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Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world sir_pronoun @lemmy.world 1y ago

What's an alternative to Spotify that doesn't play you the same fucking songs over and over?

I am in an intense love-hate relationship with Spotify. It makes good mixes for me, I have found a lot of great bands that way. BUT IT KEEPS REGURGITATING THE SAME SONGS IN THERE. I know about Song Radios and Artist Radios, so please don't recommend those. Smart Shuttle doesn't cut it, either.

The best thing would be several randomness sliders. One for randomness in bands, the other for randnomness of their songs, one for genres. Please tell me some music service has implemented something like that. I am dying over here.

118 comments

I’m ready for downvotes but I use Apple Music and it plays me new music all the time. And if it repeats a song I just say suggest less and it goes away. I play my station and it’s a nice mix of music I like and new stuff.
- ~~And it is free to stream!~~ (2015) ~~And it is only 2.99 $~~ (2018) ~~And it’s only 4.99!~~ (2020) And it’s only 10.99! (2023)
  
  We went from free to 132$ in 8 years for (check notes) listening to the radio.
  
  Is everyone cool with paying 20$ a month in 2028?
  
  The service has improved every time though in Apple’s defense…and if there’s one company I actually trust to improve on its services it is Apple (not a fanboy, they have their own issues, just delivering quality consistently isn’t one of them).
  
  I think most people use it in bundles with other Apple subscriptions like iCloud and TV
  
  I am when Apple Music pays the artists 3x what Spotify does per stream. At least my money is going to the content creators, not some dickhead Spotify exec.
- Even as a primarily Android user, I agree. I have tried most music streaming services at this point and Apple Music has been the best for helping me discover music. Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.
  
  Another plus is Apple Music is one of the last remaining music platforms that is not trying to shove podcasts down my throat.
  
  Most others play it too safe with the algorithm and only play music I already like.
  
  I’m pretty sure it’s not the algorithm but rather some agreed upon rates for streaming. The more they stream the same stuff, the less they pay per stream. Same shit that killed radio.
- I’ll second Apple Music!
- I’m using Appel music as well and I think it’s great for the most part. It sometimes has a weird bug where it won’t play downloaded music unless you have internet though.
  
  Spotify has that bug too, and it's infuriating. Whenever I'm on a plane or something I have to put Spotify in "offline mode", otherwise it just refuses to play all the music I've downloaded.
- Thanks, I think I will try it for a bit. Other people recommended YouTube music, I'm a bit torn between those rn
  
  I know that feeling. I'm torn between Apple Music and Spotify myself. Spotify is just that much more convenient for me but at the same time, so is Apple Music...
- Agreed, my new music mix is usually pretty good too.
- It's also got actual radio stations. This is how I found out about Studio Brussel.
- The discovery radio works really well too as long as you’ve been liking and disliking things.
I have the same gripe with Spotify, you dare like a song and that's all you get over and over.

I really miss Google Play Music!
- Spotify: hey remember that song you accidentally pressed like on, you know the one you listened to for 5 seconds? Yeah, that's gonna be all you'll listen to now.
- Songza FTW
Same gripe. I recently requested all my data from Spotify, scraped play counts out of it (thanks for not providing that in the API) and made a playlist of my liked songs in ascending play count order. Shuffling that, I'm hearing songs I love which I haven't heard in years. Sucks that it takes so much effort
- I've been thinking about something like that as well. Can you create playlists and add songs via the API? Really have to check that out.
  
  But yes, it's a frustrating trend, I have that with smart home stuff as well. Huge vendors sell powerful enough hardware, but it's dumbed down and after some point you get so frustrated you start tinkering with their API. Almost seems like a ploy to get all abled people distracted, so they don't use their time and energy to work on building guillotines
  
  I'm pretty sure you can create playlists and add songs via the API. For my purposes, because I wasn't otherwise using the API, I found it easier to just manually copy a list of URLs in/out of playlists on the desktop app.
  
  Vim + grep + tiny python snippet = good enough
  
  Now though, I'm thinking a little script which did a "true shuffle" on a playlist, via the API, that could then be played in playlist order could be just as useful...
I have been using https://spotifyshuffler.com/. This allows you to create a shuffled version of your playlist, then you play through that version once with Spotify's shuffling disabled.
- Is the idea that it'll break Spotify preference to play only certain stuff?
  
