What's an alternative to Spotify that doesn't play you the same fucking songs over and over?

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.

berg,

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: community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/…/103#comment…

theherk,

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

shork,

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.

theherk,

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

berg,

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.

sir_pronoun,

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?

oshitwaddup,
@oshitwaddup@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz avatar

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

Virock,

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

Quazatron,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

I use Tidal and it shares the same problem, especially if you are using it in drive mode in your car (Android Auto). I guess they do it to minimize data transmission costs by buffering your favorite songs on your device, but it annoys the hell out of me.

Also, Tidal has a Hip-hop/Rap bias that I was unable to remove after some 2 years of using it. I don’t have a single song from those genres in my favorites or playlists, but it will suggest them all the same. I will block the artists and they will pop up on the new releases page.

Regarding music quality it is miles ahead of Spotify. I don’t know if Spotify has finally released an hi-fi/lossless tier, but at the time Tidal was unmatched. After listening to Tidal hi-fi I could not go back to Spotify’s mungled up audio.

H4mi,

Spotify still has done nothing about their audio quality. I use it where I don’t have access to decent playback equipment.

Baizey,

I know it’s not tidal lossless quality, but have you set all the music quality settings to extreme in Spotify settings?

H4mi,

Very high is the maximum, that’s what I use. The same songs in 128kbps mp3 sound much better even in my crappy airpods, not to mention lossless files. My speakers give me a Bose soundbar experience when playing Spotify on them.

Baizey,

You’re right, I don’t know where I got the idea it was called extreme

araozu, (edited )

Does tidal still have lossless? I remember they were replacing all lossless flac with their qma mqa stuff, which isn’t lossless, and requires you to buy specialized hardware. That was the main reason I chose deezer instead of tidal.

Quazatron,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, they have a 16bit/44.1KHz FLAC tier (€7.49), as well as a 320Kbps tier for lower data consumption and a 24bit/192KHz tier (€13.99) if you have the Hi-Fi gear to use it.

deadcatbounce, (edited )
@deadcatbounce@reddthat.com avatar

I really wanted to use Tidal because of the Linux thing and FLAC, despite the cost over Spotify etc.

Tried to sign up and had horrendous problems over such a simple thing. Gave up on them. Never had a problem with subscriptions before or since, unless you count insurance auto-renew!

Quazatron,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

I haven’t had any problem with my subscription.

Their player works very well for my use cases: I use it on my Android phone, on my car via Android Auto, on my LG TV with WebOS and on my Linux machine via Firefox.

deadcatbounce,
@deadcatbounce@reddthat.com avatar

That’s very good to read. It was only the sign-up that went badly wrong and getting on touch with them made it worse.

Hopefully I got a disgruntled Customer Service person on a bad day. One of those things.

Enjoy!

deadcatbounce,
@deadcatbounce@reddthat.com avatar

If you’re not an Apple assimilate, Deezer is good for songs. Sadly, the part of their app that handles favourites really sucks.

They get really annoyed when you keep asking them about it every six months. What is it with us subscribers?!

mlg,
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t read unless you remember what burning a CD was or if you want a viable answer

spoilerA self curated mp3/opus folder with everything sorted into sub-folders, and a playlist folder that you can mess with on the fly I’m still surprised all my music fits < 1GB by a large margin. Less than 2GB if you include full video game sound tracks. If I ever want to add anything, I usually use ytp-dlp and download from whatever source (usually youtube). Everything autosyncs to any of my devices with syncthing, which incidentally is also useful for photos. But tbf this doesn’t introduce you to new stuff. That I just do by random chance by watching yt videos and crap. YT Music is just as bad and will loop the same 3 songs if you let it.

sntx,

That’s the setup!

Though I prefer the mix of flac/opus.

There are scripts for yt-dlp out there that allow you to automatically download an entire artists discography (yt), which I recommend if it’s legal in your country.

volleyballcrocodile,

I’m always shocked by how quickly a large music collection seems to get stale for me.

I dislike the way spotify seems to push certain songs, but I love that I hear stuff I’ve never heard a lot of the time.

emeralddawn45,

That is not a lot of music. I had my old 80gb iPod filled to the brim with more on my computer back in the day. And those were just ordinary mp3s, not flac or lossless or anything. Nowadays I have like 10000 songs in my spotify library. I moved away from mp3s because curating and downloading that many songs is a pain and quite time consuming compared to just clicking a heart on spotify. Plus spotify is now primarily how I find new music, so ts just way easier than switching to a browser and manually downloading whatever cool song I just found, and having to fix tags or whatever. Especially since I’m usually doing something else while listening. With spotify I can save a song without even unlocking my phone. I also always listen to my whole library on shuffle and haven’t had any issues with it.

thorbot,

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.

emmanuel_car,

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

SamsonSeinfelder,

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?

rusticus,

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.

