Related artists feature

[GJC1964]

Is it just me  - or has the related artists feature lost its way somewhat. I used to love using the feature to roll from one artist to another. Exploring more artists in the genre and seeing how one artist or genre may be connected to another. However these days the related artists often seemingly have no connection to the others in the list (even when trying to think outside the box).

[Peter__]

Hey! Welcome to the community 🙂

To my knowledge those related artists are based on what people are listening to, so they do change over time.

Have you got any examples you would like to share as beng incorrect or strange? 

Peter

[shakey503]

I agree that the Related Artists feature has gotten worse somehow. I'll give you an example.

Rush is one of my favorite bands, and I often used Related Artists to give myself some suggestions based on Rush. A while back, the choices used to make sense. I'd see Blue Oyster Cult, Heart, Van Halen, Genesis, Kansas, Thin Lizzy, Yes, Boston, Dream Theater, Jethro Tull, Styx, etc. Those are all hard rock / prog rock bands that match Rush in terms of time period, style, and genre.

Today, I see 4 1990s grunge bands (Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, and Stone Temple Pilots), Stevie Ray Vaughn (straight up blues), The Cars (new wave pop rock), Rage Against the Machine, and Tom Petty. While I like all of these artists, these are not in any way Related Artists to Rush. It just looks like a random list of bands.

Other bands bring up similar dismal Related Artists results (Judas Priest brings up Billy Idol and Kansas; Genesis brings up Billy Joel, Van Morrison, and the Animals!!!). If you're going to have this feature, it needs to really work. Pandora and Last.fm currently do a much better job of relating artists, and Spotify itself used to do a much better job of this just a short while ago. Something definitely happened to worsen this feature.

[Ultimation]

Yeah most bands seem to pull up completely unrelated artists. Like I think the only requirement is that both bands use an electric guitar, or something. I wish related artists was useful. It use to be a little bit useful, with some interesting ideas of "related," but now it shows like a max of one band I've ever heard of next to 15 others I have no idea about.

[Jamjar]

I've been having this problem too.  This business with tailoring related artists to stuff I've been listening to is ridiculous. Just because I listened to some doom recently, it does NOT mean Bathory, a black metal band, is in any way related to Trouble, a Christian doom metal band. The two are literally polar opposites.

[skitslicker · Accepted solution]

Yeah, it's been wacked out for a few days - Gehenna (satanic thrash metal) is associated with Igorrr (an electronic breakbeat artist), Fair to Midland (a mainstream progressive rock act), and Dog Fashion Disco (circus music along the lines of Bungle or Fantomas without the talent or charisma.) It seems every death metal band is linked to Fair to Midland - Bloodbath, Shining, Demonaz, etc. 

Just buy/license the Last.fm logarithm and it would be a far better match. Right now, Similar Artists on Spotify is slightly worst than Pandora, which is not something to aspire to.

[Kirpus]

If you could only disable bands from the same country it would be a whole lot better.

Just because the bands are from the same (small) country doesn't mean they sound the same - Sweden e.g.. In Denmark we have a lot of great talent and the Danes listen a lot to the same acts, so statistically they are all connected, but logically they do not sound the same at all.

If you are from The US or GB this might not occur to you.

And thank you for the music 🙂

[Robohara]

just a quick question, how does "related artists" even work now?  I can't seem to access it even though I can see the names of artists and songs

[Joe]

@Robohara In the desktop client and web player, click on an artist name to get to the artist page and three tabs appear at the top - overview, related artists and biography.

[Robohara]

Thank you. Now, how does it work on the mobile app for iOS 7? I can see the related artists pop up at the bottom "now playing bar" when I play a song from my playlist but, I can't figure out how to select it.

[Joe]

I don't use iOS but I believe that if you go to album cover view by expanding the small cover picture then click the ellipses (...) from that screen you can go to the artist page which should have a related artist tab.

[Robohara]

Thanks, jwylot, you nailed it. I guess I just miss how Spotify mobile used to work where you could be on the cover art page and the related artists and songs would just populate below that and you could then just scroll through them. Then, you could select these related songs with an "up next" button and create a queue of new music. It was my favorite feature and now it's gone...

[jonscottbikes]

Suggestion: Jimmy Bowskill is related to The Heavy

[Meccano]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but this is the subject I was looking for.

Why on Earth would you base "related artists" on what other people are listening to instead of artists that have similar sound? This takes away so very much of the usability since you never get any relevant suggestions. One good example (according to me) is that when I look at the "related artists" for the band Kings of Nuthin' I can't find any other artist who play(s) that kind of "kickass" music including piano and horn section. And when looking at the "related artists" of Buster Shuffle you find, amongst others, Distemper who usually play music that actually could be seen as vaguely related but mostly their music is more aggressive.

Please change the function of "related artists" so that you can actually find artists that are related.

[Peter__]

Why on Earth would you base "related artists" on what other people are listening to instead of artists that have similar sound?

How do you generate that data though?

[jnegrin]

more fundamantal issue - "Related artists" is just not showing up as an option since installing the last update.  now running version 0.9.7.16.g4b197456. artist screen looks like this

[user-removed]

Just noticed that, myself..."Related Artists" was one of my favorite features.Although the profiled genres didn't always match up, I still found it an enjoyable way to browse for new artists...Am hoping it will be brought back, in a "new and improved" format...

[Peter__]

I have reported it as being broken.

[Robohara]

Good call. I concur.

[Robohara]

Let's just bring it back to the way it used to work - morningglorydlc's idea. It was clean and great and, sure, the "matches" weren't always spot on but, at least they were easy and right there.