Release Radar includes wrong artist with same name as desired artist

[abcdefgabcdefg]

I constantly find my Release Radar recommending songs by an artist (say A) with the same name as an artist (say A') that I might actually wanna listen to. This is extremely dumb as an issue because these two artists are listed as genuinely different artists in Spotify and the newly recommended song by a wrong artist is listed as a song of A' in the system. A reasonable conclusion is that at least Release Radar does not look into the artist IDs but just merely refers to their names. This happens to like 5 different artists to me and my Release Radar is contaminated by songs which I have absolutely no interest in. I believe this is a very basic bug that can be fixed in like 5 minutes.

[jeremycorbett]

So, the form for reporting these issues has been closed, apparently Spotify aren't responding to in-app reports, and @Mihail hasn't responded to this thread in over three weeks.

Have Spotify given up on the issue?

So what's the next step, contact the legit artists' management and report these tracks to them?

[ishi_the_fishy]

I totally agree with MetalRayzor on two important points:

1)  I also listen to metal and punk, so why on Earth am I getting recommendations for Christian-Faith music??? As I wrote in a previous comment, it's like serving a rare steak to a vegan.

2) Like MetalRayzor, I'm concerned that it feels like there's an advertising mechanism at work that is promoting new artists on to listener's RR.  It's not unthinkable, as most companies are always hunting for new revenue streams.  However, since I pay a monthly subscription I expect an ad-free experience.

A recent comment pointed out the absence of the moderator and that the reporting form isn't working.  I believe the moderator wrote that they were taking a short vacation.  As for the form, I've never used it and never will. It's not my job to fix what is clearly a widespread problem Spotify is aware of.  Moreover, it was a Google Doc and I'm always suspicious of those for good reasons.  Why isn't their a a legitimate form with a Spotify URL, like they have for artists?  Or even better, a tool built right into the app itself.  

For a company with billions in assets, this situation is shameful.  Often when a company is only interested in subscriptions and revenue, and not the customer experience, it's because they're pumping their valuation in anticipation of sale or merger. Wireless and cable providers have been known to do this. I wonder if something is brewing behind the scenes.  

[Suzesun]

I've noticed that sometimes I get music recommended to me that is not by an artist I listen to, but rather by an artist that has the same name as the artist that I do listen to.

For example, I was recommended a song by https://open.spotify.com/artist/70AOkupQ6B7bd7tqN4zXB6?si=Ssp7wyezQZ2NGqZ2Fw_9uQ, an artist that I've never listened to. The artist that I do listen to is https://open.spotify.com/artist/7ymczLNmjz6AVMGApVNWbB?si=IhPBt6waT9CUL6pgom4Ueg

Both artists are called "Vincent". One thing that is weird is that when I clicked on the artist link for the song by https://open.spotify.com/artist/70AOkupQ6B7bd7tqN4zXB6?si=Ssp7wyezQZ2NGqZ2Fw_9uQ, I get directed to the artist page for the other artist.

This has happened with other artists that listen to as well, RED is another one that comes to mind. In both cases the incorrect music was the wrong genre relative to the playlist that I was listening to at the time, and both times the music sounded like it was produced in cheap/free music production software such as garage band or FL studio with the default plugins, and each time the incorrectly identified artists were new in Spotify (they only had a couple releases at most).

[yennysz]

Hey, just popping in here to also express my anger and frustration with getting songs on my Release Radar from artists that are basically stealing the identity of artists that I like. (tweeted about it here https://twitter.com/LiveTweets4No1/status/1395749591044083714?s=20 but obvi Spotify doesn't seem to do anything)

Today this random artist named "Chuckklez" appeared on my Release Radar that claims to feature Roosevelt, an artist that I actually like. I checked to see if it was a fake Roosevelt but it actually led to the real Roosevelt that I like so this seems like Chukklez is FALSELY CLAIMING that they made an album with Roosevelt. 

anyway this is super disturbing bc Chukklez is a grossly different genre from Roosevelt. 

This is not the first time I've had Spotify bring demonstrate that they allow identity theft and fake artists on my Release Radar.... PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS

 

[yennysz]

ALSO MIGHT I ADD that you can't even report an artist for identity theft.

I'd like to select something like "exploiting another artist's name"

These are the only

 

when I select "deceptive content":

[Dennis666]

This week 20% of my Release Radar was filled by (c)rap artists that take on the name of metalbands that I listen to. Names like Slayer and Kreator (yes, the (c)rapper even used the K) to name a few. With all the collaborations the so-called artists do, I'm really starting to think that they do it intentionally to get their airplay. I really only listen to metal and avoid playing the Release Radar so I won't be related to actual (c)rap. It's time Spotify fixes their algorithms to differentiate on genre first before actually linking artists. 

[philippantoni]

So just for fun, after another Release Radar with 5 garbage songs by artists masquerading as someone else, I decided to check those songs in Apple Music... and all of them had correct attribution there.

Spotify, fix your broken system that allows this kind of abuse & spam or you'll start losing customers. Or, if you really need your users' help to clean up this mess, embed a proper report function in the app like was already suggested here.

[ishi_the_fishy]

---

Yup, I'm still getting garbage in my Release Radar, mostly rappers tagging other artists they are not affiliated with.  Spotify appears to have given up trying to fix this issue, as it's been going on for well over a year and the moderator who claimed to be working on this has gone AWOL.  So that's that.  I'm going to start researching other streaming services.  

@philippantoni wrote:

So just for fun, after another Release Radar with 5 garbage songs by artists masquerading as someone else, I decided to check those songs in Apple Music... and all of them had correct attribution there.

Spotify, fix your broken system that allows this kind of abuse & spam or you'll start losing customers. Or, if you really need your users' help to clean up this mess, embed a proper report function in the app like was already suggested here.

---

[ishi_the_fishy]

UN-F'ING-BELIEVABLE!!!  It's not just the Release Radar anymore that's plagued with fake artists claiming the names of famous artists. Spotify is now allowing new artists to use pre-existing artist's names to promote their music though different means. Look at the screenshot of what I saw today when I opened the Spotify app on my smartphone:

This "new release" from "Rainbow" is not the rock band from the 1970's that I follow. It's some girl singing pop music.  When I checked the artist named Rainbow that I do follow, this dumb song by the fake Rainbow is also erroneously listed there too.  See the screen shot from the artists's page:

This is effectively a form of advertising that is has now reached beyond the Release Radar, which I don't even bother with anymore, and is now polluting paying subscribers accounts on the app home-screen!  Looks like Spotify has flat-out given up on fixing this issue and is actually allowing it to spread. Why? Either they don't care if people abuse their app for self-promotion, or they're actually making some money off it.  Come on Spotify, what's the answer???

[decuman]

The National recent collaboratoin... ladies and gentlemen
https://open.spotify.com/track/20XcFe1c8EyqheDYXCADim?si=5faa2b1694ad4634
Spotify, not reacting and fixing this promptly akin of farting into your customer faces.
Was to loayl maybe... hate to say this but I'm close to a tipping point switching to other services.

[decuman]

... and over 3 million monthy listeners potentially got to listen to that cгappy track?

[ishi_the_fishy]

I just signed up for the Apple Music free trial. I'm planning on dumping Spotify if Apple Music has all the same artists/tracks that normally listen to and I like the service.  There's no point giving Spotify another dollar if they treat their paying subscribers like garbage---particularly if they use my dollars to develop partnerships and podcasts with people I don't care for.  

[diegoperl]

This problem of fake artist in "my release radar" exists for years and it seams Spotify does nothing to solve it.  This makes me believe that Spotify is entirely or partial responsible for inserting these fake artists and they have no interest in stopping .

[Jason787]

Please Remove this or actions will be taken Nationalmusiq and The National have a song I have release the wrong song on spofity
srry about that

best sonny music Ent

[rubs]

Even Genesis?!? Come on, please take action. Shame on you, Spotify.

[Jason787]

Dont worry Actions has already been taken for spreading artists name that is copyright and if you dont know about artists dont post stuff that you dont know about There Record Label Can sue you for millions of dollars and i as a record is going to do that with gig goer who is wriiting wrong information about Nationalmusiq and The National

[jeremycorbett]

For the second week in a row, some artist calling themselves 'Big Flav' releases some generic EDM track claiming some well regarded electronic artists as collaborator has hit my Release Radar.

These collaborators are not part of this at all, as confirmed by those artists.

https://twitter.com/Lapalux/status/1419273702668132355

Clearly this isn't an issue of 'mistakes' - as many here have speculated repeatedly, dubious artists are intentionally adding the names of popular artists as collaborators to get themselves listens.

Spotify, are you actually dealing with this?

[w9t6l-t6s_ok]

This article makes me wonder if Spotify is doing this on purpose to game the royalty system: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15961416/spotify-fake-artist-controversy-mystery-tracks

Maybe a reason to spend money at other streaming sites that care about the artists.

[jeremycorbett]

Spotify still maintains afaik that they never paid artists for royalty free music to pad out popular playlists. Meanwhile, several composer friends of mine  are happy with the modest cheques they got from Spotify for some easy work lol.

[ThomasTTE]

That article was a really interesting read, thanks for sharing! After reading it though, if anything, it disproves any allegations. I like how they put it at the end that it really doesn't make sense for something like what was alleged to be happening. The whole verge article pretty much goes through all arguments and destroys them. Pretty good journalism actually. But more than anything, something from 2017 is quite ancient in internet times, a lot has been revealed about the royalty schemes since then.

I've noticed some errors getting corrected faster recently, not sure if it's just me. Maybe in the end it just really works kinda bad and there's no grander scheme behind it. Here's to hoping it will get better. Ball's in their court.