Over the past few months I’ve noticed Spotify’s algorithm playing more and more covers, especially on my Discover Weekly playlist. I first noticed it with a bad “Harvest Moon” version the week after Neil Young pulled his catalog. Since then the volume of covers has increased substantially, a mix of straight covers and instrumental or jazz renditions of indie/rock songs. A couple weeks ago it got to the point where my Discover Weekly played 6 covers in a row.
Is this intentional on Spotify’s part? Do these covers have cheaper royalties than the originals? Have I somehow trained their model to think this is what I love? Does not skipping songs tagged as covers quickly enough train the model to think I like them? Maybe because I listen to lots of rock, jazz and classical the algorithm thinks a jazz interpretation of “Iron Man” is what I love? It feels like if you “over trained” and ruined a good Pandora station way back when.
Spotify used to be an excellent source for music discovery but these covers are straight up aggravating. Between this and their hostile UI changes pushing podcasts (I will never use Spotify for podcasts) I’m becoming motivated to jump ship.
Is this intentional on Spotify’s part? Do these covers have cheaper royalties than the originals? Have I somehow trained their model to think this is what I love? Does not skipping songs tagged as covers quickly enough train the model to think I like them? Maybe because I listen to lots of rock, jazz and classical the algorithm thinks a jazz interpretation of “Iron Man” is what I love? It feels like if you “over trained” and ruined a good Pandora station way back when.
Spotify used to be an excellent source for music discovery but these covers are straight up aggravating. Between this and their hostile UI changes pushing podcasts (I will never use Spotify for podcasts) I’m becoming motivated to jump ship.