Spotify DJ Is Like Radio But Less Bad

Spotify DJ gets a lot of hate. A lot of it is deserved. I mean, it’s basically a recommendation algorithm for music with a voice on top.

A recommendation algorithm for music is kind of what I’ve always wanted. I listen to music around 8 hours per day and I love discovering new music. If there was an algorithm with broad knowledge of all (or some significant fraction of) the world’s music, and it could basically play TikTok with my listening tastes to keep feeding me new and interesting music, I would be very pleased.

But it doesn’t really do that, does it? I’m not going off any data here, this is purely anecdotal, but ultimately any music recommender will have to pass my anecdotal vibe check if I’m going to use it.

It overwhelmingly plays music by artists that are already popular. It overwhelmingly plays recent music over older stuff. There is a class action lawsuit against Spotify alleging that they let people pay for algorithm exposure. They deny it but I smell trickery afoot.

Throughout my life, I’ve generally avoided major radio stations (indie radio is fine, I even broadcast as part of the University of Greenwich Radio Society). I’ve avoided them because they have too strong of a popularity and recency bias.

But sometimes people just want to listen to what’s popular and recent. Actually, most of the time people just want to listen to what’s popular and recent. That’s a big part of the success of radio. Most people don’t want to curate a musical identity, they want something to put on in the background that won’t grate their ears.

And Spotify DJ pretty much gives you that, but with another bias added: the bias towards what you listen to. IMO that’s what was missing from radio: some of it is pretty good, but most of it just isn’t to my tastes. If I could listen to all the popular and recent songs that are to my tastes (there are a lot!) I’d listen to that sometimes (and I do!).

Most people are sleeping on the best recommendation algorithm Spotify has to offer, though: Smart Shuffle on your Liked Songs. At least as far as I can tell, that actually just picks songs from the Spotify catalogue that are as similar as possible to your stated tastes.

- omegastick