I am in an intense love-hate relationship with Spotify. It makes good mixes for me, I have found a lot of great bands that way. BUT IT KEEPS REGURGITATING THE SAME SONGS IN THERE. I know about Song Radios and Artist Radios, so please don’t recommend those. Smart Shuttle doesn’t cut it, either.

The best thing would be several randomness sliders. One for randomness in bands, the other for randnomness of their songs, one for genres. Please tell me some music service has implemented something like that. I am dying over here.

5 points

Pandora sort of has some of that but not so far in depth. You can customize with crowd favorite songs or hits or deep cuts or discovery. Their library is much smaller though, and you’re stuck in a genre based on the station for the most part.

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2 points
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This is kinda how I operate. Just listen to pandora while I’m doing other tasks and see if new songs grow on me, then every few weeks, I put all my thumbed up songs on spotify playlists.

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6 points
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2 points

Thank you. I didn’t know about the Automix setting, and it’s enabled by default

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10 points

This wasn’t what you asked for, but I have to add it in here: I switched to YouTube music because I was told the shuffle actually was random there. From my experience the past couple of months it seems to be the case, at the very least it’s better. But discovering new music (without putting in much effort) has been harder. Their playlist sorting is non-existent (you’re stuck with alphabetic order, no folders). And for some idiotic reason the playlists are shared with YouTube… Everything with it, except for its working shuffle, is horrendous.

How the fuck can Spotify just not have a true fucking random shuffle, it’s so annoying! It does everything else fairly well, but I’m not switching back to starting a playlist of 8+ hrs and getting a recognizable pattern depending on what I skip and don’t. Or whatever goddamn algorithm they think is better than /dev/urandom.

This gave me hope for a while, but I’ve now given up: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/4880594/page/103#comments

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4 points

If you want to discover new music, use “Start Radio” in lieu of shuffle.

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5 points

Yes, I’m aware of the radio ability. I’m not using shuffle to discover new music. I’m using it to play random songs from a large playlist I have.

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2 points

I actually looked for that after you mentioned it on the Spotify app but couldn’t find it. Mind saying where it is? Or you’re referencing the outside shuffle website.

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1 point

Sorry I was unclear. I meant in YouTube Music. It has a Start Radio option which is suitable for discovery.

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2 points

Thanks, maybe I should really Check that and Apple music out… still frustrating, as no option seems to be great. How can that be, after so many years of music services? What are all those developers doing? Are they stuck in scrum meeting timeloops?

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2 points

https://spotifyshuffler.com/ this is what I use. To shuffle liked songs, use the desktop app, go to liked songs, ctrl-a, right click, add to new playlist. Then that playlist can be shuffled with that tool and you play it in spotify with shuffle turned off (since the song order is already random). I’ve heard a lot of songs I haven’t heard in forever so it’s super nice

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1 point

I use Virtual Shuffle. It forces Spotify to play truly random tracks. https://shuffle.virock.org

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40 points

I’m ready for downvotes but I use Apple Music and it plays me new music all the time. And if it repeats a song I just say suggest less and it goes away. I play my station and it’s a nice mix of music I like and new stuff.

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4 points

Agreed, my new music mix is usually pretty good too.

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5 points

I’m using Appel music as well and I think it’s great for the most part. It sometimes has a weird bug where it won’t play downloaded music unless you have internet though.

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2 points

Spotify has that bug too, and it’s infuriating. Whenever I’m on a plane or something I have to put Spotify in “offline mode”, otherwise it just refuses to play all the music I’ve downloaded.

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3 points

That makes it even weirder. Probably some DRM thing.

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21 points

And it is free to stream! (2015) And it is only 2.99 $ (2018) And it’s only 4.99! (2020) And it’s only 10.99! (2023)

We went from free to 132$ in 8 years for (check notes) listening to the radio.

Is everyone cool with paying 20$ a month in 2028?

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8 points

I think most people use it in bundles with other Apple subscriptions like iCloud and TV

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4 points

They have all gone up in price:

The most marked increase is in the overall Apple One bundle. Its lowest, or individual tier, used to cost $16.95 per month but as of now, it is $19.95 per month.

Similarly, the Family Apple One tier has risen from $22.95/month to $25.95/month. And the Premier tier is now up from $32.95 to $37.95.

The price rise for Apple One comes at the same time as increases for many of its major constituent services.

Apple TV+ was $6.99/month, now $9.99 Apple News+ was $9.99/month, now $12.99 Apple Arcade was $4.99/month, now $6.99

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10 points

The service has improved every time though in Apple’s defense…and if there’s one company I actually trust to improve on its services it is Apple (not a fanboy, they have their own issues, just delivering quality consistently isn’t one of them).

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1 point

I am when Apple Music pays the artists 3x what Spotify does per stream. At least my money is going to the content creators, not some dickhead Spotify exec.

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7 points

Even as a primarily Android user, I agree. I have tried most music streaming services at this point and Apple Music has been the best for helping me discover music. Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.

Another plus is Apple Music is one of the last remaining music platforms that is not trying to shove podcasts down my throat.

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2 points
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Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.

I’m pretty sure it’s not the algorithm but rather some agreed upon rates for streaming. The more they stream the same stuff, the less they pay per stream. Same shit that killed radio.

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5 points

Thanks, I think I will try it for a bit. Other people recommended YouTube music, I’m a bit torn between those rn

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1 point

I know that feeling. I’m torn between Apple Music and Spotify myself. Spotify is just that much more convenient for me but at the same time, so is Apple Music…

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6 points

I’ll second Apple Music!

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3 points

The discovery radio works really well too as long as you’ve been liking and disliking things.

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4 points

It’s also got actual radio stations. This is how I found out about Studio Brussel.

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3 points

Plex without Chromecast.

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2 points

I’m enjoying Plexamp

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