’ve resisted until now

But yes I’ve heard of it

but have you heard that they've actually reported positive earnings in some quarters?

if there were something like payola, it'd probably sneak in through some bias in the algorithms. A similar sort of bias could also exist within the thinking of a popular radio DJ, though, and it wouldn't be labeled as payola. payola is ultimately a bit meaningless on a platform where you can just choose music yourself anyway.

but... you can't pay to be featured on those lists

Latest entitled whinge: no one is currently getting 0.0009p from me per play because the web player is an absolute mess: frequently won't load at all, skips songs, the CSS is often all over the place.

xxp corrs otm, but I also think it matters that radio existed on a limited and regulated spectrum as a source of music discovery that a very different cost than the alternative at the time, buying so many records. these playlists and the freedom to discover new music oneself exist on the same platform at the same cost to the listener. any preference for the playlist is just laziness or favoring music-as-event over music itself on the part of the listener.

Sure, I guess, but the Spotify UX seems to be actively herding people toward music-as-event ("Chill" being the most popular event, apparently) listening, rewarding the artists who embrace that model, and selling advertising with at least the implicit idea that advertising will increase artists' "exposure." In this model, what other exposure is there that is worth a damn other than placement on high-traffic playlists?

I seem to receive emails and push notifications whenever big thief does anything. I've always assumed that their label pays for it.

What is the/is there even a distinction between "liking" a song and adding it to your library?

I'm going through my Liked Songs playlist and it seems that before June of last year I have entire albums worth of songs in my Liked Songs (albums I presumably meant to add to my library), but after that I see mostly one off songs. Did Spotify change this last year? If I remove all the liked songs will it also remove them from my library?

I just figured this out this morning. My phone app (Android) taking forever to load my saved albums led me to toss most of them into playlists and remove from "Albums"... it worked. But what I think was even more helpful was emptying out "liked songs".

At some point in the fall, liking albums stopped having all the songs from those albums automatically go to liked songs. So this list has just been static for me since that point anyways (I only ever add single tracks to playlists).

I'm not sure when the Albums list started having recommended albums on the bottom of it, but it seems this is done just by analyzing your Liked Songs. Since I've emptied that, there are no recommended albums on the bottom, which probably helps the loading too.

I've never hit the library limit fwiw. Not sure why that is a big deal for a lot of people... you can have unlimited playlists, right?

right I guess it was June

The issue for me with the library limit was that I THOUGHT I was clearing out my albums and moving them to playlists efficiently, but I would still consistently get the error message when liking just one song. Taking a weedwhacker to my liked songs explained some of that...I had 9300 tracks in there.

Note: removing liked songs from your liked playlist does not seem to affect your albums

Note 2: if you have 9300 liked songs and you try to remove them all at once you will explode your computer

to be fair 9300 is a very big number. today's computers can only handle small number like 8 and 45.

haha. Whatever version of the Windows desktop client I was using, it only let me remove 100 songs at a time. Took a bit!

But yeah, I reached the same conclusion, that liked/libraryfied Albums and Songs no longer have anything to do with each other.

Using the Download toggle on Liked Songs used to be a handy way to sync your whole Library... now that I'm using the Library as like my current rotation, that would be handy. Might have to figure something out with a Smarter Playlists script.

Bleh!

Sorted out making one big playlist of Liked Songs + Albums (i.e., what 'liked songs' used to be) for easy device sync'ing.

http://smarterplaylists.playlistmachinery.com/importer.html?pid=11f60469a07b01116b477b82e3962bef

Run it on a schedule sync additions and deletions you make.

The album I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight doesn't appear under Richard & Linda Thompson, as it is credited to each of them as solo artists.

I'll see if we can fix that from the Spotify side...

if you have 9300 liked songs and you try to remove them all at once you will explode your computer

I don't even know how to remove songs from lists other than one at a time. So I have been doing the removals from Liked Songs in batches over time, i.e. until I get bored. About 1,000 still to go...

On the desktop version you can Ctrl-A to select all, then Delete...

👍

Having trouble following this. Since “liking” albums no longer results in all the songs on that album being “liked”, does that mean that there’s now a higher limit on the # of albums you can “like”?

lol still can't get rid of Slade in my Recently Played row, although it (being Merry Xmas Everybody) is the only thing there now.

not appearing in my last.fm stats so doesn't seem like an account hack - what gives?

I was listening to some Orbital's brown album, and Lush 3-1 fades out, I can't even.

