December 9, 2011
Reading the news about Spotify’s Apps launching had me intrigued. Including last.fm in the launch had me completely on board. The biggest feature lacking from Spotify is a way to discover new music.
I assume this was a first attempt, you’ll get better kid …
I downloaded the beta and added the last.fm app and … ugh. It offers a window into your account page. Gives you some album or track recommendations. A listing of your recent and loved tracks. When you are playing a song in Spotify, it will tell you some things similar to what you are currently listening to. Some of that is nice, but it isn’t at all what I was hoping.
The quick last.fm overview: it can track what you listen to. You can get an add-on to upload what you listen to in iTunes and on your iPod, and it is built in to Spotify (even with out the app). It then offers you some radio options. My favorite is the Recommendations Radio, which looks at what you like to listen to and plays songs it thinks you will like.
I was hoping for that last.fm Recommendations Radio feature but bolstered by the backing of the vast Spotify library. I’m not sure how many songs last.fm offers, but Spotify is much more in-depth. After getting that running inside Spotify, it would be easy to add the new tracks you find to your existing playlists.
It’s about time Spotify …
Today, Spotify finally added some recommended radio to the app, it has nothing to do with any of the app integration (or last.fm) that was apparently such a big deal. It works a lot like Pandora. Give it an artist or track and it will play similar songs. I like this. I tried it out for a while today and was pleased with the results.
I still have a request …
I only ask for one more step. Recommendations to add to Playlists. One problem with Spotify is the effort you have to put in when getting started to create the playlists that you want. Another problem is adding tracks to those playlists after you create them.
Problem: I have two main playlists. One of my favorite music that I hear about through various websites that I follow. I keep up with new stuff on my own. The other is a hits playlist that usually gets populated from new things I hear when listening to Sirius. With Spotify, I’m listening to less and less Sirius in the car and am thinking about ending my subscription. When that happens, how will I add new songs to my hits playlist?
Tips on how you discover new music would be appreciated.
A solution: Spotify figures out what is going on with your playlist and offers suggestions on what to add to the playlist, including new tracks. They have this recommendation radio now, it should be as simple as feeding all the tracks in a playlist into that and seeing what gets the most matches. A list is generated from there giving you a selection of similar songs to your playlist, and if you want it can give a little more weight to new songs.
Oh, and give me some recommended radio in the iPhone app.
March 13, 2016
February 20, 2016