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.

[abcdefgabcdefg]

Here's an as short as possible version of a previous post in this thread, explaining the behavior of the Release Radar.

• I receive tracks from artists I don't follow at all in my Release Radar - This is intended and we don't plan on changing this. The Release Radar doesn't only help you keep track of artists you follow, but is meant to allow you to discover new music from others we think you might enjoy. It is also one way for Spotify to help artists get their music noticed.

• I get music that I don't enjoy at all in my Release Radar - This means our algorithm doesn't know your music taste so well. There can be many reasons behind this, but the rule of thumb to improve the music you receive in the automatically generated playlists for you is to listen to music without a private session, use the like and hide features, have more intentional music listening habits rather than opportunity based and when you discover something new that you enjoy, listen to it proportionally more than other content. Following these guidelines should give you better recommendations in time. It will still not be perfect and it can vary from person to person, but we're constantly improving these as we go.

• I get tracks from artists that are named exactly the same as ones I follow and enjoy, but it turns out the track is unrelated to that artist and they only have the same name. - This happens if a track initially gets erroneously uploaded to the artist you follow. It can be that the error is already corrected by the time your Release Radar updates, but it already captured the track on its upload. It can happen with featured artists as well. Currently, there's no technical solution in place than can prevent errors like this happening, as we rely on submitted metadata. If you spot an incorrect content, it's best to report it as described here. Make sure your report is clear. If you can't find an artist profile with the same name as the one you follow, it probably hasn't been created yet and is part of the reason the error occurred. Point that out in your report to ensure it can be processed efficiently.

[ishi_the_fishy]

I gave up on Release Radar months ago, and I'm actively looking into other streaming services. Decided to check this week's Release Radar to see if Spotify has fixed the problem. NOPE! I have a bunch of rap artists hijacking artists I follow by listing them as collaborators. Many of these scammers are international rappers who sing in languages I don't speak and have 0 followers. 

Sometimes I can try to ban the artist by saying I don't like the song or artist. But now they're getting sneaky and listing the artist I do follow as the primary artist, so I'm forced to leave the track alone or I'll end up banning the artist I like.  The example is the punk band "MDC", and a rapper named "Drissa Meite".  I cannot block "Drissa Meite", only "MDC", and I love "MCD".  So what I'm I supposed to do. Why is

Spotify making this so difficult?  This is such a mess.

[ThomWim]

This week's "surprise", we have a Japanese rap track featuring the 80's rock band Journey.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1og3Zj3weD30wv5mf9TMjO

[ishi_the_fishy]

---

@ThomWim wrote:

This week's "surprise", we have a Japanese rap track featuring the 80's rock band Journey.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1og3Zj3weD30wv5mf9TMjO

---

Yes, I follow Journey as well and saw that BS "Superman" track on my RR.  I'm glad we're keeping this thread going, even if the Spotify moderator (Mihail) bailed on us months ago. It's important to document when a company fails to address PAYING customer complains, particularly when they are so numerous and deal with activity that can best be described as unethical.

---

[hello320155]

It never stops. Listening to my release radar and so far there's been 2 cases of this**bleep**

And I can't even find a way to report it. What will it take for Spotify to actually do something about it? 

[jeremycorbett]

I seem to be lucky this week and not had anything, and looking at the artist I reported a couple of times their profile has now disappeared, although I never got any feedback from my reports.

Mods, what is going on with this issue?

[ThomWim]

This week I had fake features from Creed, Scorpions, Aaliyah, and Wheatus.

[ishi_the_fishy]

So far I've enjoyed my Apple account trial. Any one have any opinions on other streaming services? I'm done with Spotify.

[packep]

The last two weeks has been worse than ever. Now artist that I have removed earlier is coming back.

[packep]

Today 14 out of 30 songs are totally unrelated to what I listen to.

There is something way off with release radar right now

[FloDer]

Got the same issue. Have tried to get rid of those 1 hour monstercat silk showcases for months now and did not succeed. please fix that spotify, cant be that hard.

[minklet]

The fact that spotifies only efforts to solve this problem are to make the reporting feature more difficult, shows they don't care.

[masivodano73]

Right? It's absolutely ridiculous and I would be **bleep** if I was in a band that worked hard to build a reputation and then Spotify allowed South American hacks to release songs under our name while including our band photo.

Maybe we nees to be notifying the bands and they might have more pull with Spotify?

It's just crazy.

[ketsueki_kurai]

Plan

Premium Family

Country

UK

Device

Multiple - Windows App, OnePlus 7T

Operating System

Multiple - Windows 10, Android 10

My Question or Issue

Recently, my Release Radar has been completely useless. It started with little no name artists using big artists as "Featured artists", even though they had nothing to do with the song. Essentially, gaming the system. This is a pain, but I understand it may take time to resolve. I report these as requested. This was usually anywhere from 5% to 25% of the list in a week.
The last 2 weeks, however, it's gotten to the point where 50% of my Release Radar is absolute trash, and I don't even see an artist I've listened to linked to it in any way.

I use Last.fm, and my scrobbles only show what I've listened to, nothing out of the ordinary. I also only login with Facebook, and it has a unique strong password. I've logged everything out, just to be safe, but I don't think this is the issue where someone is using my account.

