If Spotify’s discovery algorithm has felt a little off to you lately, you’re not alone. Thankfully, the streaming giant is aware of the issue and is testing new ways of fixing it.
Your Genre-Based Playlists Are About to Improve
Reddit user kwabb over on the r/truspotify subreddit discovered a few options in their Spotify-generated R&B genre mix. These options included more discovery options and several sub-genres of music, like:
- Alternative R&B
- Neo Soul
- Pop R&B
Spotify’s genre playlists are often customized to what the app thinks you’d like to listen to. However, these recommendations can be hit or miss at times. They might also not align with your current preferences and often include older, more popular songs rather than new or underrated music from an artist you might not have heard yet.
The additional discovery options change the entire playlist, instead of simply filtering out the existing playlist that Spotify made for you in the first place. This means you get entirely new songs from different artists—a much better alternative than simply having to look up music yourself or relying on Spotify’s algorithm to get the next track right.
If Spotify is tracking cross-genre listening, the algorithm just has more data about what kind of music you like. If implemented, this feature should be able to get a more accurate understanding of your music taste, especially if you listen to cross-genre music a lot.
Finding Niche Music Will Be Easier on Spotify
The feature seems to target specific types of music, so it could make finding a niche, or smaller sub-genres of music, easier. As Spotify learns the crossover you have between two separate genres, your music suggestions can also improve, because now the algorithm knows you like two or more genres and can find tracks between them.
However, the feature doesn’t seem to be rolling out anytime soon. It seems to be a more controlled test to see how the feature fares with selected individuals before rolling it out publicly. Spotify hasn’t officially mentioned anything either, with a Spotify spokesperson saying the following when asked about the feature by Android Authority:
At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don’t have any further news to share at this time.
In the meantime, there are third-party AI playlist generators that do a much better job than Spotify’s discovery algorithm. Spotify’s AI DJ can also take song requests if you don’t want to hand over your music to AI.
The ability to listen to unofficial covers and rare music is one of the reasons why I use YouTube Music instead of Spotify. However, if Spotify can fix its discovery algorithm and find music I actually like, I may well be tempted to switch back.
