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.

Copythis,

I just about lost my mind earlier out of frustration for this. I love listening to rap/hip hop and the algorithm makes multiple mixes with the exact same songs every time.

I just typed in “underground” in search and found so much good shit. Not even all rap. There’s all sorts of great music I have never heard!

cashews_best_nut,

On Android install InnerTune from F-Droid. Allows you to play Youtube Music for free and no ads.

brambledog,

I was using innertune and will go.back to it when I can convince my wife to stop paying for youtube, but I’m definitely not looking forward to going back to it.

Innertune had issues communicating with Bluetooth and would have loading issues when not on wi-fi.

Also, the app fully breaks and has to be redownloaded if you attempt to use a widget maker for it.

Navigate,

I have been using https://spotifyshuffler.com/. This allows you to create a shuffled version of your playlist, then you play through that version once with Spotify’s shuffling disabled.

PresidentCamacho,

Is the idea that it’ll break Spotify preference to play only certain stuff?

Navigate,

The idea is that you don’t rely on Spotify shuffle at all. A separate app reads your playlist, shuffles it once, and puts that shuffled version into your library. Now you can play this new version with the in-Spotify shuffle disabled. Once you’ve heard all the songs, just rinse and repeat.

FrostKing,

I believe it’s Android only, but Innertune quickly became the best way to listen to music. Check it out :)

omxxi,

I think this article can help you newvisiontheatres.com/spotify-shuffle-plays-same-…

rip_art_bell,
@rip_art_bell@lemmy.world avatar

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

Ludrol,
@Ludrol@szmer.info avatar

Usually I just use everynoise.com playlists to listen to specific genre

SEND_NOODLES_PLS,

I’ve set up my Spotify to tell Last.fm what songs I listen to (aka scrobble). Over time, Last.fm gets a pretty good idea of what songs you like, so when I wanna discover new songs, I go to Last.fm, ask it to play me a mix, and direct it to play the songs through my Spotify. I find that its recommendations are much better than what I get from using Spotify alone.

parahanga,

Same gripe. I recently requested all my data from Spotify, scraped play counts out of it (thanks for not providing that in the API) and made a playlist of my liked songs in ascending play count order. Shuffling that, I’m hearing songs I love which I haven’t heard in years. Sucks that it takes so much effort

sir_pronoun,

I’ve been thinking about something like that as well. Can you create playlists and add songs via the API? Really have to check that out.

But yes, it’s a frustrating trend, I have that with smart home stuff as well. Huge vendors sell powerful enough hardware, but it’s dumbed down and after some point you get so frustrated you start tinkering with their API. Almost seems like a ploy to get all abled people distracted, so they don’t use their time and energy to work on building guillotines

parahanga,

I’m pretty sure you can create playlists and add songs via the API. For my purposes, because I wasn’t otherwise using the API, I found it easier to just manually copy a list of URLs in/out of playlists on the desktop app.

Vim + grep + tiny python snippet = good enough

Now though, I’m thinking a little script which did a “true shuffle” on a playlist, via the API, that could then be played in playlist order could be just as useful…

parahanga, (edited )

Even better, one already exists…

https://github.com/DanielHaitink/SpotifyRandomizer

macrocephalic,

I don’t seem to have this problem. I create playlists all the time and shuffle them. I never listen to artist radio and rarely use suggested songs. I find a lot of great music through Spotify and end up finding so many bands that I can’t listen to them all.

DrRatso,

One of the main reasons I stuck with YouTube Music is that I find the algorhitms superior to spotify. Maybe this is placebo, but I think between the 7 mixes + discovery + artist / song radio I always have something that does not feel the same, and I feel like any intentionally searched listening updates the mixes fairly quickly.

eighty,

Nah it’s not just you. Anytime I decide to start a radio while working, half the time I discover absolute bangers that I add to my playlists that balances between matching the vibe and distinct - which isn’t as easy as it seems.

