Spotify Community

abcdefgabcdefg · ‎2020-01-10

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.

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???

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.

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.

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":

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

Suzesun · ‎2021-04-15

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).

datfenristho · ‎2021-04-10

Yeah this is still a huge problem. I report several songs each week for incorrectly featuring artists with that support form, and half the time I don't even get a response. And why is it that ALL of these songs with fake artist features are some kind of hip hop or rap garbage? Seems like us being able to block entire genres would help immensely here. A report track option on the actual app would also be very useful.

jakegerb · ‎2021-04-12

same here. Spotify if you are reading this, shame on you, for letting us hang like this. I used to report to this form, but now the stopped doing that as well.

Today after another HipHop Garbage artist with the name of Pantera (you guessed it, after the famous metal band), I've had enough. This is getting out of hand!!

this used to be the form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdXRSzYb5zXmHR2dCcpMtEz_t-gHK8ZlVXqT-s0nYrCtU2Ow/closedfor...

jeremycorbett · ‎2021-04-13

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?

jakegerb · ‎2021-04-12

https://open.spotify.com/track/3LNh7Zj7Z5AuSV97nqyfPf?si=ycqwOccmSnuj3vyYUZNniw

philippantoni · ‎2021-04-09

Glad I found this thread, because this is getting beyond frustrating. Every week for the past ~3 months, my Release Radar has contained 5-10 songs by misattributed artists, or people claiming to have collaborated with artists I follow. Selecting "I don't like this artist" has no effect, as literally the same people show up again week-over-week.

Here are some examples from today:

https://open.spotify.com/track/34HrXJ8L0wWXyQSLhd305d?si=l79uIz8rQRyRzzNT6i1XEA

https://open.spotify.com/track/12yBFtaEZVyNMEira5wGXL?si=tybvfY7gTfyHKp_uLAlCwg

https://open.spotify.com/track/3urrycg0H2Q5HhaX22Auxl?si=rR7WeKmiTz6G8TRwxI_R_Q

https://open.spotify.com/track/56Y3NI0kN3g4hwOcyBBGl2?si=rI-NcokWQmuk-4t3rZ4Pbw

All of these list wildly more popular performers as secondary artists, while I'm pretty sure they had nothing to do in producing these songs, i.e. it feels like people trying to spam their way into playlists. Please find some way to be more rigorous about this, Spotify.

clnr · ‎2021-04-10

I reported a problem from this weeks RR, where as usual a guest artist on a hiphop song was incorrectly linked to a band I listen to.

I report it as a broken track, per the instructions. As I do 1-4 times every week now.

However, this time the response from Customer Support is that they will no take any action since I can't provide the link to the correct artist. An artist I don't know anything about who is set as guest artist on a track from another artist I never heard about.

But I can tell the difference between hip hop and Old School Death Metal by just using my ears.

So the message from Spotify is that they don't care about your experience anymore.

And they want their customers not only to report the errors, they want you to do their work as well. This is frankly unacceptable.

MetalRayzor · ‎2021-04-10

I've been falling behind on this thread. I thought there was some progress made shortly after my last post a month ago or more. The number of inappropriate songs decreased by at least half and some of the remaining ones could be legitimate naming conflicts. However, the posts from others show that there is still significant issues here and the inappropriate selections on my own account have started to increase again.

I've received another Spotify email - "New music from artists you love..." and it's another Rap artist. I don't listen to Rap and the only Rap songs touched by my Spotify account are the fraudulent suggestions made in my Release Radar, which I have spent significant time marking as "I don't like this song/artist".

Why Spotify, why? Why would you send me this email? Dozens, of rock/metal artists I do listen to have released new material in the past month but you send me a Rap artist I have explicitly disliked. Could it be that Spotify is being paid to spam this content to us? Why is the Release Radar the only Spotify list that ever contains these inappropriate Rap artists? I've been paying for a Spotify subscription for close to a decade but the algorithm (and only the Release Radar algorithm) still can't figure out what I like. It sure looks like part of the Release Radar algorithm is to include wildly inaccurate selections that pay to be placed on this list.

ishi_the_fishy · ‎2021-04-15

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.

ianhandsup · ‎2021-04-01

Just got recommended a new song from (ford.), but it's someone else with the same name.

arcadechan · ‎2021-03-12

Not that bad this week. Just two weird tracks.

#1. Looks like its just someone tagging their song with the 1970s Electric Light Orchestra to get some visibility.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4bEE5reerYchv3EYmQSPfy

#2. It's obvious they have a rapper featured on this track that goes by the name Bully, but its pointing to the Bully I follow, which is an indie rock band.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5yRLP9Hb2TawVCYzdJuRH9?si=H_jZRbUERk25ATH0dpa7Hw

It's even more unfortunate that the Bully I follow has their "Appears On" section filled with all of the albums/singles where the rapper Bully appears. Can't imagine how much it must suck as an artist to have other artist's stuff you have no association with show up on your artist page to all your fans.

Keith00000 · ‎2021-03-06

Here are some examples as requested. These are particularly egregious as the fake artists are horrendous.

Examples:

fake "she"

open.spotify.com/artist/34gghywRomt5S5ITKXwtC1?si=COVe4ZoQQzivcJiz_KXlng

real "she"

open.spotify.com/artist/3xWktqKQxBAu4LXqLufJwW?si=HO40CbIAQ-6z4C6HDG3vDw

fake "BT"

open.spotify.com/artist/5hvgLtG4i37Zo8kigzFD50?si=xRNoqZwoS5-eLPxO8MYaDA

real "BT"

open.spotify.com/artist/64MoFdq8ORI3V98AR5SPWL?si=zKo4X98CR6WksB65SuhSBA

timerickson · ‎2021-02-27

This happens every single week!!!!

An example from this week. Artist using name BT showing in my radar: spotify:artist:5hvgLtG4i37Zo8kigzFD50

I do not follow this artist. The BT I follow: spotify:artist:64MoFdq8ORI3V98AR5SPWL

ThomWim · ‎2021-03-01

BT already knows about this confusion. He contacted Spotify in October 2019 and asked them to remove music that wasn't by him.

https://twitter.com/BT/status/1184108453146574848
https://twitter.com/BT/status/1184859724560437248

Spotify Community

Release Radar includes wrong artist with same name as desired artist

Release Radar includes wrong artist with same name as desired artist

May 2020 Ideas Review