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Hi,
I'm new to Spotify, I used Apple Music and Google Play Music before. In this services you can thumb up or down a song to tell the algorithm what is your music taste. In Spotify I don't see such an rating option. I only see thumbs in the radio stations, but in the playlists not. Maybe Spotify looks for that to your library, but sometimes you like a song, but not much enough to add it to the library and you don't want to clutter your library. Also for albums: I add albums to my library but there is no option to "say" which tracks I like most from that albums.
Anyway, maybe someone can explain me how the Spotify algorithm works. How does Spotify know what I like and don't like without any rating system?
Hi Brasileric,
Welcome to Spotify! I hope you are loving your time with it so far. 🙂
Curious if you have you ever checked out the Your Daily Mix area? I really enjoy jumping into it myself to see what I might discover.
Spotify will curate 6 playlists for you based on what you already love to listen to and then throw in very similar or same artists/songs for you to check out. These are based on your current library and categorized by similar genres. You will likely see alot of the same songs you already saved or ones you just really love - plus more from that artist or similar ones.
In the playlist you can continue to tell Spotify you like it (heart) or don't want it in there (remove). It then continues to "learn" based on your daily listening. (screenshot 1)
This is the best function I know of to tailor your tastes and I often jump into it when I want to listen to usual favorites or hope to find a few surprises along the same lines.
Another thing I have played around with too is keeping a separated playlist of songs I listen to in "limbo." Meaning that I'm not sure if I like it or not, but will keep listening to it until I think it deserves to "graduate" to a permanent playlist home or just get kicked out entirely. 🙂
When you add songs to playlists, Spotify is noticing what you like even if you don't click the add to Library checkmark. This is then reflected in your Discover Weekly playlist that comes out each Monday. If you check this every week it can give you an idea of what Spotify thinks you would like to listen to.
The Release Radar playlist is also helpful in tracking new music by artists you already love and familiarizing you with new tunes from similar enough styles you listen to.
You can also choose to let a playlist go on "autoplay" once all your songs have ended if you don't set the playlist to repeat. It will then load anything similar it thinks suits that playlist genre and current artist trend (typically includes songs from the same artist too - screenshot 2).
Hopefully this gives you a little more idea of how Spotify learns about you and tries to tailor to your style.
Hi Bethany_03 ,
Thanks for this clear and extensive answer. I think your suggestion to have a playlist for doubts about like or not is a good suggestion, I have often this same doubt 🙂 .
At the moment I see only one daily mix with not so much variation yet. It contains only artists from my own country despite of I listen mostly international artists. But maybe I have to wait (and listen of course) a bit longer. I hope I will get more than one daily mixes in some weeks.
Hey @Brasileric
That's true, you'll have to listen to more music so Spotify can have enough data to form more Daily Mixes. They may change in content as well.
6 Daily Mixes is maximum.
Spotify uses the rating system only in Radio and the Mixes. For everything else Spotify keeps its eyes on what you're listening to, what you're adding to playlists, what other playlists you're listening to, or following.
Note: when you're in private mode, Spotify won't listen to your music traffic. Your followers won't see any activity either.
Happy Spotifying 🙂
Here for you in case you have more questions!
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