Album search produces inconsistent results

[eschurr]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

i'm having trouble with Spotify's search function for albums.  Here is an example:

If i search for "uncommon denominators" by NRBQ, i can't find it.  And if search for "Ridin' in my car," which is on that album, it doesn't come up. However, when i do a Google search (outside of Spotify) the song comes up, and if i click on the link, it takes me to the album in the web version of Spotify.

Oddly, if i search for "Uncommon denominators" in the web version, the album isn't listed, either. But clearly it's in Spotify!  the only way i can locate it is thru a Google Search (bizarre).

I'm having trouble finding many albums/songs in Spotify, and this is just one example.  what am i doing wrong?

[Peter]

Hey @eschurr,

Thanks for reaching out to us about this.

We checked this out on our end, and we noticed that around half of the songs on the album in question are not available for streaming. This is probably the reason why it's not appearing in the search results on Spotify.

However, if you do happen to come across any albums which don't adhere to the above rule (ie they appear in the search results on Spotify even though half or more of the songs are greyed out/missing), let us know and we'll look into it.

Hope that helps! Let us know if you have any further questions 🙂

[eschurr]

Thanks for the reply. Can you please explain why songs are listed in Spotify if they're not available for streaming? Isn't that what Spotify is all about...streaming?  Why would a song be in Spotify if it can't be streamed?  Thanks.

[Mario]

Hey @eschurr,

Just popping in to add something to what @Peter said as well as to answer your last question.

The availability of music on our platform is determined by the artists as well as their music label or distributors and can change regardless of whether the same music is listed at any point in time on Spotify.
 
For instance, some music is or becomes only available in certain countries (while access is blocked to others) on the ground of what the artists and their representatives end up deciding over time.
 
Sometimes it might also happen that the album(s) or song(s) will be unavailable temporarily, and come back again later.
 
Anyways, we add new content to Spotify every day, so if you can’t find something you’re looking for right now, it may appear (or reappear) soon.
 
Hope you'll find this info useful. Let us know if we can help with anything else!

[eschurr]

i appreciate your answer, thank you.  

Is this correct:

-- i might find an album on Spotify that i can see but i can't listen to?

-- an artist might have one album on Spotify that I can listen to but not another?

-- searching inside the Spotify app can produce different results than searching in Google and getting a Spotify link?

[Guido · Accepted solution]

Hello @eschurr,

Yes, it's all up to the right-holder which albums or even which songs from an album are available on Spotify.

If a whole album is not available on Spotify you will likely not find it when searching for it using the Spotify search engine. You might see this album if you have the songs saved in a playlist because the music was available in the past. You might also find this album using Google because it takes a while for Google search results to adjust.

Hope this answers your question. Let us know if there is anything else.

Have a nice day!