TheDarkKnight,

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).

lol3droflxp,
@lol3droflxp@kbin.social avatar

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

SamsonSeinfelder,

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

lol3droflxp,
@lol3droflxp@kbin.social avatar

We’ll have to see how long subscription services will be able to raise prices. I hope that there will be some disruption soon.

lol3droflxp,
@lol3droflxp@kbin.social avatar

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.

Holyhandgrenade,
@Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world avatar

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.

lol3droflxp,
@lol3droflxp@kbin.social avatar

That makes it even weirder. Probably some DRM thing.

LogicialSlip,

I’ll second Apple Music!

willya,
@willya@lemmyf.uk avatar

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

Matt,

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.

technicalogical, (edited )

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.

sir_pronoun,

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

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

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…

Resol,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

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

0x4E4F,

Is it weird that I don’t use any of these streaming services and just use my own library via FTP (if I’m not at home)?

Valmond,

I’m (slowly) working my way towards that too (it’s hell to classify though) but how do you discover new music?

Damage,

Last.fm?

0x4E4F,

Like I’ve always done, through friends or the internet 🤷.

I don’t have a small collection BTW. Things weren’t always discovered through app suggestions 😂.

Valmond,

Cool!

But if I understand you correctly you have a load and loads of stuff? How do you deal with it?

I mean, awhile ago I shazamed songs I liked and I got everything they ever produced and got cluttered up. It’s not the disk space but I don’t have the time to classify it all (in some perfect way) and I don’t even have a way to classify songs, some are good but only in a party setting, but another is both for a party setting, a long car ride and for outdoor business etc etc.

Any help greatly appreciated:-) !

0x4E4F, (edited )

Oh, yeah, classification takes some time. I classify by style (Pop, Rock, Metal, Techno, etc.). And I have 2 different “classification directories”, lol 😂. One is for albums/compilations. They are also sorted by style, but there are whole albums. The other one is with singles (like single tracks, not singles as in releases, lol 😂). Like, let’s say I like just 1 track from a certain artist and I don’t think anything else is worth it from that album (or EP, whatever). I download the whole thing, then delete everything else and just keep that 1 single track. So, let’s say this artist is a pop artist. I have a folder named Pop + Hip-Hop + House + Etc. and I just put it in there 😂. There’s like thousands of tracks there 😂.

So, let’s say I’m in the mood for something specific. I know where it resides, whether it be a whole album or a single track in the “randomness” directories (😂), I find it and I play it. If I’m just in a mood for music, in general, nothing specific, I usually just load the Pop + … directory in the playlist, set random and just hit play. Something I don’t like pops up, I just hit next 🤷.

I hope I helped. Sorting by style is what works for me 🤷. Sure, it’s not perfect, but I really don’t see any other sort style as better than that.

Valmond,

Thanks, that’s a smart way to do it! What kind of soft do you use to classify it, or are you using like disk folders?

0x4E4F, (edited )

I just use directories. Easier if swapping OS, plus it’s easier when I stream via FTP cuz I don’t have to use anything special software wise.

Valmond,

Yeah but I’d forget and end up with dozens of the same song named slightly different in the same folder :-D

But you’re right, if I can’t lay my hands on a soft letting me “tag” music correly I’ll just chuck stuff in the correct bins (folders).

But I think I’ll keep the original albums intact, so I can redo mixes and so.

0x4E4F,

Ah, that’s why I search before I download anything 🤣. Plus, I got a good memeory (only regarding songs for some reason 🤔 😂), so I rarely end up with dups.

And I do tag them after I download them… well, retag them, they’ve already been tagged by whoever 😂.

Damage,

I installed Navidrome for that

0x4E4F, (edited )

I could google that, but I’m in a chatty mood 😂, could you explain what that is?

Damage, (edited )

It’s a self-hosted music streaming service, based on the subsonic protocol. I set it up with an nginx reverse proxy so I’m able to access it from many compatible apps without a VPN, I use Symfonium on my phone and the integrated web UI on my computer.

0x4E4F,

Mmm, that is actually really cool 👍, I’ll have to look into that, maybe change the way I stream my media from my NAS. Thanks for the info ☺️.

Baizey,

Where do you get the (new) music from, CDs/albums?

thesmokingman,

While I primarily use streaming services, I almost always still buy albums on Bandcamp for the day when I need to go back to running my own music. You can save up for a Bandcamp Friday when more goes to the artist. Bandcamp has been the best place for music for awhile. Best to get in before Songtradr continues the destruction Epic started.

0x4E4F,

I pirate. I buy only what I really really like, and I’d like to have a hard copy (CD, vinyl), not digital download. If there is only digital download available, I pirate it.

bitwolf,

I do it too, just with Plexamp.

The recommendations and radios on plexamp are amazing compared to any other service I’ve tried.

0x4E4F,

Will have to look into this, I haven’t really optimized around the way I stream my media.

russjr08,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

I don’t suppose you’ve tried the “DJ” feature? It’s usually pretty good for me, but of course your mileage may vary.

