[All Platforms][Playlists] Recommendations - Spotify Radio vs. Discover Weekly

[bvishneski]

I have been using Spotify for the last year. After sampling my Discover Weekly suggestions for some time now, I am less than impressed by the results. This is in sharp contrast to what others report regarding their satisfaction with the Discover Weekly feature.  

I listen to quite a bit of music from the 30s and 40s, as well as some of the inspirational "epic style" music played in movies. I certainly recognize that this collection of music likely represents a very small slice and lesser played portion of the Spotify library. At first I thought this might be the reason why Discover Weekly provided disappointing recommendations.

For some reason, however, Spotify Radio has proved far better than Discover Weekly in providing music recommendations that appealed to me. While Discover Weekly may occasionally provide a good recommendation, I have rarely been disappointed with any of the songs found in Spotify Radio, many of which have found their way into my Playlists. Rarely have I added songs from Discover Weekly to my Playlists. 

Can someone provide some insights into why these two recommendation engines provide such different results?  

Thanks in advance,
Bob

[blake]

Hi @bvishneski and thanks for your post! Hi and thanks for your feedback. I've moved your post to the Content Questions board, where we can discuss the technical differences between Discover Weekly and Radio.  

I don't have the answer, but I will say that this article is a good explanation of how Discover Weekly works. My guess is that not many people make playlists quite like yours, which is why your DW is less than satisfactory. 🙂

[bvishneski]

Blake,
Thanks for the update. I suspected my music preferences might skew toward the edges of the Spotify distribution curve.  But it seems that Radio handles my tastes much better than Discover Weekly. Thus I would indeed appreciate some insights regarding the  differences between their respective algorithms. 
Bob