Somehow a whole bunch of music i've never heard of is in my Liked Songs list. How does this happen?

What’s up with this? https://open.spotify.com/track/5opiTFqPFWm7UbxSxHENPb?si=lpnoDCj8QlmORcWfAY-VBg

weird crediting thing:

"murphy's law" by cheri, a duo consisting of rosalind hunt and either amy roslyn or lise (sometimes "lyn") cullerier depending on the song, and produced/written by geraldine hunt (rosalind's mother) and freddie james, is credited to:

Geraldine Hunt ft. Freddie James and Rosalind aka Cheri

this is because the song is only uploaded as part of a little-known compilation from 1999/2000 called Soultry, Jazzy & Sexy which is bizarrely credited that way.

cheri does actually have a spotify profile with an album "murphy's law" (released 12 years after the single on a different label), and it includes an instrumental version of the song as well as a longer remix, but not the single itself. the version with the weird credit is the one people actually listen to (over half a million listens compared to 2,500 for the remix) and it's the one that seems to show up on playlists (it showed up on my DW a long time ago).

stood out to me because it's the only song cheri is known for. geraldine hunt and freddie james both have their own solo profiles fwiw

what the fuck james xp

oh nvm lol

i clicked your link and it showed up as "cheri" because i guess spotify browser takes a while to update

i'd had this cheri thing on my brain for like a year and just remembered to post about it today driving home

lol i got that howlin wolf thing at some point as well. must be an ilxor.

Lol xpost

The album I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight doesn't appear under Richard & Linda Thompson, as it is credited to each of them as solo artists.

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, March 9, 2020 9:44 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'll see if we can fix that from the Spotify side...

― glenn mcdonald, Monday, March 9, 2020 10:09 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

fixed. thanks glenn!

These compilations are THE BOMB, sadly I can't see who any of the artists are.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61JKOwjfRJL._SY355_.jpg

did the spotify on the browser just get rid of the about and related artists tabs? That's a real loss

I have an interesting question for Glenn McDonald and i don't mean to pester him
I am a 6 year subscriber
so i never feel like I want to pester him
something is bugging me that is very interesting
why is the track "H.I.V. Baby" by Soundgarden the ONE track that is unavailable and greyed out
so weird. what could be up with that

If you look at their career retrospective "Echo of Miles"
http://open.spotify.com/album/0Cpmgfv2YLtBN368ZbBxGY

it is the one track that is greyed out. I would be fascinated if Glenn McDonald has some intel or insight into that
i don't mean to pester

and i guess my point of posting here is you know I could offer the question to Singapore support staff but that is of course useless

I have 'blind dogs' also greyed out on the same compilation

Harry Nilsson lives and he's making kind of boring electronica according to Release Radar this week:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1NbsTlUFKmKHmIE2tXSisD?si=fkSrScKEQPOWMhf8jMtxmg

The labels control track availability, and sadly don't have to provide an explanation for why individual tracks aren't, so I have no way to know. Most likely it has to do with licensing peculiarities. "H.I.V. Baby" was originally a b-side on a Subpop single-of-the-month, right? So maybe there were different terms for that, and they've expired. Dunno.

I already noticed and reported that Nilsson thing, it should be fixed soon.

Thanks as ever, Glenn.

"HIV Baby" was also on the Born To Choose benefit album Ryko put out back in '93.

Posts starting with I have an interesting question for Glenn McDonald and i don't mean to pester him should already be frowned upon. But when the third line is so i never feel like I want to pester him, you know you're just being pestered.

Khala My Friend by Amanaz is a great, great song that I'm grateful to DW pushing my way once, but I think it's the fourth time now! Looks like the last compilation I had it liked from has dropped off Spotify so time to readd it again.

I get that one regularly too.

Just got that pushed to me last week! Really good.

the Amanaz album, Africa, is great

Have recently reactivated my account after many, many years to listen to the fantastic playlists Test Pressing have been posting.

I'm on the free version and haven't heard a single advert yet. Haven't put any credit card info in but do you automatically get some sort of one month trial of the premium version or something?

Advertisers! I remember them.

The premium version isn't just ad-free. It also allows you to download tracks for listening offline and, I can't remember what else, maybe even stream whole albums. There's definitely stuff relating to playback that you can't do on the free version.

Afaict Spotify basic (no subscription) is still add-free if you use the web browser

Ah, that could be it. I'm listening via the desktop app