Starred tracks, what's the point?

[Chrisx]

Hello, new user here, running the latest version (0.9.4.169 - windows).

Can someone explain what's the point of starring tracks in spotify if you can't see your starred tracks in your playlists or in album views? Am I missing something, an option maybe? Or is this this the only music player in existence that allows starring tracks but never displays the star icons?

And something less important, i guess. Is there a way to reply to inbox messages?
Thanks!

[Thedev]

Hello, @Chrisx! As to your first question: You should be able to publish your starred playlist so that it can be seen for your friends and everyone else. To do this you will need to open your public profile page in the desktop client (right upper corner -> Profile) and mark the starred playlist as "Public". 

As to your second question: I think that there's currently no way to reply to inbox messages, however, Spotify are working on a whole new system that is more similar to Facebook chat. This feature is available in the web player. If you need more information, I suggest to have a read here.

[Chrisx]

Hello thehidd.

Indeed I can do that but that's no different from publishing any other playlist. I suppose I should explain myself better: Soon the "starred playlist" will be filled with hundreds of tracks from different genres that are not related to each other, making it rather useless as a typical playlist. But that's ok because:

Ideally, starring tracks should make it easy to answer these questions:
1) What are my fav. tracks off this album?
2) What are my fav. tracks from this artist?
3) What are my fav. tracks in this playlist?

I assume that's why an easy to spot star icon is used for this purpose in all programs, since almost forever. I can see no way of answering these questions by starring tracks if this column is never displayed. Am I thinking this wrong?

Good news about the messaging system, thanks for your reply. 🙂
Cheers.

[Thedev]

I can imagine that if you store hundreds of songs in a playlist it becomes a mess; it's also difficult for me to precise what "starred" stands for as various online services interpret this feature in different ways (such as GMail - it allows you to mark a mail as something important to you). To answer the two out of three questions that you posted, I'd recommend sorting the starred playlist by either artist or album; it gives some some insight on what you are into but I pretty much understand it doesn't solve the problem.

I'd love to see someone else sharing their thoughts about the system here. Nevertheless, I like your point.

[Chrisx]

It's also worth noting that, when starring an item in gmail, it not only gets filed under the 'starred' category,  but a big bright gold star also marks this message in the mess that I call my inbox. This is very useful, and that's why such a striking icon is used for this purpose. Music is a bit different to email though, and I consider the questions mentioned above rather basic. I feel that this is what the whole 'starring items' process solved in music players.

Otherwise there's nothing stopping us from creating any playlist called "fave!" and dumping tracks there. In fact we already do that, but it's a bit more genre/occasion specific. It's a shame that this feature is technically implemented in spotify, but that bit of info is never displayed. Most spotify apps get this right I think, by showing a star column in their playlists.

[Rollo_]

I've always felt it would be advantageous to be able to filter for starred tracks inside a playlist.  Cntr-F > Starred.  The present way is to go to your starred list and filter an artist.  If your playlist includes multiple or related artists, you're pretty much SOL.

[RonS]

I know what you mean. I was also wondering the point of starring tracks. It appears to just aggregate your favorites from your other playlists into a central location. The issue I have run into is that I can delete playlists but I can't delete the entire starred list and start over fresh, I have to do it one at a time - at least from my phone - and I have over 500 songs starred. Additionally, none of my starred songs are in another album and there is know way (I know of) to move them all to another album, you have to do it one at a time. I almost with there was no star feature at all.

One additional point I'd like to know is how much weight the recommendation system gives to your starred items versus the albums you have created. The website doesn't go into enough detail about how all of this stuff works.

[Rollo_]

You are correct, its just a special playlist for your favorites.

You can 'delete' the starred list, from a PC at least, by selecting all tracks [Ctrl-A] > Right Click > Unstar.  The next time you go into your Starred List it will be empty.

Similarly, you select all tracks, and either drag or right-click send to new playlist.  Or even an existing playlist.

No idea if the starred list has any weight at all in regards to recommendations.  Pretty sure its plays that take top precedence.

[bcampa]

I think the point of the initial question is: why are the starred item not clearly visible anymore on every page?

It was very usefull to be able to see them in the profile page of an artist, for example. And it was also helping avoiding starring a song several times (when in different version)...

[majc]

@bcampa That's exactly right.

I would like to know why it's been removed as well. It was very useful. 

[geoffspakes]

I have to respond to this one as well...just upgraded to the latest version and I HATE that the stars are no longer visible. Now I can't tell what the heck I've previously starred and have in a playlist.

The "Your Music" implementation is okay (why the heck can't you drill down to just an album cover view under artists then drill down to individual albums) but c'mon Spotify, I've spent ages making playlists and using the stars.

ADD THEM BACK SO WE CAN SEE THEM!!!