New Releases Playlist Not Updating

[IsaacHale]

The official "New Releases on Spotify" playlist (link: New Releases on Spotify - US) has been one of my favorite features of the program. I use it every week to see all the new tracks and albums added. Unlike every prior week, the playlist was not updated this Tuesday. I tweeted @SpotifyCares, and they replied "I think we upload too many to put them in one place, but New Releases in Browse is a great place to start 🙂 /S." This seems unlikely, considering the list frequently has releases from the last two weeks. Furthermore, I've seen playlists with near 2,000 songs on them (the New Releases playlist has under 500), making this assertion by @SpotifyCares very dubious.

To make matters worse, my copy of the list today was replaced by a list called "New Music Tueday" (link: New Music Tuesday), which only includes tracks selected by Spotify. This is obviously not the same.

Is this issue being looked into? Was the lack of update this week just a blip? The answer from @SpotifyCares on Twitter was clearly wrong, so I'd like to know what's really going on.

[RobEverton]

I agree.  I loved that playlist and checked it every week.  That's the primary reason I pay for Spotify. 

Who do I complain to?

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@triplea325 wrote:

This is serious BS! I also checked this playlist, religiously, for the last 3 years and created several playlists based on it. It hasn't been updated since August 5 and was wiped off my saved playlists and replaced with the crap "new music Tuesdays." I'm gutted and tempted to cancel my premium subscription. f you, Spotify.

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[Ontohum]

The New Releases Playlist is the primary feature and the main reason for my premium subscription to Spotify. It is very obvious that Spotify, like many other social sites out there, prefers now to push us toward music that they want us to listen to. It is also obvious that many out there feel the same way about this playlist and want it back. There are no legal reasons for disabling it, only financial. If it isn't refreshed and supported by the time my subscription renews in September, I will be cancelling my premium subscription. The workarounds that some have found/created are appreciated, but if we have to do something annoying to access the music we want to access then there really is no reason to keep the subscription going.

[user-removed]

If everyone here wants to know what is newly added to spotify there are two worthwhile resources. The first goes back for the last two weeks of what was added you can access it here http://www.spotifynewmusic.com/ make sure you select your correct listening regions based on your account details when you created the account.

There is also this resource with more refined searching it can be found here http://pansentient.com/new-on-spotify/  I use them both.

If a user checks both of these at the start and ending of the week one should be able to stay up on all new releases.

[user-removed]

I'm glad people are pointing out swarm.fm and things of that nature but can it be easily be accessed within spotify?  Because it seems to me like I have to manually search and create my own playlist every single week.  With the new Youtube Music Key announced, maybe its time to jump over to Google All Access.  I mean, it's not that hard for the people at spotify to give us a playlist of new music for the week.  This is absurd.  I'm seriously signing up for the Google All Access 30 day trial.  If they win me over (have an easy way to see ALL new releases), I'm done with Spotify. 

[ajlane1979]

Thanks for the link! I can't get it to let me login yet but I'll try again in a bit! I have heard really good things about google all access...my coworker liked it so much he would give up his iphone but i don't know how it works!

I did tweet again asking WHY to spotify but wonder if we will ever hear!!!!!!!! 😞 I would do it myself if i knew how to determine them all!

[bobafett90210]

I agree with everyone here - and since it's been 2 weeks where my 'New Releases' list has updated, it's been frustrating.  I'm disappointed with Spotify's decision if they did kill the list, and am off to Twitter to voice my concerns because, as you all have noticed, nobody's really responding to this thread...

[Sam]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the feedback. I can assure you, it's all being passed to the right team.

At present, we're focusing on using this New Music Tuesdays playlist as the place for new releases. If you'd like to see a list of new albums, simply check out the New Releases tab in Browse.

[ajlane1979]

I did get a little feedback from twitter. Type tag:new into the search bar then click see all or show all on the right.  That does help a little but still not in a list format or not obvious if a single or album. But might help a little. I'm staying on this!

[user-removed]

Sam the moderator,

What do you mean you're focusing your efforts on new music Tuesday? It's MORE effort to look through all of the new releases and selectively pick some songs you think we should listen to. I refuse to believe that if you can do that, you are unable to just pick everything that is new and add it to a Playlist. Your answer doesn't pass the sniff test for anyone that has the least bit of technical acumen. Surely your database of music has a "date added" field. I mean that function is built into your playlists.

[aguynamednate]

Sam,

I think we understand why you would want to have a simple playlist called "New Music Tuesday" that's a curated discovery list for those looking for a less exhaustive approach. But for people like the folks on this group who are looking to see everything  that comes out--the solution you provided degrades the discovery process. You can't rifle through each album checking them out in a matter of minutes. It's a cumbersome multiclick process that used to be a fun, and simple one. 

