Spotify playlists - local files being overridden by Spotify versions

[Sourcethree]

I made some playlists on my Mac consisting of standard commercial music using a mixing software. These playlists are in my iTunes. I was able to import the songs to Spotify and see them under "Local Files".

However, when I try to add them to a Spotify playlist, Spotify inserts a version from it's own library, not the version from my Local Files. Not all of the time, but about 90% of the time. There doesn't seem to be a common theme which songs are overridden and which aren't.

I know the 2 versions are different because the song in my Local File has an album name equal to the playlist I've set up in iTunes. For example, a song in my Local Files is Beetlebum by Blur and the "album" is Africa - 2014. However, when I "Add to Playlist" or drag or drop that song from my list of "Local Files" into a Spotify playlist I've created, Spotify will drop in the song Beetlebum by Blur from the album Blur: The Best Of.

So I don't seem to be able to grab the version from my Local Files and place it into a Spotify playlist without Spotify overriding it.

Anyone know why this is happening and how I can get my Local File into the playlist instead of the song version from Spotify's library?

Thanks.

[Dreadlord]

Hello @Sourcethree,

Welcome to Spotify Community.

Unfortunately, there is no fix for this as Spotify matches the song by metadata and replaces it with the one from its own library.

The only workaround I see here is to "pollute" the metadata by inserting additional characters in it.

[Sourcethree]

@ @Dreadlord 

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@Dreadlord wrote:

Hello @Sourcethree,

Welcome to Spotify Community.

Unfortunately, there is no fix for this as Spotify matches the song by metadata and replaces it with the one from its own library.

The only workaround I see here is to "pollute" the metadata by inserting additional characters in it.

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where do I find the metadata that Spotify is referencing against?

and isn't the fact that I changed the album name "polluting" the metadata anyway?

the other odd thing is - in the example I gave where it appeared to replace my local song with the the version from Spotify's library - I've since noticed that the song itself is somehow my local version (it's a few seconds shorter than normal), even though Spotify changed the name (i.e., picked up the album name) from it's own library - so aurally the song I'm listening to is what I want, even if the (album) name doesn't quite look right

[Sourcethree]

note I'm having 2 other issues as well with Spotify playlists / importing

1 - songs aren't getting picked up by Spotify in the same order they are in on my iTunes (where they're being imported from)

and

2 - the gapless playback for some of my older playlists isn't quite gapless - it mostly is, but there's a tiny little click about a second or so into each song

[Dreadlord]

Hey @Sourcethree,

I would suggest you opening a new thread for these 2 issues and make sure to attach some screenshot/videos from the issue as I am not an iOS/OSX user and someone else needs to jump in 🙂 

As for the metadata, I am able to see the metadata through something called dbus on Linux, tho I am not sure how you can see it on Mac.
Maybe @jooon can give us more information on how metadata and how songs are getting linked with the local file