  The idea is that you don't rely on Spotify shuffle at all. A separate app reads your playlist, shuffles it once, and puts that shuffled version into your library. Now you can play this new version with the in-Spotify shuffle disabled. Once you've heard all the songs, just rinse and repeat.
Is it weird that I don't use any of these streaming services and just use my own library via FTP (if I'm not at home)?
- I'm (slowly) working my way towards that too (it's hell to classify though) but how do you discover new music?
  
  Last.fm?
  
  Like I've always done, through friends or the internet 🤷.
  
  I don't have a small collection BTW. Things weren't always discovered through app suggestions 😂.
- I installed Navidrome for that
  
  I could google that, but I'm in a chatty mood 😂, could you explain what that is?
- Where do you get the (new) music from, CDs/albums?
  
  While I primarily use streaming services, I almost always still buy albums on Bandcamp for the day when I need to go back to running my own music. You can save up for a Bandcamp Friday when more goes to the artist. Bandcamp has been the best place for music for awhile. Best to get in before Songtradr continues the destruction Epic started.
  
  I pirate. I buy only what I really really like, and I'd like to have a hard copy (CD, vinyl), not digital download. If there is only digital download available, I pirate it.
- I do it too, just with Plexamp.
  
  The recommendations and radios on plexamp are amazing compared to any other service I've tried.
  
  Will have to look into this, I haven't really optimized around the way I stream my media.
I use Tidal and it shares the same problem, especially if you are using it in drive mode in your car (Android Auto). I guess they do it to minimize data transmission costs by buffering your favorite songs on your device, but it annoys the hell out of me.

Also, Tidal has a Hip-hop/Rap bias that I was unable to remove after some 2 years of using it. I don't have a single song from those genres in my favorites or playlists, but it will suggest them all the same. I will block the artists and they will pop up on the new releases page.

Regarding music quality it is miles ahead of Spotify. I don't know if Spotify has finally released an hi-fi/lossless tier, but at the time Tidal was unmatched. After listening to Tidal hi-fi I could not go back to Spotify's mungled up audio.
- Spotify still has done nothing about their audio quality. I use it where I don’t have access to decent playback equipment.
  
  I know it's not tidal lossless quality, but have you set all the music quality settings to extreme in Spotify settings?
- Does tidal still have lossless? I remember they were replacing all lossless flac with their ~~qma~~ mqa stuff, which isn't lossless, and requires you to buy specialized hardware. That was the main reason I chose deezer instead of tidal.
  
  Yes, they have a 16bit/44.1KHz FLAC tier (€7.49), as well as a 320Kbps tier for lower data consumption and a 24bit/192KHz tier (€13.99) if you have the Hi-Fi gear to use it.
- I really wanted to use Tidal because of the Linux thing and FLAC, despite the cost over Spotify etc.
  
  Tried to sign up and had horrendous problems over such a simple thing. Gave up on them. Never had a problem with subscriptions before or since, unless you count insurance auto-renew!
  
  I haven't had any problem with my subscription.
  
  Their player works very well for my use cases: I use it on my Android phone, on my car via Android Auto, on my LG TV with WebOS and on my Linux machine via Firefox.
It seems most people are complaining about when Spotify plays random stuff it thinks you like, but I'm having the same issue with my actual created playlist. I've carefully gathered and downloaded all my favorite songs into a playlist that has about 3 days worth of music on it... Yet it plays the same 100-200 or so songs no matter what, even on shuffle. I'm pretty sure most songs in this list have never been played. Very irritating
- That's because Spotify shuffle by default is not a simple true randomizer as most would expect. It tries to be "smart" and mixes your playlist so similar songs play after another, while avoiding playing songs from the same artists back to back. And some more variables. In theory this is great and works well for some users and focused playlists, but can ruin playlists that cover a very wide range of genres and styles.
  
  You can better approach true randomness by disabling the "Automix" feature in Spotify settings. Not entirely sure if you then actually get true randomness (Spotify loves being opaque), but I hope it helps with your playlist at least.
  