I’ve run into the same problem of the shuffle (and “smart” shuffle) just plays the exact same thing all the time, even in a playlist with thousands of songs. Tried out YouTube music for a while, and it’s not much better. So I’ll be interested in what others say here.

The best one for me a long time ago was Pandora - for some reason I was under the impression they weren’t around anymore, but it looks like they are. But, I don’t know if they are still as great as they were back then.

dingus, (edited )

What is the “DJ” feature you’re referring to? I don’t see that in my app.

Edit: Found it by going to home > music

The obnoxious voice that talks to you every few songs is irritating as fuck, though. I wish it would just silently change genres instead of talking to me it’s a person and interrupting my music.

russjr08,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

It’s an AI feature from them that is supposed to play music based off numerous factors, primarily by what you’ve been listening to recently. It also tries to mix in music that is related to what you’re listening to as well, but haven’t heard before. But as Spuddlesv2 mentioned below, it sometimes does play music that is out of that - doesn’t happen too often to me but when it does, you can click the DJ icon (the queue button becomes the DJ button) and it’ll “change it up”. It also uses a dynamically AI generated voice based on their “Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier ‘X’ Jernigan” and talks to you the way you’d expect a DJ to if they were playing for you personally whenever its moving to a different set of music. I’m not sure what regions its available in, but if its available in your region (and you’re a Spotify Premium member) you’ll see it as a playlist option, and generally on the homescreen as well.

Here’s a link to Spotify’s initial newsroom article on it. And over on this article from August at the bottom they list the markets/regions its available in. If you’re in both an eligible “market” and you have Premium but still don’t see it, perhaps your app might be out of date? Try launching their Web UI as once you have selected it for the first time, it should appear in the recents area.

Spuddlesv2,

I was enjoying the DJ feature until it started cramming in top 40 shite into my mix that doesn’t even come close to resembling anything I would ever listen to. And not just one song - usually three or four in a row. I used to love Pandora’s shuffle play feature but it’s no longer available in my country.

mangosloth,

It seems most people are complaining about when Spotify plays random stuff it thinks you like, but I’m having the same issue with my actual created playlist. I’ve carefully gathered and downloaded all my favorite songs into a playlist that has about 3 days worth of music on it… Yet it plays the same 100-200 or so songs no matter what, even on shuffle. I’m pretty sure most songs in this list have never been played. Very irritating

Senshi,

That’s because Spotify shuffle by default is not a simple true randomizer as most would expect. It tries to be “smart” and mixes your playlist so similar songs play after another, while avoiding playing songs from the same artists back to back. And some more variables. In theory this is great and works well for some users and focused playlists, but can ruin playlists that cover a very wide range of genres and styles.

You can better approach true randomness by disabling the “Automix” feature in Spotify settings. Not entirely sure if you then actually get true randomness (Spotify loves being opaque), but I hope it helps with your playlist at least.

I would love if they made some enthusiast options available so we could customize our own Automix and shuffle preferences, but that will never happen…

BigBananaDealer,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

i just preshuffle my playlist using a playlist shuffler website and then go in the order its shuffled. just got to remember what song you left off on, that way every song gets played at least once

histic,

personally I use tidal and am very happy with it

Kase,

Same. I use the free version, and I like the personalized discovery playlist that’s updated every day

bestusername,
@bestusername@aussie.zone avatar

I have the same gripe with Spotify, you dare like a song and that’s all you get over and over.

I really miss Google Play Music!

ElBarto,
@ElBarto@sh.itjust.works avatar

Spotify: hey remember that song you accidentally pressed like on, you know the one you listened to for 5 seconds? Yeah, that’s gonna be all you’ll listen to now.

AtariDump,

Songza FTW

kemsat,

YouTube Music is what I use. You can start a radio from a song, and it’ll play new music. You can also change the Up Next to different styles if you want familiar or new music. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b9a15fea-e775-4544-b699-15b6d9f78817.jpeg

XYZinferno,

I should also add that with YouTube Revanced you can make the app ad free, which is the primary reason I use it over other music streaming

noyou,

Man I didn’t even know those buttons existed. I thought I always had to go through the music tuner to land in a “discover” playlist tuned to certain artists. This is so much easier, thanks!!

ArdMacha,

Also YouTube music will play random tracks uploaded to YouTube that are not licensed on other streaming services

caveman8000,

TIL I’m the only person who uses Pandora…

PsychedSy,

There’s two of us. I’ve had my station since 2008.

Lesrid,

Every teacher at the private school I work at has a Pandora account apparently.

Vex_Detrause,

Lemmy radio?

kattenluik, (edited )

That’s not an alternative to Spotify in any way, and yet your comment gets to show up first.

valiant1,

I’ve been using Deezer and it’s just as good as Spotify, you can also import your Spotify favorites list and playlists. Jumped over during the whole Neil Young/ Joe Rogan cancel

argentcorvid,
@argentcorvid@midwest.social avatar

www.radio-browser.info

Many, many streaming radio stations from all over the world (some over-the-air, some internet only). Open database, so there’s apps for just about everything.

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