Do you have trouble discovering new music to enjoy? Even in the age of music streaming, where we have millions of songs within a few clicks, it’s easy to fall into a rut of listening to the same old music all of the time.
If you’re a Spotify user, you’ll be happy to know that the streaming service has plenty of features to help you find new music. And in most cases, these features let you find similar songs to what you already listen to.
So, here’s how to find more music you’ll love on Spotify…
1. Create a Spotify Playlist With Similar Songs
One little Spotify tip that’s easy to miss is hiding right in your playlists sidebar: the ability to create a similar playlist to anything you already have.
Right-click on any playlist, and you’ll see several options that you probably know about. These include making a playlist public so others can enjoy it, downloading it for offline listening, and sharing it. There’s also a Create Similar Playlist option.
This is a handy tool that instantly generates a playlist of similar but different tracks for you. Try creating a playlist full of new genres that you want to explore, then use this option to find more artists who perform that type of music. If your favorite playlist is getting a bit stale, try generating a fresh one.
This feature is great because it uses the playlists you’ve already created as a base for recommending new music. It doesn’t affect your existing playlist, and you can even create a similar playlist from a similar playlist to dive even deeper. A kind of playlist inception.
2. Add Recommended Tracks to Playlists
Do you have an idea for a cool playlist, but don’t have enough tracks to fill it out? Spotify can help.
Create a new playlist by clicking New Playlist on the left-hand side of the screen, which appears above the Now Playing album art section. Give it a name, add a description, and add some custom cover art if you like. Then start adding tracks to it by dragging and dropping or right-clicking and choosing Add to Playlist.
Once you have a few tracks in a playlist, click on it in the left sidebar. Scroll down to the bottom and you’ll see Recommended Songs—click the dropdown arrow next to this if you don’t see new tracks below it.
You can play these to preview them, then press Add to send the ones you like up into your playlist. Hit the Refresh button to get a different selection.
This feature helps you expand a playlist, even if you can’t think of the right music to complete it. Not only does it let you find similar songs that might become new favorites, but it makes it easy to build better playlists.
3. Let Autoplay Keep the Music Rolling
Another Spotify feature that it’s easy to forget about is Autoplay. This lets you keep the tunes going when your current song, album, or playlist ends. With Autoplay, Spotify will continue playing music similar to what you were just listening to.
Essentially, it automatically starts a Radio station based on your previous listening session. This doesn’t stop until you tell Spotify to play something else.
To make sure you have this feature turned on, head to Edit > Preferences on the desktop version of Spotify. Scroll down to Autoplay and make sure Autoplay similar songs when your music ends is turned on.
On mobile, tap the Home tab, follow by the gear in the upper-right corner. Open the Playback section, then enable the Autoplay slider.
For Autoplay to work, make sure you don’t have Repeat mode on, then let an album or playlist run to the end. Spotify will play more music similar to the songs you have just heard.
4. See What Your Friends Are Playing
Although you can easily turn off the sharing features, Spotify is still a social music service. It lets you share playlists with the world and embed music pretty much anywhere. But don’t forget about the Friend Activity panel hidden on the right-hand side of Spotify’s window.
You may have hidden this a long time ago, so go to View > Friend Activity to show it again. Note that the panel won’t show up if your Spotify window isn’t wide enough.
This displays what your friends (if you have logged into Spotify with Facebook) or followed users (even without Facebook) are listening to. Click Find Friends at the bottom of this window to follow more people.
While you probably don’t have identical tastes in music to your friends, just seeing what they like can lead to new discoveries. Pay special attention to the bottom field of each friend’s entry; it shows what album or playlist their current track comes from. You can hop onto these to have a listen yourself.
5. Check Out the Discover Tab
Don’t forget that Spotify has an entire tab called Discover that’s devoted to helping you find new music. To access it, click the Browse entry on the left sidebar, then find Discover along the top row.
In the Discover section, you’ll find the excellent Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists. Updated automatically every week (on Mondays and Fridays, respectively), these bring you fresh music and new releases that Spotify thinks you’ll enjoy. Save any that you like, because they’ll disappear when next week’s update arrives.
Below this, you’ll see all kinds of recommendations for music you’ll love. These include new releases by bands you’ve shown an interest in, albums you’ll like based on artists you listen to often, and more. Spotify is excellent at learning what you like, so if you’ve used it for a while, these recommendations should be eerily accurate.
6. Utilize Spotify Radio
While Spotify’s focus is on-demand music you can enjoy anywhere, it also has a Radio feature. We touched on this earlier in the Autoplay section, but you don’t have to wait for your current music to end to try Radio.
To start a radio station based on an artist, click the three-dot menu button on an artist or album page and choose Go to Artist Radio. You can launch a radio station based on a song instead by right-clicking it and choosing Go to Song Radio. Either method works for starting Radio based on a playlist, too.
This will create an endless stream of music (in a new playlist) related to your original selection. If you can’t think of anything to start Radio from, use the Radio tab on the left sidebar to see recommended stations.
7. Get Help From Third-Party Tools
If Spotify’s extensive music discovery tools aren’t enough for you, some external services might help.
MagicPlaylist is a simple web app that generates a playlist full of related songs after you give it one song title. You can choose whether you want the playlist to be one, two, or three hours long. Give it a title and choose whether you want it to be public or private, then click Save on Spotify to connect your Spotify account and copy the playlist to it.
If you don’t care for the music in the playlist, give Spotalike a try. It’s a similar service, as it generates a new playlist based on one track. However, since it’s powered by Last.fm, you may find its recommendations more relevant.
If you like this idea, check out our list of Spotify sites to discover new music and playlists.
Spotify Boasts More Music That You’ll Love
Now, you should have many reliable ways to discover new music on Spotify, most of which don’t even require leaving the app.
Whether you append your playlists with fresh music, discover a new favorite by accident, or get inspiration from your friends, you won’t have to look far for new music you’ll love.
And if you decide that the streaming service isn’t for you, find out how Spotify compares to YouTube Music.
Read the full article: How to Find More Music You’ll Love on Spotify: 7 Methods to Try
from MakeUseOf https://ift.tt/30xgEfK
via IFTTT
0 comments: