[Android][Radio] Algorithm chooses too many Short songs!

[Bollotoral]

The image is from the desktop app, but it applies to all apps, Android, Web player, etc.
 

I have noticed for already some months that when you Start a Radio from a song, the Algorithm chooses too many short songs, which is useless because many times you end up listening to intro, interludes, etc. Many tracks/songs below 2 minutes. #annoying

[Alex]

Hi there @Bollotoral,

Thanks for the post. We've moved your message to the Help Boards, as it's not an Idea for a feature.

The recommended songs generated by your algorithm are automatically picked based on your listening activity and what is most popular with other users who listen to similar music. 

What you can do in this case is exclude these from your taste profile. Check this article for more info. 

We'd also suggest hitting the Hide button whenever you come across one of these intros in your Discover Weekly, Release Radar or Radio. 

Hope this helps.

[Paha_Agentti]

Why some artist radios often have mostly unrelated approximately 1 minute long (Chinese) songs on them? I'm in Europe and I'm listening mostly European artists. Those songs are like some sort of AI spam music. Spotify algorithm seems to be really bad quite often.

 

[Paha_Agentti]

I have never listened more than few seconds of those short Asian AI songs and I'm pretty sure nobody else has listened them either. I'm also quite sure that not many people (if any) have heard my example artist Coneville in Asia. So I wonder where does that Asian AI **bleep** music come from? Spotify algorithm is not bad normally, so why does it suck on (small) Artist Radios?

[Paha_Agentti]

Spotify algorithm likes a lot of these Asian artists that make songs that are all same length like 1:04, 1:02, 1:07, etc and seem to have AI generated song titles. To me these look and sound like some sort of fake (AI) artists. Even if they are real artists, I wonder why on earth Spotify algorithm favours these artists so much on Artist Radio's?

This is a fine example:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7MuG0NWftnGYmrOdVn7idu
This "artist" released nine EP's last year and all songs are 1:20 long and every EP has six songs. And Spotify algorithm loves them.

And here's another one:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2CCUItDUu53g0f78RDyRB4

16 EP's released last year, six 1:20 long songs on each and Spotify algorithm loves them all.

[Paha_Agentti]

This interesting Rolling Stone magazine article from 2019 explains a bit of this "Fake Artist" thing : https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/fake-artists-have-billions-of-streams-on-spotify-is-sony-n...

"Why? Because Spotify pays out royalties on a pro rata basis. This means – as explained on Rolling Stone previously – that the firm divides its total industry payout across the entirety of artists on its platform, based on their portion of overall streams. The important bit: if “fake artists” are paid lower contractual royalty rates than “real” acts, and then, driven by playlist inclusion, claim a certain percentage of Spotify’s total monthly streams, Spotify ends up keeping more money. An ex-Spotify insider was once quoted by Variety as suggesting that this was a deliberate company strategy: “It’s one of a number of internal initiatives to lower the royalties [Spotify is] paying to the major labels,” they said."

I guess that explains why Spotify algorithm is so eager to put these fake artists everywhere. Pretty sad.

And here is another newer article about same thing: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/03/29/spotify-fake-artists-investigation/

Really sad. Listener satisfaction might not be Spotify's priority after all.

[Bollotoral]

Hello Alex,

Thanks for your reply, but this is not a solution.

The artist that appear in the "Radio" are most of the times correct, but short songs are definitely something I don't enjoy or listen to more than I listen to longer songs, above 4 minutes up to 20 minutes.

An adjustment to the algorithm is necessary.

Thanks.

[ochinchinn]

I have the same issue! Weird 1:00mins - 1:50mins songs that get mixed into the song radios. They also completely removed the "Playlist Radio" so you're forced to use "Song radio" with the intentional**bleep** algorithm.

Thanks for linking these articles, not unexpected but definitely disappointing!!

[fco-cl]

Same here, like 80% of songs suggested are under the 2 minute mark. And it has nothing to do with the lists I listen to, like Alex suggested. I mean, look at these names, none of these bands are what you would ever consider "straight to the point punk rockers"

This are not fake songs like someone suggested, but there's most probably some algorithm manipulation to maximize the number of songs played.