How does thumbs up thumbs down work?

[Juliana]

Some tracks I think would be great for one station, but horrible for another.  If I thumbs down them in one radio station, can I still thumbs up them in another?  Or will they even appear?  I would like to see it posted somewhere exacctly how the whole thing works.

Thanks for your help!

[Goodman · Accepted solution]

Hi Juliana.

Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down affect only you and that particular radio station, so your other stations will be "unharmed" 🙂

[SteveBrammer]

...and yet the "Liked from radio" playlist just lumps together all likes from all radio stations. What's the thinking behind this playlist?

[Goodman]

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@SteveBrammer wrote:

...and yet the "Liked from radio" playlist just lumps together all likes from all radio stations. What's the thinking behind this playlist?

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A reminder of the songs you may not have had yet, but you liked them, so you might want to come back to any of them at a later time.

[SteveBrammer]

Isn't that what the starred playlist is for?

I'm having trouble understanding the usefulness of the "Liked from radio" playlist.

[Goodman]

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@SteveBrammer wrote:

Isn't that what the starred playlist is for?

I'm having trouble understanding the usefulness of the "Liked from radio" playlist.

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I can't speak for others, but personally I use the starred playlist for songs I really, really like and want to easily find on a very regular basis.

The liked from radio playlist I just use for the same reasons I mentioned above; a helpful reminder of songs I might want to come back to, but I don't want them messing up my starred playlist.

[birdsaremagic]

What I am interested in knowing is if there is any complexity to the process.  If I am making a list of songs, for example, that are mellow, but an artist I've included has some up-beat songs in their repertoire and one of them makes the radio station, I will thumbs down it, but I am giving it the thumbs down because it doesn't fit the mood of the playlist.  I still want other songs from that artist to be suggested.  

In other cases, I am giving the thumbs down to a song that fits the genre/mood but I just don't like.  And other times, I just don't like the artist in general.  I guess I am curious about what is happening when I give something thumbs down.

[Stygious]

Greetings all!

I recently adopted Spotify over Pandora for the ability to stream particular tracks on demand and customize playlists and stations for a number of situations throughout my day. I have intentions of playlists/stations In the thirties ranging from different styles of exercise to different aspects of my work and home life.

My initial problem with the thumbs down button is this: I have used it to dislike a track and then heard the same track 3-4 tracks later. Is there a number of dislikes required to actually block a track from a station?

An additional issue that develops (for me personally) is that In some cases, I don't hate the song but I would rather hear it less often than the 'liked' tracks on the station. You may say to simply leave that track alone and skip it from time to time, but I tried that and experienced the following problem: A particular station plays Iggy Pop's The Passenger a lot. I dig the tune from time to time and thus do not wish to block it with a thumb down, but I don't want to hear it every time the station plays; especially when I have plenty of tracks by specific artists that have been favorited on that station that I rarely hear at all.

I also would hear the same track within 8-10 tracks after skipping it. You can't tell me that In a station featuring 900 tracks by 300+ artists that Iggy Pop comes up that heavily...

Anyway, my rant aside I would love to see a grading system like 0-5 thumbs... In which I could have given Iggy a 2 to indicate that I want to hear that track occasionally.

Edit: Perhaps two rows of 0-5 thumbs. One for the artist and one for the track allowwing you to dislike specific songs by artists you love and vice versa.

As long as those tracks display your thumbs, you could choose to change your level of appreciation for the artist any time one of their songs played (or from the library list).

Thanks for being a part of my first post here

[maszat]

Using Desktop version, the thumb down feedback simply does not remove the song from that station, it comes back on the same station. I hope this gets recognized as a bug and not intentional - which would be a rather annoying behavior.

[maszat]

As of today I hear a change in the way playlist radio works, and selects songs.

After a few hours of trying out the new radio, the thumb down issue is not fully fixed, thumbed down songs are still repeated, but there is a noticable improvement.

Thanks guys for gradually making the radio experince better!

[Stygious]

Still seems like I get tracks I have thumbed down. Also odd that some songs that I have liked I hear multiple times in a single session where others I also liked, I never hear... For instance, "Don't fear the reaper" plays every session, yet I rarely hear any of the 10+ Stone Temple Pilots tunes. Odd but whatever. The ability to access entire albums is worth some glitchyness.

