New update deleted most useful feature of Android app - browsing saved tracks by Artists

[Setian]

This is concerning premium users mostly, however I am sure that there are free users that relied on this feature too. 

Alongside the new update, which changed the library UI in Android app, one of the most useful features disappeared: browsing saved songs by artists. Artist bookmark now lists only artists that you observe instead of listing all that you have saved songs of, and while clicking on artist now their online full page will appear instead of the list of saved songs sorted by albums. This is extremely infuriating for people like me, who kept their all offline music in library instead of playlists and have multitude of artists they do listen to. Now I cannot listen to my chosen tracks of one artist without reffering to self created playlist as Artists bookmark will lead me to their full page. Moreover, I cannot browse by artists AT ALL in offline mode as those full pages are purely online thing. They even deleted my Albums section, as Albums bookmark now lists only albums which are saved as a whole and do not list partially saved ones. I will not create 150 playlist for all of my Artists so if Spotify will not bring the feature back, I will have to consider withdrawing from subscription. Because why would I need and offline music app which I cannot use in offline mode in any usable way? 

[ABCDE1973]

But nobody (other than Spotify) should have to be needing around with new versions.

Is anyone Spotify actually listening to anything we say, or reading this thread at all?

I don't think they are.

[Grassy_Gnoll]

If I don't have my artists back, I'll go back to Google.

[ashesthedawn]

I am very upset I cannot access my saved songs by Artist anymore as well, which was the way I accessed all of my music outside of my playlists. 

However, as a workaround until Spotify figures out that this was a moronic sort option to remove for our saved songs, I have found that if you click the Artist heading on your SOngs sort list, it will alphabetically list your saved songs by Artist. So at least there's that as a temp workaround.

BRING BACK OUR BELOVED ARTIST SORT POR FAVOR 😞

[Jacuzzi510]

There has been no reply except spotify saying they constantly change their
interface to help streamline the app and make it user friendly. They aren't
rolling this back because it increase the number of people following
artists. This was a money move and they dont care what we think. I
cancelled spotify because of this update

[momanem35]

I didn't realize how much I relied on my artist list until it disappeared. Spotify is useless to me without it. Whole I do like the liked songs playlist, I would gladly trade it to have the artist list back. I've uninstalled Spotify for now and will use Google Music. I'll keep tabs on this discussion, and if they restore the list, I'll reinstall. In the meantime, after seeing what the newest version of Spotify looks like, my husband has made a note not to update it, because he thinks it's a bug that Spotify needs to patch.

[user-removed]

I can with my update. I'm on Android if that makes a difference.

The Artist tab shows all of the artists that I'ved followed first and says how many songs I've saved by that artist. At the bottom is a list of recommended artist that says how many songs I've saved by those artist. I assume they're being recommend becaused I've saved a song by them in the first place—but I don't have to follow them (one hit wonders), but they still show up in the list, just not at the top.

See screen shot below.

When I click on an artist, I can see a list of all the songs I saved sorted by the albums they're from. I can play and shuffle all of the songs I've saved by that artist.

[Deadjim]

@jodabu I dont have that on my artist page. All i have is an artist im forced to follow now. No saved songs under it. If i click on the artist, i get taken to their store page. It does not show my saved songs or albums anywhere on that page.

[user-removed]

@Deadjim, sorry to hear that. If that were the case for me then I'd complain too. The new layout didn't start for me until yesterday. I'm still exploring it. I definitely have the new update with the music and podcast tabs and Songs are now "Liked Songs." But I don't seem to have the spicific issues that a lot of you are havinging.

Maybe Spotify is doing some strange roll out where they roll out an update to a number of people, get feed back, roll out a slightly different version to others, etc. (that seem unlikly due to it being overly complex).

[Deadjim]

@jodabu Iv had this UI since Febuary. They are rolling it out slowly. It seems they are towards the end of the rollout now since the forums have just exploded with angry people within the past few days.

They do not seem keen on fixing it or listening to feedback either. I had an issue where my liked songs playlist did not work. Would not show any music i have liked. It took them about 5 months to fix that. So 5 months with no way to see my music outside of albums.

I tried the UI for a month and switched to Apple Music. I want to use Spotify again, i really do. Thats why i am vocal on the forums for the UI to be fixed.

[user-removed]

This roll out is strange. You've had since Febuary, I just got it. The way mine works is slightly different than yours. Perhaps they are listening to some extent. In another post I did over a year ago on a completely different topic I mentioned that Spotify has poor communication and lack of transparency with how things are suppose to work.

I've been struggling myself with deciding between Deezer or Spotify. I like them both for different reasons and hate them both for different reasons. I'm using them both right now trying to decide.

One of the factors is use in the car (85% of my listening is in the car). I have an Android phone, so I use Android Auto. That takes Apple Music out of the equation since I can't use car play.