  I would love if they made some enthusiast options available so we could customize our own Automix and shuffle preferences, but that will never happen...
- i just preshuffle my playlist using a playlist shuffler website and then go in the order its shuffled. just got to remember what song you left off on, that way every song gets played at least once
I've set up my Spotify to tell Last.fm what songs I listen to (aka scrobble). Over time, Last.fm gets a pretty good idea of what songs you like, so when I wanna discover new songs, I go to Last.fm, ask it to play me a mix, and direct it to play the songs through my Spotify. I find that its recommendations are much better than what I get from using Spotify alone.
One of the main reasons I stuck with YouTube Music is that I find the algorhitms superior to spotify. Maybe this is placebo, but I think between the 7 mixes + discovery + artist / song radio I always have something that does not feel the same, and I feel like any intentionally searched listening updates the mixes fairly quickly.
- I disagree entirely.
  
  I used the free trial. The algorithm was a whole lot shittier than spotify's recommendations. It had the same annoying vibe as the regular youtube algo where if you watch one video from Jordan Peterson, you suddenly inherit the feed of an Elon Musk worshipping alt right tech bro.
  
  It was the same for music. I listened to one song as a joke then it stopped recommending good music and just made my whole feed into joke songs. Much like youtube's algorithm, youtube music algo clearly uses google's machnine learning tech (which they use for ads too) where it tries so hard to predict what you like without real data, instead preferring to use solely other people's browsing habits rather than creating a unique profile for that user without it making too many assumptions right off the bat. Perhaps, I'd describe that algorithm as "HIGHLY reductive" when compared to any other recommendatiion algorithm which seem more geared toward slowly discovering the tastes of its users.
  
  This might be a function of low usage time, the shifts were definitely more pronounced in the beginning, now when I listen to new stuff it only introduces the changes in the appropriate mixes (i.e my mix 1-3 is various hiphop (very well segregated into different styles i must add), 4,5 is indie/rock etc) and the amount is a function of how much of said new stuff i listen. On occasion i will use votes and the dislikes especially affect playlists quickly.
  
  I know the youtube behaviour you refer to and it honestly really makes me hate watching youtube, some days I will have a bad mood and start spamming not interested for a few rows and my feed is good again.
  
  But with YTM it seems to be really nice, whereas with spotify, as OP, I found it quite stale.
- I do the same with YT Music and tolerate the ads. Then, when they hit on a few songs I'm enjoying, I go to Newpipe and play playlistss or extended version of the songs/artists. I also build my own playlists in Newpipe.
  
  If I discover a song I like IRL (say, on the radio or in the background of a video), I add it to both YT Music and Newpipe (e.g., I'm listening to Chaleya from the movie Jawan on Newpipe right now, discovered when I was out and about).
  
  ETA: Newpipe also offers auto-enqueing, which might lead to more discovery.
  
  Im a disgusting premium user, but I might check out newpipe some day.
- Nah it's not just you. Anytime I decide to start a radio while working, half the time I discover absolute bangers that I add to my playlists that balances between matching the vibe and distinct - which isn't as easy as it seems.
This wasn't what you asked for, but I have to add it in here: I switched to YouTube music because I was told the shuffle actually was random there. From my experience the past couple of months it seems to be the case, at the very least it's better. But discovering new music (without putting in much effort) has been harder. Their playlist sorting is non-existent (you're stuck with alphabetic order, no folders). And for some idiotic reason the playlists are shared with YouTube... Everything with it, except for its working shuffle, is horrendous.

How the fuck can Spotify just not have a true fucking random shuffle, it's so annoying! It does everything else fairly well, but I'm not switching back to starting a playlist of 8+ hrs and getting a recognizable pattern depending on what I skip and don't. Or whatever goddamn algorithm they think is better than /dev/urandom.

This gave me hope for a while, but I've now given up: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/4880594/page/103#comments
- If you want to discover new music, use “Start Radio” in lieu of shuffle.
  
  Yes, I'm aware of the radio ability. I'm not using shuffle to discover new music. I'm using it to play random songs from a large playlist I have.
  
