Top tracks and artists have bogus listings.

[nakedhitman]

My top tracks and artists are full of bogus information, including one artist I actively avoid and hate and one statistical anomaly.

The bogus artist in my top tracks is Saosin. I have never listened to them outside of one live show that made me hate them. I kinda want this track removed from my account.

The statistical anomaly is that Nickelback is my top artist and their song "Animals" is my top song. At one time, there were a few Nickelback songs buried in my one 950 song playlist. However, that specific song was deleted months ago, and most other artists have continuously had a larger presence in my playlist (this playlist is also the only one that ever had them in it). It's statistically unlikely that this song that I don't like should be my number one song when so many other songs should have been played more frequently over the entire course of this playlist's existence.

Also, several other minor artists that only have 1 or 2 songs in my gargantuan playlists are in my top tracks. I don't know how, as I only play these playlists on shuffle.

I have 2 questions:

What sort of malice went into your statistics engine to produce this rather random and misrepresentitive list on my profile?

Is there anything I can do about it besides make a small playlist of artists I do like and play it for several days straight?

[theBDub]

I completely agree in every aspect of the word. I have two tracks that I've literally never even heard of in my top tracks. My top artists are absolutely wrong. I haven't listened to one of them in months, the others are basically random. One artist is one I'd consider in the top 20. One.

How hard can it be to simply have a "most played = favorite artists/songs" algorithm? This is stupid. I listen to Spotify for hours at work every single day, streaming songs and not even using local files. So many hours of this day are filled with the same artist, and it's not up there. I listen to them everyday, pretty much since I got Spotify.

And I pay! I just don't want friends going to my profile and seeing this music is my favorite. It cannot be hard to fix. I just don't understand why this is an issue.

[mynameischad]

Agree! Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman as my Top Artists? I'm sure this must offend someone. Even if there were a delete/remove Top Artists choice next to the artists name that would give me some control over who is allowed to stay in my profile. This one seems pretty simple to me. Am I missing something? Thank you for fixing it...Soon.

[nakedhitman]

Well, short of Spotify actually fixing the problem, I have a workaround, though it's not great. Just make a 10 or so song playlist of your favorite songs from different artists and genres, and play it for a few days on a loop. If you use Spotify all the time, you can just run the playlist on mute while you sleep. It's not great, but it at least got rid of the bogus artists for me.

It doesn't fix the problem of statistically unlikely artists showing up, however. A few artists that weren't in my looping playlist appeared in my top tracks and artists, but at least I listen to and like them. It's not a great workaround, but until Spotify starts to acknowledge paying customers like us, it'll have to do.

[theBDub]

My top artists aren't perfect now, but they are more than acceptable. I'd even say they're pretty close.

If I could freeze my list, I would. Anyone know of a way to do this? There is a random in my top tracks but heck I'm fine with one.

[user-removed]

Sadly there no option to change top things. However you can hide those from public in Preferences!

[theBDub]

I want them to see what I like to listen to, I just want them to actually see what I like to listen to.

Oh well.

[nakedhitman]

I'm with theBDub, like the top tracks/artist feature in concept, but I want it to work as advertised. Your "workaround" is worse than mine. I'd be satisfied to know that Spotify is working on it, but you've given no indication of that. Can we please get some idea of whether or not this is something Spotify plans to fix?

[suspicious]

Hi,

Something odd or deviant is definitely going on. Why have I looked through the online community to find we all have similar issues? Two people I saw had exactly the same bogus tracks in their top listened to (David Guetta, Train - never heard it, Chris Brown.  I appreciate that I have searched for tracks in the past, not saved them and walked away from my playlist. But how can one incident change days what I've listening from before. I've had Neon Neon on for ages now and no change to my playlist. Spotify - is their a hacker in your system? This issue negates the entire purpose of Spotify surely? What makes matters worse is on my last complaint advertised hyperlinked some of words to their products. This is like sponsorship for the Olympics.

Is anyone from Spotify listening to me?

[darrenmason]

I too am having this problem for the last week or so - at least that's when I noticed it. Christina Perri and Sizzla (who I never listen to) are both in there. My guess is Spotify got crafty with this feature trying to track a combination of Spotify use and Facebook / web usage in order to have some type of secret sauce in understanding what artists we really like. The problem is they broke the feature because clearly a LOT of people are complaining about having wrong artists in their Top Artists.

Spotify - hello - is anyone responding to this?

[theBDub]

"Spotify - hello - is anyone responding to this?"

Short answer - No.

Their "answer" is "Sorry, nothing you can do to change that" apparently.

No "We acknowledge the complaint and are working on a solution." Nope, just "Sorry".

It's just weird. It seems like such an easy fix... Most plays = favorites. I don't get why or even how they made this complicated.

[darrenmason]

Well interesting... woke up this morning and Top Artists seems to be working a little better. Still not sure how their algorithm works, but at least unknown / unlistened to artists are no longer present in my Top Artist list.

Thanks Spotify!

[Sam]

Hi guys,

We are looking at sorting this. We really are. Hopefully, you'll all see some improvements soon.

[nakedhitman]

Hi guys,

We are looking at sorting this. We really are. Hopefully, you'll all see some improvements soon.

 Thank you for letting us know. We look forward to hearing about the improvements you're making. I only request that you keep us updated whenever your changes are made.

[theBDub]

Hi guys,

We are looking at sorting this. We really are. Hopefully, you'll all see some improvements soon.

Well then I apologize for my crass reply! I look forward to the changes.

[almag]

I agree that the top artists and tracks ists are completely off. I notice that especially given that I only recently started to really use Spotify, so I sort of know what albums/tracks I have listened to. Some of the top songs and artists I have actually never played (and are a little embarassing as well...). I wish they could fix that, it does not seem like a very hard algorithm to design.

[FeloniousCrunk]

My top tracks is totally wrong. The number one is a song I searched, listened about half way through, decided I didnt like it then changed to something else. Never listened to it again. 10 days later it's still my number one....Wha!? 

No offence to those guys, but I don't want people who look through my top tracks to see that as "my most played" song. Being able to look through others playlists is one of the great functions of spotify, but this top track thing is a big let down!!

Perhaps even slightly concerning..

[amyers4678]

It seems to me that you're trying to promote certain artists by modifying people favorite artist/songs.  It would make sense considering this is an ad based service.  I'm very annoyed by this.  You can google search this and people have been complaining about this issue for over 2 years...but you're working on it.   I listen to Citizen Cope and Josh Ritter every day but they aren't in my top artists.  I listened to one Cat Power song once and apparently she is one of my favorite artists.  Please stop jerking us around and fix this!!!

[listener101]

Similar issue.  On facebook my Recent and All time 'Top Artists' do not match... this is possible, but my "All Time" include an artist that has less plays (88) than my #4 "Recent" artist (94)!  These lists should be an accurate reflection of number of listens. I am guessing there's a glitch somewhere????

[garytonsley]

Same here guys.

It seems to follow your current trends rather than the overall listening time or track plays. I had never, ever listened to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers until this week and now apparently they are my most favouritest band in the universe! 

Wrong.

Obviously.