[SupremeRoast]

@jodabu I have it as well! I see that if you like a song by an artist, all you have to do is like AND follow them and it will add them to your ARTIST tab with ONLY the song you liked. This is annoying, but at the very least it's closer to how it was before. The only issue is I just spent like 10 minutes clicking FOLLOW on over 200 artist that I had not previously followed. Thank you for pointing this out! You've been exponentially more helpfull than the actual support team!

[SupremeRoast]

@jodabu I feel you. I was JUST about to downgrade the app to the last version before this atrocious update and turn off auto-updates. But I saw the post above and decided to see if my app had the same functionality, lo and behold it did. I don't know why they didn't have something like a "would you like to use the old style" option like with most websites and apps that allow before a major update/UI change.

[aden94]

Change it back or I quit!

[user-removed]

Yeah, maybe I didn't noticed some of these issued because I had already liked a good number of artists and albums already. I mainly did that as part of a comprehensive approach (including making playlists, liking, and saving songs, as we as playing certain playlists nonstop overnight) in an attempt to teach Spotify that I don't like the songs my daughter was playing (I don't let her touch my Spotify any more).

[themerrypig]

It's awful - Not not intuitive at all.

- List of artists in my Library gone unless I follow every one (increased hassle, and don't want the notifications that go with it)

- List of songs in Library has gone so I can no longer randomly play my entire library which makes me sad.

 -Replaced by Liked Songs playlist, but that doesn't seem to add/remove songs when I add/remove the albums they're in (increased hassle, removing a downloaded album doesn't remove each downloaded song, so I need to go through them individually to prevent my phone storage being full).

- The relationship between "Like" and being in my Library is unclear to me.

- Overall, I don't want "Like" or "Follow". Makes sense the context of social media, but not a music Library. When I go from Home to Library, I just want everything in my Library. Simple as. Like every music player I have used before in my life!

[ABCDE1973]

Hello everyone, me again!
I have already had plenty to say on this topic, but it's great to hear what everyone else has to say too. So far, I haven't seen a single positive comment in support of the new UI and Library. What does that tell you?
The question is, is Spotify listening? This is now a 9 page thread of moans and groans on their own community site and I still haven't seen a single comment from them, not even an acknowledgement that we are unhappy about this. Spotiy, if you are reading this, we are your paying PREMIUM customers. At least have the courtesy to respond! We have a saying in the UK: The customer is always right! I may start bombarding the CEO with emails.
For the last month or so I have also been subscribing to another provider. Yes I am paying more than I do for Spotify but the UI is well presented and easy to use, much like Spotify’s was before the horrid updates. Also, the music is a minimum CD quality (ie 706kbps compared to Spotify’s max 320kbps) if not full 24 bit FLAC. It is a joy to the ears! I have hearing bass lines and percussion like never before. This is another bugbear of mine, that Spotify are not yet offering a HiRes option.
But there are features of Spotify that I love, such as the Daily Mixes, which I would miss. I used to adore Spotify but, in the words of BB King, the thrill has gone.
Time is running out and if this isn't fixed (or if Spotify continue to ignore us completely) then I’ll have no choice but to cancel my subscription.

[user-removed]

My update came today and the interface is the same as yours. Still exploring it and wondering about some of the issues others are having. I can filter by downloaded songs from the albums tab but the only way to play these songs is by filtering the 'Liked' playlist by downloads. Highly annoyed I can't download individual songs anymore without first creating a playlist of the songs I want to download. This feature needs to come back.

[saulasdf]

I got half a response from them-

Me: Hey Spotify, 

Your new feature sucks beyond comprehension. Don't think that your brilliant idea of removing the "songs" feature from library is a smart idea. 

It is the only feature to set you apart from the "playlist" streaming services such as Pandora and iHeartRadio etc.

Don't be so ambitious that you lose your base.

You're welcome for the feedback! 🙂

Saul 

Spotify: Hey Saul,
We're sorry to hear you're unhappy with the changes in the recent Spotify update.

We're always testing things by adding or removing features to make Spotify better overall. We’re sorry that this means you’re not able to use the app like you could before.

We can't say if or when any specific features will be back. But as soon as we’ve got anything to announce, we’ll let everyone know via the Spotify Community.

Let us know if you’ve got any other feedback.

Regards,

Irish

[momanem35]

And another thing - sometimes I use the "follow artist" function as a bookmark for artists I'm unfamiliar with so I can go back and check them out. Now these artists are front and center, and I literally know nothing by or about them, while other artists that I've liked 10, 20, 30 or more songs by are nowhere to be found. 

[SERGIOROAA]

This is nonsense! Why would you want to save the song but not the Artist? no one's mind works that way! it makes the algorithm incredibly complex and messy (at least in my mind, and starting to see everyone in this tread agrees).

Is it a strategy to sell and get me to listen what spotify wants me to listen and not the music I enjoy? It makes it easy for users to abandon spotify and use another streaming plataform.