  I actually looked for that after you mentioned it on the Spotify app but couldn't find it. Mind saying where it is? Or you're referencing the outside shuffle website.
- Thanks, maybe I should really Check that and Apple music out.. still frustrating, as no option seems to be great. How can that be, after so many years of music services? What are all those developers doing? Are they stuck in scrum meeting timeloops?
  
  https://spotifyshuffler.com/ this is what I use. To shuffle liked songs, use the desktop app, go to liked songs, ctrl-a, right click, add to new playlist. Then that playlist can be shuffled with that tool and you play it in spotify with shuffle turned off (since the song order is already random). I've heard a lot of songs I haven't heard in forever so it's super nice
- I use Virtual Shuffle. It forces Spotify to play truly random tracks. https://shuffle.virock.org
I don't seem to have this problem. I create playlists all the time and shuffle them. I never listen to artist radio and rarely use suggested songs. I find a lot of great music through Spotify and end up finding so many bands that I can't listen to them all.
YouTube Music is what I use. You can start a radio from a song, and it’ll play new music. You can also change the Up Next to different styles if you want familiar or new music.
- I should also add that with YouTube Revanced you can make the app ad free, which is the primary reason I use it over other music streaming
- Man I didn't even know those buttons existed. I thought I always had to go through the music tuner to land in a "discover" playlist tuned to certain artists. This is so much easier, thanks!!
- Also YouTube music will play random tracks uploaded to YouTube that are not licensed on other streaming services
I’ve been using Deezer for a while and I like its variety. They have a “Flow” button where you can let it play random music with favorites mixed in, but you can also select a “mood” (like Focus, Party, Chill, and others) or genres (like R&B, Alternative, Rock, and others). You can also have Flow lean more towards new music or already favorited tracks, but that’s been inconsistent for me in the past where sometimes it’ll only play my favorited songs when I chose to listen to new music or vice versa.

I’ve discovered a lot of new songs and artists by letting Flow do its thing on my drive to and from work. Although, sometimes Flow gets stuck in a certain style of music, like playing back-to-back-to-back Golden Oldies, and it’s frustrating trying to get it to play anything else without manually selecting a genre or mood each time you launch the app. That’s a small gripe because the variety is typically good, with favorites mixed in.
- I love flow but deezer's music variety is just really lacking compared to Spotify or YouTube music for me, unfortunately. I want to love it!
I've been having the same issue. Then I saw a meme implying it's laziness is a caching issue? I'm going to try clearing the cache daily (or more often if I am using it a lot) and seeing if that helps Spotify be more spontaneous
On Android install InnerTune from F-Droid. Allows you to play Youtube Music for free and no ads.
- I was using innertune and will go.back to it when I can convince my wife to stop paying for youtube, but I'm definitely not looking forward to going back to it.
  
  Innertune had issues communicating with Bluetooth and would have loading issues when not on wi-fi.
  
  Also, the app fully breaks and has to be redownloaded if you attempt to use a widget maker for it.
https://www.radio-browser.info/

Many, many streaming radio stations from all over the world (some over-the-air, some internet only). Open database, so there's apps for just about everything.
I think this article can help you https://www.newvisiontheatres.com/spotify-shuffle-plays-same-songs
- Thank you. I didn't know about the Automix setting, and it's enabled by default
I don't suppose you've tried the "DJ" feature? It's usually pretty good for me, but of course your mileage may vary.

I've run into the same problem of the shuffle (and "smart" shuffle) just plays the exact same thing all the time, even in a playlist with thousands of songs. Tried out YouTube music for a while, and it's not much better. So I'll be interested in what others say here.

The best one for me a long time ago was Pandora - for some reason I was under the impression they weren't around anymore, but it looks like they are. But, I don't know if they are still as great as they were back then.
- I was enjoying the DJ feature until it started cramming in top 40 shite into my mix that doesn’t even come close to resembling anything I would ever listen to. And not just one song - usually three or four in a row. I used to love Pandora’s shuffle play feature but it’s no longer available in my country.
- What is the "DJ" feature you're referring to? I don't see that in my app.
  
  Edit: Found it by going to home > music
  
  The obnoxious voice that talks to you every few songs is irritating as fuck, though. I wish it would just silently change genres instead of talking to me it's a person and interrupting my music.
  
  It's an AI feature from them that is supposed to play music based off numerous factors, primarily by what you've been listening to recently. It also tries to mix in music that is related to what you're listening to as well, but haven't heard before. But as Spuddlesv2 mentioned below, it sometimes does play music that is out of that - doesn't happen too often to me but when it does, you can click the DJ icon (the queue button becomes the DJ button) and it'll "change it up". It also uses a dynamically AI generated voice based on their "Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier 'X' Jernigan" and talks to you the way you'd expect a DJ to if they were playing for you personally whenever its moving to a different set of music. I'm not sure what regions its available in, but if its available in your region (and you're a Spotify Premium member) you'll see it as a playlist option, and generally on the homescreen as well.
  