And I understand that "this can't be that hard" is not a fair thing to say 100% of the time, but I would argue the optics of this look super bad for you all. It sure feels and sounds like this can't be a technical problem. The technical implementation feels obvious. We know this, because we saw it for years! I would argue we're looking for a clearer explanation of what's going on here than "we're concentrating on this other playlist." That feels...(sorry) like a hand wave.

Thanks,

Nathan  

[RobEverton]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for paying attention to this conversation.  As you have seen, there are some passionate Spotify customers who want the old list back.

Our spirit of Music discovery and your large catalog are what drew us to Spotify.  We need a convenient way to see when you add music to your catalog.  That include new releases as well as expansions to your back catalog.  There are still a TON of albums that you do not offer that we would love to see, so this is one way that we could "keep tabs" on what you add so we don't miss anything.

Speaking of which, I'd like to add a related observation, and maybe this has something to do with your shift.  It seems like you have stopped (or at least slowed) adding older music to your catalog.  Some of these are major artists while most are not.  Have you changed your approach to building your catalog and is thay why you don't want to make it easy for us to see what you add?

Thanks,

Rob

[triplea325]

The New Music Tuesday playlist is singles only. And the browse feature takes away the ease of moving music from playlist to playlist - it's much more cumbersome to browse the albums individually. Please bring it back! 

Also, not that this matters probably at all, but having the feature removed (and replaced with the crappy NMT playlist)  with no notification seems pretty disrespectful to your users. 

[Rollo_]

This Weeks Releases [spotifynewmusic.com]

Last Weeks Releases [spotifynewmusic.com]

[user-removed]

Thanks, I subscribed to these playlists shortly after this whole thing started.  It's a sad day when we need to depend on the community to provide previously offered features.

[mannes]

I came looking for this thread, since the killing of the New Releases playlist has rendered my listening experience stale. New music Tuesdays is a joke, I have little to zero interest in singles; I subscribe mainly because of the new album discovery capability that this playlist provided. Remember, this too was a change from an easier new music feature they removed. Now we're being asked to browse for new releases, but that list is also pretty stale. I think I'll look for an alternative to Spotify.

[ajlane1979]

If anyone of you find a way via a different service please let us know!!! I am so distracted all day by the fact i am missing all sorts of new music!! Finding albums i didn't know were out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tried using the link provided for new releaseses but it is very cumbersome to use. bouncing between the internet and spotify and back and forth. who has time for that??  

Can't we start a riot on Twitter #BRINGBACKTHEFULLNEWRELEASESPLAYLIST or something?!?!?! we can't be the only few who are suffering here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ontohum]

Now that I've had some time to think about it, things have become quite clear. Companies make changes such as these for one reason only: to increase revenues. In this instance, they removed a playlist that was most likely created by an automated process and replaced it by one that requires a human to make important selections. Since this will obviously cost more money to implement, there must be a new revenue stream to justify this action. The most likely explanation for this is that this New Release Tuesday playlist has been picked not for our interest but for the interest of someone who is paying to have it made. This means New Release Tuesday is nothing more than product placement, i.e., an ad. Since we are all paying for ad-free Spotify, we are right to be offended. If this new product placement playlist was placed alongside the truly ad free one, we would not have a problem. But much like the ads at the beginning of DVDs that you can't skip, by eliminating our beloved playlist they are forcing us to get to the content we want by first perusing their ads. Time to start that Google music service free preview. . .

[IsaacHale]

On August 19th, @SpotifyCares tweeted at me "It's currently with our content team at the moment. The playlist should hopefully be updated in the coming days - stay tuned! /I." No dice yet. Let's keep the pressure up.

[AmberFS]

I've also contacted @spotifycares. My question was "where can I find ALL of the weekly new releases in a playlist?" They seem to be deliberately trying to skirt the question by alternatively sending me to:

1. New Music Tuesday playlist (only contains a small selection of the music added every week)

2. Browse > New Releases (not a playlist)

3. The old New Releases on Spotify playlist (hasn't been updated since August 5)

I don't like the direction Spotify is going. Every change they have made recently seems to be focused on restricting how their customers use their services. Not everyone spends hours sorting through full albums to find something they like. Not everyone chooses music based on cover art. Not everyone is locked into a single genre.

I'm not really sure if I see the point in continuing to pay for something that is obviously no longer being developed to allow me choose how and when I listen to music and what I listen to.

[user-removed]

Has there been any movement by spotify on this?  Has anyone heard anything?!