That was an Anchorman reference, not an Avengers one, in case you're bothered.
People may remember that when I got my Sonos set-up I resisted the temptation to get Spotify, instead just using my own store of music.
But I got a free 6 months Spotify membership recently, and seemed a shame not to use it. I have to admit I am fairly converted. The advantages of not having to have the computer on, and voice controls working properly I didn't think would make much of a difference - but it seems they have.
Anyway, very new to the use of the software. What tips would you give?
For a start, I have worked out how to build a 'radio station' from a single song. But I'm sure I read that these would be neverending - continually adding more songs as it got near to the end of the playlist. This doesn't seem to be the case for me. The playlists tend to only be 3-4 hours long and then cycle round to the start again. What am I doing wrong?
I have similar experience with song radio (artist radio and album radio are similar in my experience).
You can set the radio to repeat (and shuffle so that the order changes) and it will continue going forever though - but after the third time you'll know it's time to change to another song...
I will routinely start one of the pre-fab release radar playlists (those have been getting way better than when I first started. I think they have updated the software and as my use of Spotify continues, they gather more data to base their choices on), when a song appeals to me, I'll switch to that song's radio.
I see that you can download tracks. But I'm assuming that you can only then play them through Spotify - so I wouldn't be able to get them on to my car stereo.
2 ways,
if you have an iphone, upgrade to a car stereo supporting apple car play.
Or stream the music over bluetooth with any modern phone. (Radio needs to support that)
Is there a way to save your position on a playlist so that you can return to it despite having gone off listening to something else in the meantime?
I have been rather enjoying for the last few weeks working my way through a massive "Film themes" playlist I found, but I don't want to miss checking my discover list each week, and I sometimes want to listen to something I've picked myself.
Every time I do that and return to the films, I have to remember what I last listened to on it. Unless there's a save functionality I've missed?
I don't think you can bookmark your position in a playlist. It would be useful though.
The playlist radio feature I find particularly mindless. It seems to base the whole radio selection on just one artist it picks randomly from the playlist which it then goes on to feature strongly. Pandora were doing this sort of thing much better 15 years ago.
What's the playlist radio feature? I would have thought it was where you pick a cong to build a playlist from, but the context of what you go on to say suggests that isn't what you're talking about.
It seems that Spotify uses exactly the same mechanism to generate the radio in both cases and that's why they just pick one song/artist in the playlist. It does annoy me.
I use spotify a lot and am generally very pleased with it...
..but the functionality and ease of use could be better, as in the examples mentioned above, and also the changes in the way the system operates across platforms. I use spotify on my iPhone, on my Mac and on Sonos, and all three seem to behave differently, in particular the search function seems best (easiest to navigate and most comprehensive) on the Mac version. They also seem to vary in what happens after an album/song/playlist you've selected has played to the end - the phone version goes into radio based on selection, in Sonos it just stops.
Not major gripes, but consistent behaviour across platforms would be good.
I'm the same, except Windows PC instead of Mac, and my findings are identical.
The phone app can also sometimes be a bit spotty about identifying the Sonos speakers as available outputs, so I occasionally have to juggle between the Spotify and the Sonos app to get things working properly.
A lot of these do not appear to be the originals, a lot done by the "Daniel Caine Orchestra". But they've got amazingly close to the originals. Just listen to that A-Team one.
I'm loving the playlist put together by the Red Rooster Festival people, it's called Blue Rooster and also Caffe Nero Afternoon Music. For any blues fans out there From The Delta To Chicago is worth a listen too.
I have noticed that there no longer seems to be a way of disliking a tune on Spotify.
I do make use of (in particular) the "release radar" weekly playlist, but I have very eclectic taste and some of the stuff its algorithms seem to "think" I will like couldn't be further off the mark.
I'm sure there used to be a "thumbs up" and a "thumbs down" symbol you could click on. If you clicked "thumbs down" on a tune it would ask "do you just hate this track or do you detest this artist per se" (I'm paraphrasing here, obvs). If you clicked dislike for the artist per se a note would pop up promising to never play you another tune by the culprit.
Unless I'm missing something, these thumb symbols have vanished to be replaced by a heart symbol - all you seem to be able to do now is press the "heart" symbol or not.
The lack of this feature has made Spotify a much more painful experience for me. I want to be able to register an active DISLIKE FFS!
Typing this makes me realise this could have been in the Rant room!
I've pretty much given up using "My Discover Weekly". It has two problems:
1) If you don't get to the end of it by the end of the week, it leaves you feeling anxious that there might have been something awesome that you've missed your chance on.
2) It seems to have a lot of cover versions in it. This is odd, because there's nothing in my liked songs to suggest that would be welcomed. With some notable exceptions I hate cover versions.
So I generally, when I want something random, stick on a "daily mix" instead. Much higher number of songs that it knows I like, but it still puts the odd few in there which are not on my liked list so I might find something new.
Regarding your question Chris:
You can't do it at the song level any more I think. But if you go to an artist and click the menu option against them, you can choose to never play songs from that artist.
One tip people might not know about:
You can buy a 12 month Spotify gift card for £99 and use it yourself, which saves you £20 over the year. They're available on Amazon or Paypal.
I still have the option to dislike the song or artist on Spotify for Windows and Linux (the no-entry type icon to the right of the song). Doesn't always work though. What platform are you using CH?
I see from your screenshot the "-" option which I suppose counts as a dislike relative to the heart ("like") option.
Will check if this is something I've overlooked (yes, I am often quite stupid),
I feel like it's disappeared and re-appeared a few times during my time with Spotify. I currently do not see it on Spotify for windows, or on my iPhone app.
The "-" option hides tunes, but is not a dislike button as such.
The dislike button is (was) an important tool to tailor the service to each individual consumer. Its removal would suggest to me financial motives at corporate level..?
(yes, I'm too stupid to distil further than that)
When I click on the ( - ) icon I get the options "I don't like this song" and "I don't like <artist>". If I do this then the song (usually) stops playing and is greyed out. I'm pretty certain I sometimes get the artist again.
This happens in the Mac version too, but on the iPhone you click on the 3 dots next to the song which brings up a list of actions including "hide song".
Clicking on "hide song " in IOS just gives "song hidden" without the option to dislike the artist.
Strange. Did you install from a download or from the Microsoft Store?
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