  Here's a link to Spotify's initial newsroom article on it. And over on this article from August at the bottom they list the markets/regions its available in. If you're in both an eligible "market" and you have Premium but still don't see it, perhaps your app might be out of date? Try launching their Web UI as once you have selected it for the first time, it should appear in the recents area.
Pandora sort of has some of that but not so far in depth. You can customize with crowd favorite songs or hits or deep cuts or discovery. Their library is much smaller though, and you’re stuck in a genre based on the station for the most part.
- This is kinda how I operate. Just listen to pandora while I'm doing other tasks and see if new songs grow on me, then every few weeks, I put all my thumbed up songs on spotify playlists.
Don't read unless you remember what burning a CD was or if you want a viable answer

spoiler

A self curated mp3/opus folder with everything sorted into sub-folders, and a playlist folder that you can mess with on the fly

I'm still surprised all my music fits < 1GB by a large margin. Less than 2GB if you include full video game sound tracks.

If I ever want to add anything, I usually use ytp-dlp and download from whatever source (usually youtube). Everything autosyncs to any of my devices with syncthing, which incidentally is also useful for photos.

But tbf this doesn't introduce you to new stuff. That I just do by random chance by watching yt videos and crap. YT Music is just as bad and will loop the same 3 songs if you let it.
- I'm always shocked by how quickly a large music collection seems to get stale for me.
  
  I dislike the way spotify seems to push certain songs, but I love that I hear stuff I've never heard a lot of the time.
- That is not a lot of music. I had my old 80gb iPod filled to the brim with more on my computer back in the day. And those were just ordinary mp3s, not flac or lossless or anything. Nowadays I have like 10000 songs in my spotify library. I moved away from mp3s because curating and downloading that many songs is a pain and quite time consuming compared to just clicking a heart on spotify. Plus spotify is now primarily how I find new music, so ts just way easier than switching to a browser and manually downloading whatever cool song I just found, and having to fix tags or whatever. Especially since I'm usually doing something else while listening. With spotify I can save a song without even unlocking my phone. I also always listen to my whole library on shuffle and haven't had any issues with it.
- That's the setup!
  
  Though I prefer the mix of flac/opus.
  
  There are scripts for yt-dlp out there that allow you to automatically download an entire artists discography (yt), which I recommend if it's legal in your country.
Shuffle no repeat on my 60 gb ipod classic. Also shuffle no repeat using VLC for android on my phone.
Plex without Chromecast.
- I'm enjoying Plexamp
I believe it's Android only, but Innertune quickly became the best way to listen to music. Check it out :)
I just about lost my mind earlier out of frustration for this. I love listening to rap/hip hop and the algorithm makes multiple mixes with the exact same songs every time.

I just typed in "underground" in search and found so much good shit. Not even all rap. There's all sorts of great music I have never heard!
personally I use tidal and am very happy with it
- Same. I use the free version, and I like the personalized discovery playlist that's updated every day
Usually I just use everynoise.com playlists to listen to specific genre
I've been using Deezer and it's just as good as Spotify, you can also import your Spotify favorites list and playlists. Jumped over during the whole Neil Young/ Joe Rogan cancel
TIL I'm the only person who uses Pandora...
- There's two of us. I've had my station since 2008.
  
  Every teacher at the private school I work at has a Pandora account apparently.
If you're not an Apple assimilate, Deezer is good for songs. Sadly, the part of their app that handles favourites really sucks.

They get really annoyed when you keep asking them about it every six months. What is it with us subscribers?!
Turn off Automix in your settings and the Playlist work much better
- Automix doesn't do what you're saying it does, it is only an advanced version of crossfading the end of one song and the start of another.
  
  No, it isn't crossfade. It adds random music to your Playlist. I found this fix on Reddit the other day and it made a big difference, I'm now hearing songs on my liked song Playlist that I've not heard in a long time.
Lemmy radio?
- That's not an alternative to Spotify in any way, and yet your comment gets to show up first.

118 comments