Summary
- Spotify users should be able to mark favorite artists and songs, over and above following and liking them.
- Give me control over how often songs can play so I can keep my listening fresh.
- We also need better playlist organization, and the ability to set a Spotify Connect output as the default for a given streaming device.
I practically depend on Spotify. It’s the soundtrack to my writing, first and foremost — without a steady supply of fresh tunes, it would be much harder to focus or enjoy my very long days. It’s also a major motivator during my weightlifting, and a way to relax when I’m on a roadtrip or riding my electric unicycle. It’s so important that I’m more likely to cancel every other streaming service first when I need to save cash.
I acknowledge the problems with the platform, of course. Artists deserve to be paid better, and there are times when the app’s interface and algorithms can be mystifying. I can’t do much about artist royalties short of switching services some day — but I can at least make some suggestions on how the service could function better. I think the company has dropped the ball with its recent Messages feature, which isn’t of much use unless you’ve got friends and family who use Spotify as much as I do.
5
Marking artists, albums, and songs as favorites
The hierarchy of sound
I’ve never quite got the point of the Liked Songs playlist on Spotify. Superficially, it makes sense — it’s supposed to be a way of shuffling music I already know I enjoy. But I like a lot more songs than I love, and once the playlist passes an unspecified number of tracks, it refuses to play regardless. These days, all liking a song does for me is influence other playlists, and remind me that I’ve already heard something before.
That’s one of the reasons I want to be able to mark songs as favorites, not just like them. The list of my all-time favorite songs is much shorter, and it’d be far easier to mark them with a button than manually curate my personal playlist (linked for the curious). It would also better inform Spotify’s recommendation algorithms — for instance letting them know that while I’m really into power metal when I’m lifting, most of my favorite songs are in genres like ambient drone and Hollywood soundtracks. By extension, this could help clean up Release Radar and Discover Weekly, giving more weight to the artists I really care about.
A natural extension of favoriting songs would be the ability to favorite artists and albums. This could offer additional benefits, such as more selective notifications about when new releases are out. I don’t particularly care when Chappell Roan has something new — I care a lot if it’s Aphex Twin or Khruangbin.
4
Control over how frequently songs are allowed to play
All killer, no filler
Apart from the mainstream not reflecting my tastes much, one of the reasons I avoid FM radio stations is how often they repeat the same tracks. It’s rare that I’ll listen to one my favorite songs twice in a day, much less something I’m lukewarm about. Often I’ll go a week or more before playing the same track again — it keeps my music fresher. On top 40 stations, you’re likely to hear just a handful of songs over the span of 24 hours.
Repetition is a problem on Spotify as well, mostly when it comes to Daily Mixes and the DJ mode, but also if you’re trying to squeeze every last drop out of a playlist like Release Radar. A simple Settings drop-down menu would fix this in an instant by giving you a choice of only hearing a song once per day, per week, or per month. Some people might even want the choice of going in the opposite direction, with recent listens getting priority every time a playlist launches. I’d go berserk, personally, but I’m just one customer among millions.
3
Better release filters
Separate all similarly-named artists, too
For the most part, I don’t mind Spotify’s release filters. With a recent artist, it’s not difficult to sort through their catalog, since they’re only going to have a handful of albums and EPs. With bands that have been around for decades, however, it’s all too easy to get lost in the wilderness. Bands like Pink Floyd or The Who have multiple live albums, not to mention remasters and extended versions. A few extra filter buttons would do the trick.
Spotify also really needs to do a better job of separating artists with identical names. Nearly every week, there’s a track on my Release Radar that’s supposedly from an artist I follow, but really turns out to be from someone I’ve never heard of. This muddies discographies even further, and makes me question if Spotify is paying the right artists what they’re owed.
2
Better playlist organization
Lost in a maze of diverse tastes
It’s almost hard to know where to begin with this one. At a minimum, you should be able to pin more than just four playlists to the top of your collection. That’s a small and random number, especially for anyone who likes switching up the mood of their music. If you like creating themed collections on a whim, you may need the app’s search tools just to sort through the confusion. The included views and filters only help so much. I’ve seen the concept of playlist folders being tossed around as a solution, and that’s something I support.
I’ve got a few more gripes, though. The homescreen layout changes so often that it can be an unreliable way to find content, and when I explore categories in the Browse area, the focus seems to be on the most popular or promoted playlists, rather than my preferences. I’m always on the lookout for new music — but it should branch off from my existing listening habits.
1
Setting an external device as the default for playback
And keeping it locked in, too
When I’m listening to music during the workday, I use Spotify Connect to push it to an Echo Studio on my desk, which in turn is paired with an Echo Sub. I could use headphones — but I don’t want anything clamped on my ears for that long, and the Studio sounds better than just about anything else I own, anyway. The point is that when I get to my desk at 7AM, an inevitable part of my routine involves reconnecting Spotify to my Studio, since there’s no way of forcing the app to default to a Connect output. I have to do that again after my lunch break too, since Connect times out after an arbitrary amount of inactivity.
I get it on a technical level — since Spotify only lets you stream on one device at a time, there’s the risk that trying to play music on my iPhone at the gym would accidentally trigger playback in my office. But it shouldn’t be that hard to permanently link a specific audio output to a specific streaming source, only changing that if I delve into settings.
