Release Radar Order & Other Updates

[Leah96]

I would love to know how many other users this happens to. Every week on Thursday night my Release Radar comes out with the whole playlist in one order and then sometime in the middle of the week it refreshes anew and the entire order of the playlist changes! This switch is so frustrating when I purposely try to listen in order so I know what I've listened to and what I haven't. My Release Radar's are generally really long so when the order of the playlist changes I lose my place. 

I also find that the order of the Release Radar isn't even based on my most listened-to artists which it should be. As the playlist goes down, it should reflect my listening history with those artists with the top being the most listened to and the bottom being the least. This is aside from the issues other people have rightfully brought up about fake releases etc.

For Premium individual users like me, these small (but not so small to us) changes mean a lot. Especially with the recent price hike, I need to know I'm getting great service for paying so much every month!

In general, I think Spotify has some work to do to better reflect fans and users who are looking to listen to what they want easily and without having everything else thrown at them. If not, there will be a migration of users that will go to other apps and streaming services like Apple Music for better use of their dollars. 

[JaKaDoHLCs]

Hi,

Every friday I use to listen the whole 'Release Radar' playlist created by Spotify.

But sometimes I can't listen it at once and when I come back to the app (close the app and open it again) to finish it, the track list is shuffled and I lost all the reference.

The tracklist filter is always set to "Custom Order".

Can you please help me to fix it?

Thanks!

[Gordana1]

I have the same issue 😕

End of last year, the release radar was showing way less releases in the playlist.

Usually i have 200 new songs every Friday (which i think is the maximum) but end of last Year it was 60 songs more or less but never the full List.

Now after this has been solved, they are shuffling it through which i agree, is more then frustrating. I do not have time to listen to all 200 Songs on Friday. And by Saturday or Sunday they are already mixed.... I never know if i have missed something or not. 

It would be great if the release radar, after half a year full of bugs, could finally work without any disturbances!

[JaKaDoHLCs]

I figure out some other users claiming the same issue. Apparently they (Spotify) ain't hearing users interests.

Let's wait for some other folks to show up here.

Thanks for sharing your bad experience.

[ematt2]

I will say the suggestion to sort by Recently Added has made it a non-issue. Definitely switch the sort, top right!

[heineken1]

Thx ematt2. This weekend the list came with default / recently added. Problem solved. Could it be that Spotify has been listen to us;) ?

[SimpleSimon104]

I’ve had this for several months now - thought I was imagining it at first, but I’m getting to the point where I’ll stop using the RR playlist soon. Yesterday was Friday, and I had an 11hr playlist. I listened to the first 2hrs on the way to work. On my way home it was in an entirely different order, repeating lots of stuff I’d already heard. This morning it’s in another order again, so unlikely I’ll ever hear a complete playlist unless I spend 50% of Friday listening to it in one go, or I just skip through the whole thing trying to enjoy it in 30 second bite size chunks. 

[Leah96]

I find it strange that this is the only time it's come up since I'm STILLLLLL having this issue many months after I posted and I know I'm not the only one. A great somewhat solution someone mentioned here was to set the playlist order to sort by Title or Artist etc that way you can have a sense of what you listened to already since it will always change back to order the playlist alphabetically. Hope that helps for now, and Spotify starts paying attention to what users are getting frustrated with. 🙏

[Leah96]

UPDATE 2/23/2025 I'm now having a new problem where it doesn't refresh the RR playlist Thursday night like it always did with all the latest releases from the various artists I follow. I've tried everything from clearing the cache, logging out and in, deleting the app, and redownloading etc. anyone else having issues with it not updating on time? It takes till Friday morning to update now and is a new problem for me. Thankfully I'm on top of my music game and know what to look for and I take full advantage of the 'what's new' sidebar so I'm not completely in the dark but it still is a bit insane. Also, did anyone else notice that after making songs hidden in the playlist they will randomly become unhidden? As well (as if all these issues weren't enough) sometimes there will be new songs added to the RR playlist in the middle of the week that weren't there before when it first came out. Often I'll notice I had one song off an album showing in the RR playlist on Thurs/Fri etc and then later on like by Wednesday, there will be another song off the album added to the playlist. It's becoming a deep descent here for us RR lovers and I ain't too happy about it 😑

[JaKaDoHLCs]

@leah96, I 'solved' the issue sorting the Radar Release by "Recently added" before I start to listen to it.

I hope it helps for you too.