As an example, this is my Release Radar for this week:

1. Roocchas feat. Staind - Free Soul -- This is a classic example of misuse of the "Featured" artist. This song has no connection to Staind.
2. Fireboy DML feat. Ed Sheeran - Peru -- Legit track
3. Story of the Year - The Heart of Polka Is Still Beating -- Legit Track
4. LIKEALIFE feat. Soil - Gift of Time -- I suspect this is another feat abuse, but I'll be generous and say it could just be a mistaken link.
5. Ocean Sounds for Sleeping - study sounds ocean -- No clue. Never listened to ambient sounds in Spotify that I can recall, and I can't find any link to this artist anywhere in my previous listens.
6. DropRiff - Animus Liber -- Another complete unknown to me.
7. Yellowcard - Rock Star Land - Remastered -- Legit Track
8. Anberlin - Hearing Voices -- Legit Track
9. Lad Baby, Ed Sheeran, Elton John - Sausage Rolls For Everyone -- Legit Track
10. Percival Schuttenbach - Lullaby Of Woe -- Legit Track
11. Axis - Box Fresh -- No idea who this is
12. The Sonic Show - Bad Sonic -- No clue, plus possibly copyright infringement?
13. Esa Risti - KEPENEM TRESNO - Indonesia -- No idea who this is.
14. Jaytech - Road To Nowhere - Mixed -- No idea.
15. Jewel - Born This Way -- Legit
16. Tom Staar, Cedric Gervais - Playing Games (RES006) -- This could be tied to something I've listened to, I guess. If so, I can't find it.
17. Mono Inc. - Children Of The Dark - Instrumental -- Another one that could be related, I guess. I can't find the connection, though.
18. Ocean Sounds For Sleeping - spa music hour -- Same as 5. No idea.
19. Los Pachekoz - Contrabando -- No idea.
20. Gabrielle Taryn - Waves -- No idea.
21. Green Day - When I Come Around - BBC Live Session -- Legit Track
22. Alicia Keys, Brandi Carlile - Paper Flowers -- Legit Track
23. Jimmy Fallon, Ariana Grande, Megan Thee Stallion - It Was A... (Masked Christmas) -- Legit
24. Four Year Strong - Get out of My Head - Acoustic -- Legit
25. Sevendust, Jake Bowen - Dying to Live - Jake Bowen Remix -- Legit
26. Outlanders, Trevor Rabin - Closer to the Sky (Dub Mix) -- No idea.
27. Lordi - Vulture of Fire -- Legit
28. Bipo Kid, ENDG, Ra - KRI -- I suspect this is another feat abuse, but I'll be generous and say it could just be a mistaken link.
29. New Found Glory - Nothing For Christmas -- Legit
30. The Pretty Reckless - Standing at the Wall - Commentary -- Legit.

21 to 30 are mostly repeats from last week, and for those of you playing at home, that's 15 out of 30 tracks that are completely unrelated to my listening.

I keep reporting these, but it is massively time consuming. I've been reporting the wrong tracks since at least May, and just this post alone took about an hour.

This is actually worse than it was when I started reporting them, with most of these not even having a fake link.

I work in software, and I'm happy to bend over backwards to give you any information you need, so please, please don't just ignore this. 

[unclerk]

I have this issue too! I don't know what genre you usually listen, personally i listen rock, i didn't had ANY new songs from the artist i follow nor songs that are rock. Like i don't know how i had pop or rnb on that playlist. Some musics are ok but some are just not acceptable.

[evelix]

This is such an old issue and still not resolved.

Actually I think some newer bands do this on purpose in that they use a name that already exists and suddenly they get listened to and probably get money.

Downside is that the "release radar" playlist which is basically a good thing is becoming useless.

Personally I like to receive new ideas on music I like. But now I'm at the point where 50% of my release radar is RAP and other music I absolutely do not like. And even though I always cancel these artits completely I constantly receive new RAP suggestions. 
So basically I assume that the Release Radar algorithm is useless as it doesn't count 0% the music into account I actually listen too. 
I just won't use it anymore...

[ketsueki_kurai]

Thanks for merging this into a thread that isn't actually to do with my issue.
As I said in my post, I'd been reporting the issue in this thread for months, and a different issue started in the last month. The ones I've mentioned here aren't even with the same name as artists that I listen to!

[thousandaire]

About the only thing that keeps me from dumping Spotify due to platforming Joe Rogan's vaccine disinformation and hugely underpaying artists is the ability to find new music rather well, and they're losing that now too.  It's sort of like how Google search has now been so commercialized and compromised that competitors like DuckDuckGo or even Reddit provide far more relevant results without the chaff.

[jeremycorbett]

Don't forget Spotify's founder investing millions of dollars into military AI tech.

I'm about done with the service.

Hey, remember when Spotify would actually just send you notifications when an artist you followed released new material? Guess that wasn't sufficiently "driving up engagement" so they had to make it harder for us.

I swear technology used to be cool and exciting, now its all sh*t.

In other news, techno label Ilian Tape just removed all their music from Spotify.

[Nuith]

Plan

Premium Duo

Country

Canada

Device

Windows app

Operating System

Windows 10

https://open.spotify.com/track/1Rfd7Wg1IP7yG9CqXIC4sg?si=2baa8d09e2b64114

Different artist from the Asura that I am following.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5NsArmgpabPr7eR5zh4Ux8?si=3rRErU-PQhil1KzrtgFiXA Not the same Asura. If you check discogs it's not the same artist.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3LedO1CLkS1iYXUCCxvV67?si=3c96981602f64b6e

This is not the same Demigod as the one I follow.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/088GBJ3ST0jaG1223nhBGU?si=S7f7l-A5S-iP9TAa8I0udA

https://open.spotify.com/track/4slU2F5H2vwyD3fpYWuVGG?si=4a28a0cb46ec4210

I follow VAST. But it's not the same artist.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/48dSb4OvI8hAPpHqBBYyig?si=nl20wwUoRAKzLj_vT9ebLg

All 3 of these showed up on my release radar this week. This is relatively annoying when I could've had other stuff on my release radar that are actually by artists that I follow.

[jeremycorbett]

I had enough of Spotify's complete disinterest in fixing this, so I've cancelled my spotify subscription. Tidal + Plex with bought albums is going to be my method of streaming music from now on.