Very_Bad_Janet, (edited )

I do the same with YT Music and tolerate the ads. Then, when they hit on a few songs I'm enjoying, I go to Newpipe and play playlistss or extended version of the songs/artists. I also build my own playlists in Newpipe.

If I discover a song I like IRL (say, on the radio or in the background of a video), I add it to both YT Music and Newpipe (e.g., I'm listening to Chaleya from the movie Jawan on Newpipe right now, discovered when I was out and about).

ETA: Newpipe also offers auto-enqueing, which might lead to more discovery.

DrRatso,

Im a disgusting premium user, but I might check out newpipe some day.

demesisx,
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

I disagree entirely.

I used the free trial. The algorithm was a whole lot shittier than spotify’s recommendations. It had the same annoying vibe as the regular youtube algo where if you watch one video from Jordan Peterson, you suddenly inherit the feed of an Elon Musk worshipping alt right tech bro.

It was the same for music. I listened to one song as a joke then it stopped recommending good music and just made my whole feed into joke songs. Much like youtube’s algorithm, youtube music algo clearly uses google’s machnine learning tech (which they use for ads too) where it tries so hard to predict what you like without real data, instead preferring to use solely other people’s browsing habits rather than creating a unique profile for that user without it making too many assumptions right off the bat. Perhaps, I’d describe that algorithm as “HIGHLY reductive” when compared to any other recommendatiion algorithm which seem more geared toward slowly discovering the tastes of its users.

DrRatso,

This might be a function of low usage time, the shifts were definitely more pronounced in the beginning, now when I listen to new stuff it only introduces the changes in the appropriate mixes (i.e my mix 1-3 is various hiphop (very well segregated into different styles i must add), 4,5 is indie/rock etc) and the amount is a function of how much of said new stuff i listen. On occasion i will use votes and the dislikes especially affect playlists quickly.

I know the youtube behaviour you refer to and it honestly really makes me hate watching youtube, some days I will have a bad mood and start spamming not interested for a few rows and my feed is good again.

But with YTM it seems to be really nice, whereas with spotify, as OP, I found it quite stale.

netburnr,
@netburnr@lemmy.world avatar

Turn off Automix in your settings and the Playlist work much better

deur,

Automix doesn’t do what you’re saying it does, it is only an advanced version of crossfading the end of one song and the start of another.

netburnr,
@netburnr@lemmy.world avatar

No, it isn’t crossfade. It adds random music to your Playlist. I found this fix on Reddit the other day and it made a big difference, I’m now hearing songs on my liked song Playlist that I’ve not heard in a long time.

Bitrot, (edited )
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

That isn’t automix, that’s smart shuffle.

Automix is only enabled on a few playlists, and not Liked songs.

If you’ve ever listened to a dance album where one song merges seamlessly into the next, automix does that. When you hear a playlist using automix it is very noticeable.

Captain_Patchy,

Shuffle no repeat on my 60 gb ipod classic. Also shuffle no repeat using VLC for android on my phone.

Bitrot,
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

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.

Redditgee, (edited )

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.

asqapro,

I’ve been using Deezer for a while and I like its variety. They have a “Flow” button where you can let it play random music with favorites mixed in, but you can also select a “mood” (like Focus, Party, Chill, and others) or genres (like R&B, Alternative, Rock, and others). You can also have Flow lean more towards new music or already favorited tracks, but that’s been inconsistent for me in the past where sometimes it’ll only play my favorited songs when I chose to listen to new music or vice versa.

I’ve discovered a lot of new songs and artists by letting Flow do its thing on my drive to and from work. Although, sometimes Flow gets stuck in a certain style of music, like playing back-to-back-to-back Golden Oldies, and it’s frustrating trying to get it to play anything else without manually selecting a genre or mood each time you launch the app. That’s a small gripe because the variety is typically good, with favorites mixed in.

reev,

I love flow but deezer’s music variety is just really lacking compared to Spotify or YouTube music for me, unfortunately. I want to love it!

ALERT,
@ALERT@sh.itjust.works avatar

Plex without Chromecast.

transientpunk,
@transientpunk@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m enjoying Plexamp

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