Discover Weekly
Description
Your weekly mixtape of fresh music. Enjoy new music and deep cuts picked for you. Updates every Monday.
Quickstats
Playlist Length
0 days, 2 hours, 8 minutes
Playlist Followers
0
Source
Playlist Last Updated
March 24, 2025
Mood
Mixed Mood
Track Popularity Rating
Somewhat Popular
Style
Varied
Average Release Decade
2000s
Main Genre:
Mixed
Reddit Info
Reddit Post
I can't speak to how successful they are for each individual listener, but I believe Spotify's goal is to recommend content each user is looking for based on data collected regarding their listening habits. If someone is only listening to pop and doesn't stray much from that, then Spotify will probably only recommend pop. If they seem to be listening to a lot of indie, underground bedroom pop artists, then they will recommend a lot of that. My own [Discovery Weekly](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZEVXcTfLBqoaMFe3?si=NwAwErvbQq6ckyIW-HoFAQ) (Spotify's weekly generated recommendation playlist) for this week is a little all over the place. Actually, I already know about half of what's on there, but I listen to so much stuff that it's probably hard for Spotify to keep up with. Here you'll find folk (Bill Callahan), art rock (Talk Talk), art pop (Bjork), indie (Destroyer, Gardens & Villa), dream pop (Japanese Breakfast), classic rock (The Beach Boys), punk (Mannequin Pussy), IDM (Matmos), chamber pop (Dirty Three), orchestral (Philip Glass). I'm surprised there's no hip-hop because I've been listening to a lot of that lately, but you can't have everything I guess. I already knew these aforementioned artists but there were a few new discoveries for me, like Lightning Bug (shoegaze), CHAMPS (chillwave/indie), Palm (experimental rock), and Omni (garage rock). That's pretty solid as far as I'm concerned, especially since I manually discover and consume a lot of music. My point is that my playlist is unique to my listening habits, and it actually does a pretty good job considering how much I listen to. Lightning Bug has just 6k Monthly Listeners but they seem super solid to me, so it knows I appreciate stuff that's up and coming. I doubt they'd recommend that kind of artist to someone who's listening exclusively to a lot of Drake and Post Malone. However, they might recommend some lesser known artists of a similar R&B pop style, like Frank Ocean. And if that user ends up listening to a lot of Frank Ocean, Spotify's algorithm might go deeper with something like Tyler, The Creator. But if they listen for 2 seconds and stop, then the algorithm will probably know it went too far and to stick to stuff that's more popular. This is a small sample size and kind of a simple example, but that's essentially what the algorithm does as far as I understand it. And, honestly, it's not too far away from the "gateway artists" of the past. A little about me - I'm 34, and while I'm not super old, I'm old enough to vividly remember pre-streaming, pre-Internet piracy music listening. Gateway artists shaped my taste. When I got into Radiohead in the '90s, it opened up so much for me. They were taking influence from Aphex Twin, which exposed me to IDM. They toured with Sigur Rós in 2000. I checked them out as a result, which exposed me to post-rock. And from there I started to get into more and more diverse music as I realized a huge world of music out there. But this all depended on me *wanting more*. I could have easily shrugged off Aphex Twin as too different from Radiohead and not even gave him a shot. I would have just stayed in the bubble of the artists that I liked and never sought out more. This is true back then as much as it is today. With Spotify or any other music recommendation app/site, a user has to be curious. They have to have an urge to explore and discover more. If not, they won't seek it out. And that's OK. Some people just want to listen to what they like, and leave it at that. In this case, Spotify's algorithm correctly gives them the content they want - something not diverse and closely within their wheelhouse. I agree with others that--for those of us who love the chase of discovering new music all the time--Spotify is a great tool. Their Discovery Weekly is solid, but I also just spend a lot of time looking through the "Similar Artists" tab. I branch out from one to another, checking out all that's available. I could spend hours doing that and walk out with a dozen new artists I think are pretty good. It was so much harder to do this back in the day of physical music listening. I'd have to spend so much money to listen to as much music as I do now. And I'd never hear all these rare artists whose albums wouldn't even be big enough to be in a record store. For music and music discovery, today is the best it's ever been, and I believe it will only get better.
Upvotes
5
Subreddit
LetsTalkMusic
Reddit Username
aleatoric
Reddit Timestamp
10/22/19 11:26
Reddit URL
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