Monday, July 27, 2015

Spotify's Brand New Feature is the New Best Thing About Spotify


We're definitely Spotify partisans here at If It's Too Loud. I know I was one of the earliest American adopters, and it's easily some of the most valuable $10 in entertainment I spend a month. Spotify, however, has had one critical flaw, and that's in the music discovery area. Even to this day, I still find a lot of my new music the same way I did ten years ago - new release newsletters, music blogs, and poking around Amazon. The Spotify radio thing is nice when you're just looking to cruise around a bit, but part of the appeal of Spotify for me was the control.

Enter Discover Weekly.

Last week, Spotify users got a new playlist, which was basically a 90-120 minute long curated playlist based on past listens. Usually, the whole curation thing is a bit much for me musically, as I tend to be all over the place with my listening and the fact that I'll try anything for the blog doesn't help. But Discover Weekly knows something I don't. I don't know what it is about the metrics they're using, but, more often than not, it's spot on. A lot of new music to me, some old stuff I've been meaning to go back to, and not a ton of misses. It's pretty great.

By my calculations, of the 30 or so songs in last week's playlist, I found 5 or 6 things that I've explored more in depth, and found a few lasting songs. I'm halfway through this week's playlist and, while the hits aren't as apparent, the misses are fewer as well.

Do I wish "Discover" meant "don't post things I've already listened to" in this context? Absolutely. It's probably the only flaw. But as a tool for finding new music (both new to you and new to the world), this is a playlist that's worth your time. If you haven't tried Spotify yet, this might be a reason to give it a shot, and if you have this playlist, put it in your rotation. You might find something great.

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