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.

[selinez]

WAKE UP BABE!! NEW PHOENIX ALBUM JUST DROPPED!!!! Can't believe the band is from France but they released a whole album in Russian called SwagAddiction!! They're so talented!!! /s 

To add salt to injury, not only did this appear on my Release Radar, but the album is currently front and center under Popular Releases on their actual Artist page 🙄

It's so clear that Spotify doesn't intend on ever solving this issue and the company is going downhill FAST (it's giving crash and burn) -- can we just turn this into a thread for alternative streaming platforms? Tidal + Plex was mentioned, any others?

[packep]

Finally today's release radar was correct, without any rap artists with metal names or genres that I never listens to.

Happy Fridays again🤘

[-StigtriX-]

It's because of the incompetence of the programmers at Spotify. This, coupled with that I can't hide podcasts and audiobooks, made me actually quit the paid version and consider Tidal.

They basically have just one tag per name in the system, which is mind-numbingly dumb.

[ketsueki_kurai]

Shockingly, my Release Radar is actually pretty decent the last 2 weeks. Anyone else seen an improvement, or have I just been lucky?

[roel]

For the last half year my Release Radar regularly shows names of (metal) bands being reused by other bands, mostly (t)rap. 
Could be coincidence, could be that they're on the same line of name-giving, but it's annoying as sh*t when they popup on my RR.

So I guess the magic Spotify algorithm should give suggestions, not by name, but artist-ID.
Am I alone? 

Examples:
This artist, using the name Coal Chamber
https://open.spotify.com/track/11BKhTeEwvG9n0UIGlUKNa?

Clutch
https://open.spotify.com/track/2Zf3T7cxm2JtF1CNYCRWOE?

Other names that came by
Opeth, Sticks, Abakus, Onyx, Dvne

[31se]

I have been suffering.

This one turkish rapper keeps tagging the band CAN as a feature. If i click on the small ( - ) i can choose between "I don't like this song" or "I don't like <artist>". It does not matter wich one i choose, he keeps appearing the next week with a new wrongly tagged song.

Its at least the 6th week in row this happend. "Sadly" i didnt save the previous songs by him, but i will edit this post every week he reappears in my release radar.

1. 18.03 https://open.spotify.com/track/0mncdFIdza7vFy2alv0mK7?si=0c696b3b2d1e4a35

I will cancel my premium and go to another streaming service if this continues.

[Spot1FiIsBroken]

This happens almost every week for me.

It's like Spotify wants its users to suffer and for Spotify to be h-e-double hockey sticks.

Absolutely shameful.

[Spot1FiIsBroken]

This is exactly it.

That's what this "stars" program.

They want the paying listeners and customers to basically be unpaid interns & do all the work to build it.

This will fail soon (or another company will buy Spotify).

[Redcow82]

Not only the songs appearing in your release radar are wrong, but it's just so easy for any artist to lie and add a very famous featured artist.

It seems there is not a single music fan in Spotify company.

Leaving for years such easy bugs to fix is a joke.

A company making 12 billions of revenue per year is not able to simply update its buggy database badly designed 16 years ago ?

[packep]

The most annoying thing for me right now is that even if a remove artists from my Release Radar the same artist pops up again the next week. I removed Black Keys three weeks in a row and it still poped up this Friday.

That must be such an easy problem to fix if someone cared.

[ishi_the_fishy]

It's been clear for some time now that some kind of scam is going on with the Release Radar.  Nearly all of the complaints have been from people who listen to hard rock having their RR polluted with rap music, or other types of music that do not fit their listening profile. This has happened to me many times. If you look closely at the polluting artist, you'll find they have only one single released and less than 1,000 followers.  The other issue commonly reported, and I've experience this, is that if you select "I don't like (artist name)", Spotify will claim to never put them on your RR again---only to have that artist appear again over the following weeks.  Something is very wrong and no one at Spotify seems to be the least bit interested in fixing it.

[packep]

Excellent post. I totaly agree

[LostInTranslati]

This problem is still happening in June 2022. As someone else said, it's nearly always rappers. I mark the song as dislike, and yet the artist is back again a few weeks later.

[Farodin774]

A song named speedway from the "artist" The Antimood appeared in my Release Radar, the Artist tagged 3 well known Artists, two of which i listen to regularly: Feint and Metrik

I'm 100% certain that none of the 3 known artist had anything to do with this mediocre release, but the song appeared in my radar anyway because they got tagged. I guess those bloodsuckers do this for the money they get from Spotify?

This isn't the first time this happened and it will definitely not be the last, except you guys start doing something about it, like a confirmation request message for the artists who get tagged? 

This is really annoying 

https://open.spotify.com/track/1cnNGadDeGuHaMIb0cBQSZ?si=0a8696f27e754497

[xenextx]

@abcdefgabcdefg

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.

AKA "we are going to push tracks that you won't like because they're our own product or we're getting paid to push them"

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.

AKA "we are going to push tracks that you won't like because they're our own product or we're getting paid to push them"

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.

AKA "we are going to push tracks that you won't like because they're our own product or we're getting paid to push them"

[xenextx]

Sounds like release radar isn something to stay away from then.  Because you're going to cause people to play tracks they hate and then your algo is going to say "oh great they like it". 

Spotify should not try to pollute our listening history with garbage we will hate and should clearly label such content with big yellow exclamation points, because they're screwing up our listening history.

Looks like the only solution is for the community to come together and replace the current spotify clients with another client that counteracts all the deceitful stuff that the spotify client / service does to turn its customers into profit centers. 

[xenextx]

It was really not amazing

[ravage928]

Another long ongoing issue not being resolved. This has polluted my release radar every single week for what feels like a year or two. It's not just faking their name it's also adding popular artists who have nothing to do with the song as a feature, thus showing up in our release radar. Maybe give us more options to report this on the desktop app without having to go thru customer service for one or two songs every week. Seems like they really don't care to be honest. 

[thousandaire]

I want to chime in with an update and say that this issue has seemed less common lately, at least for me, but I'm sure your milage may vary.  I hope they've made it harder for no-name Spanish rappers to co-credit Michael Jackson on their songs.

[NordicHector]

Still an issue with me as recently as last Friday (2/12/22). Affected artists: Leo, Dope, Soil, Behemoth, Toska, Creeper, probably more I don't remember.

Of note: I'm not "following" any artists on Spotify, which means that the claim that the RR is promoting these artists based on similarity of taste rings hollow. I do get some suggestions based on similar genre, but these seem to be the wrong ArtistID issue and these issues are not amended week on week which means it's not the "humans incorrectly inputting metadata" argument from Mihail's big explanation.

I want to be reasonable and make this a decent back-and-forth with Spotify, but a) Spotify has stopped addressing almost all legitimate concerns, as far as I can see, b) the reporting of these issues has been decimated and it's now impossible to actually report a song on the Release Radar, and c) Spotify keeps removing features while increase the subscription price. I think voting with our wallets for superior services may be the only message they hear, but market dominance isn't easily shifted by diehard music fans moving elsewhere - the majority of the userbase are probably pretty casual, and a lot of revenue comes from the ads pushed on free users.