I think the true value to Spotify is custom playlisting rather than the radio. More wore, but significantly more reward. Radio is good for new song and playlist ideas I suppose.

[maszat]

Some weeks ago I've observed a change in the thumb down behavior. Initially I thought it was resolved. But, it is not. They simply repeat a different set of songs, not the ones they repeated ad-nausea before. Potential explanations I see:

a) they totally don't care that we thumb down a song

b) they care, but the application programming a so poor

c) they want to push some songs, regardless of feedback, well, if you advertise then make it clear that you advertise

d) there is a limit set per station, you can thumb down only X songs, when you reaach that limit, too bad, you are stuck with the cr*p that comes after

Needless to say, I don't like either. How about you guys? 🙂

best regards

[MikeBarden]

Is there an offical Spotify document that spotify can supply to let us know how the Radio function really works. Does it use `business intelligence' collected info from all users to link `similiar tracks' - I would like to see a written statement or statements letting me know how it works. 

[fire]

I would like to see how Spotify Radio really works, too.

Even when given a playlist "seed" that contains 500+ tracks, the radio always hones in on just a handful of them (tested across several months).

Does Spotify create a hidden list of thumb-up/thumb-down tracks every time a Radio station is created? It's definitely not using the Liked From Radio playlist for this, since that playlist is shared across multiple stations, and doesn't contain any thumb-downs.

Also, how does a "Liked from Radio" Radio work? Is the radio algorithm updated when I like a song, since it's altering the seed playlist? If not, is Radio snapshotting the playlist before starting the radio? Is the snapshot permanent?

[Peter__]

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@fire wrote:

I would like to see how Spotify Radio really works, too.

Even when given a playlist "seed" that contains 500+ tracks, the radio always hones in on just a handful of them (tested across several months).

Does Spotify create a hidden list of thumb-up/thumb-down tracks every time a Radio station is created? It's definitely not using the Liked From Radio playlist for this, since that playlist is shared across multiple stations, and doesn't contain any thumb-downs.

Also, how does a "Liked from Radio" Radio work? Is the radio algorithm updated when I like a song, since it's altering the seed playlist? If not, is Radio snapshotting the playlist before starting the radio? Is the snapshot permanent?

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The radio algorithm only uses the first 200 songs in a playlist (by date added) to my knowledge. 

Peter

[NeverPassGo]

Hi,

Q: Is there a way for bands to influence their radio station specific to their "Sound" as they would want set as the default for their station?

I am trying to find out how to influence the radio station as a whole, not just personally what I think is a thumbs up.  Specifically, I recently reached a level where my band, Never Pass Go, is now available on Spotify and has the Start Radio feature.   However, so far, I have not quite figured out how spotify is able to determine which songs they associate with the artist when they first offer it for someone to hear.  It seems pretty dead on for bands we are similar to? Against Me!, Lawrence Arms, and Alkaline Trio all have kick ass stations that I don't need to do anything to, however, I can't seem to find a single song thta is even relatively close to what we sound like when I select the radio option for my own band.  

Escentially, my band's radio station sucks, and I want to know how to make it better, because nobody wants to listen to it as it is set by spotify.

[Peter__]

@NeverPassGo - Short answer is no, you can't change it. The radio and related artists are generated dynamically based on listening data. From the artist FAQ pages:

I do not think the correct artists are on my artist “radio”, how can I change?

Artist radio stations are created algorithmically, based on streaming data. This means that we need data in order to populate it, and therefore there can be a delay in the Start Radio button showing up. Your artist radio station will appear automatically when we have enough data.

[olafurjon]

My experience with the "Improving Stations" feature, is that it seems buggy. When I am only improving 1 station it works and the station seems to get better and better, but when I'm improving 2 or more stations its like they mix somehow together and the result is horrible.

[lbsa71]

My intuition would be that if I 'start radio based on song' then that radio, and only that radio should be improved with thumbs up / thumbs down; but thunbs up gives me the message "Thanks song now saved to your music' which is arguably not what I tried to do; but thumbs down says "We will not play this in your Daily mix" which is most DEFINITIVELY not what I wanted.

As other people have asked - is there an document outlining the intended use of the thumbs up/down function on a songradio?

[lbsa71]

But the messages you get when doing that is "We have added the song to your tracks" vs "We will not play this song in your daily mix" which is not what you just said.