Is there a reason why Spotify only recommends unknown artists in the "Discover" tab?

[user-removed]

My "Discover Weekly" playlist works fine, but when I try the Browse function and look at the "Discover" tab I see only unknown and obscure artists.

Now, I am not complaining in general, I love finding new music... But I would like to listen to artists that may come in my country to perform concerts and, living in Italy, only more well-known acts will do that.

I would like to discover artists that have more than one ore two millions monthly listeners. Any idea on how I could accomplish that?

[UnitedCommonPub]

You could follow bigger playlists within the genre you like, you could definitely find new/bigger artists that way. 

[user-removed]

Thanks! I'll try that.

[peterbeau · Accepted solution]

I believe Spotify Discover is strongly influenced by your listening habits on Spotify. It sounds as if you listened to a lot of obscure/unknown artists otherwise I cannot explain why this happens. And of course, the more you listen to those unknown/obscure artists, the more you will find them on Discover.
I suggest, as somebody pointed out already, to listen to some Spotify Radio in your favorite genre - also play a couple of albums from more commercial artists.
Changes take a while with Spotify but you should be able to influence it by changing your listening habits.

[user-removed]

Thank you, and I think your explanation is absolutely plausible. I listened to a lot of those unknown artists, because I didn't really mind if they were not famous – and I still don't, I would just prefer if they were not the only recommendations I get. Anyway, I will follow your suggestion to try and influence the algorithm.

[Robert_W]

Hey @user-removed,

I see there is a host of great replies above from folks here! 🙂 Great to see such a supportive community!

In case you may not be aware, there is a list of helpful informaiton here on the discover weekly feature: 

https://support.spotify.com/using_spotify/playlists/discover-weekly/

Enjoy those tunes! 🙂

[poniro]

Hello Cissy,

I rarely listen to obscure or unknown artists, however I continue to receive these type of artists in Discover Weekly. For example, this week in Discover, out of 30 tracks there are only 6 original artists, which is not to my liking. Most of the others mimick the original artist!

[user-removed]

Same thing that happens to me! I get that Spotify tries to recommend very similar things to the music I listen to, but I would prefer a little more variety and definitely more original artists and less copycats. But I still cannot work around the algorithm. It's exasperating really.