[Leah96]

Thanks for sharing, I'll have to use that for now. I wish these issues were given some attention since it seems like many people are in the same boat.

[wunderdread]

I'm having the same issue, and it is happening . Even after a clean install, this keeps happening. New songs added to the end of the list would be one thing, but this uncontrollable reordering is a BUG and not a feature. Give us an option to turn this off. 

[tlinn]

This is my experience and my solution: Release Radar is 30 tracks that officially turnover at 9PM Pacific Time every Thursday. But only 18-20 are new. The other 10-12 are recycled. (The 10-12 recycled tracks aren't necessarily recycled from Release Radar. They may be duplicates from an earlier Discover Weekly.) During the next four days, the Release Radar playlist will change. The song order will change and a couple new tracks will replace tracks on that week's original list. This usually happens at least twice a week. 

I've found a solution that works well for me, preventing Spotify from both removing tracks before I've listened to them and from forcing me to listen to a track twice. I've created a master playlist named "Auditions" to which I drag all of the songs from both Discover Weekly and Release Radar. Discover Weekly is only updated once per week and is always 100% new—no repeats—so I only have to do this once a week. As we know, Release Radar changes multiple times per week, so I'll drag the playlist to Auditions multiple times per week to catch new entries, being careful to never add duplicates. Then, as I listen to my Auditions playlist (which is sorted from Date Added oldest-to-newest), I delete the tracks I don't like and move the tracks I do like—maybe 1 out of 30—to other playlists.

The other practice that makes this system work is that I'll always leave a buffer of the 100-120 newest additions in my Auditions playlist. Why? There is a delay between when a track shows up on Discover Weekly and when it is repeated in Release Radar. If I listen to a new track too soon and then delete or move it, I may have to listen to it again when it is repeated. But most repeats happen in the first two-to-three weeks so the 120-track buffer means most repeats are caught and I don't have to listen to a track I don't like twice. 

Ultimately, I subscribe to Spotify to find new music. My system guarantees that the clock never runs out before I have a chance to listen to a track on one of these two playlists, and it has proven pretty effective at eliminating duplicates. There is one final caveat though. Most of my listening is done using the desktop client. Maybe it is possible, but I haven't found a way to either copy and move an entire playlist at once using the mobile client, or sort by Date Added oldest-to-newest on mobile.

Happy listening.

[Gordana1]

Since my last entry (27 days ago), it worked one week at least THANK YOU SPOTIFY🤗. 

Now here we are again, looks like we will have to live with it and be annoyed every week.

I see the logic of tlinn but honestly, I have to check for workaround solutions and do Spotify´s job? It is supposed to work without any action required from the end user! 

I don't get it but i don't have to understand everything.

If I would be the owner and see how many people I **bleep** off every week (at weekend start 🙃), i would take actions.

I bet its only changing a programming code and done... WHATEVER it might be it worked for years and now not! 

Just put it back the way it was and done. I am mad 😑😤.

[tlinn]

I’m not convinced that this behavior with Release Radar isn’t
intentional, but regardless, if RR was “fixed” to work like Discover
Weekly, there is still a benefit to moving the tracks to a separate
playlist for anyone who ever fails to make it through Release Radar
before it completely resets the next week. To be clear though, I
understand the objection to its current behavior.

[Gordana1]

Now that you mention it beeing intentional, yesterday i thought about which benefits it could have for other users if it really is intentional. You Said on your list are 60 sons. on mine are 200. What could possibly be a benefit of mixing them throughout the week. Do you have an idea? I didn't come to any conclusion… We have the possibility to shuffle lists ourselves. I think it is very strange😕. tlinn…this friday i will create my own playlist with my 200 songs like you recommended! thats the only way out. I will swallow my pride and do that to protect my own nerves. 🤯 

[heineken1]

Mine is also 200 songs. And RR are new songs. Discover Weekly are 30 songs and both new and old.

[heineken1]

Yes Gordana1- Here we go again. Friday the RR list came with default/Date added. And now - Tuesday 11.03- the songs are altered/mixed again, even if the menu says all the songs was added 5 days ago! please fix it.

[chantelle024]

this is also happening to me... several times a week it will update... very annoying

[MNCRAFT]

completely understand your frustration! A consistent and personalized listening experience is so important, especially for paying users. Hopefully, Spotify takes feedback like this seriously and improves the Release Radar system. 🤞

[Leah96]

Sounds like you really thought the problem through. Honestly, I don't know if I'm willing to consistently create a playlist every week; seems like a little too much work on my end.