It’s hard to develop a music streaming platform that works for everyone, and the same applies to Spotify. Some people love it, while others prefer YouTube Music, or others listen to music and podcasts.
Users have different reasons to prefer a specific platform over the other, but one of the most common causes is the effectiveness of the algorithm.
However, the algorithm is often held responsible for everything wrong, when it’s actually something to do with how it plays songs.
The algorithm wouldn’t magically play an unfamiliar song that would become your favorite one. You’ll need to train it in such a way, and a few missteps can break things, turning your music listening experience into a nightmare.
This is true for any music streaming platform, including Spotify. However, what makes Spotify stand out is its unique ability to allow users to fix the algorithm quickly.
You can fix your Spotify algorithm in under five minutes. Here is how.
I’ve been on Spotify since day one and these are the 10 tricks worth knowing
You’re not using Spotify to its full potential
Signal Spotify that you want specific songs to have less impact on recommendations
The algorithm learns from your interaction with the app and shows you more of what you engaged with the most. It happens behind the scenes and takes a lot of cues from the users’ interactions.
However, you don’t have to worry about all of that on Spotify, as you can explicitly show your disapproval of certain songs that you don’t like or want to have less impact on your recommendations.
The first step would be to find what music you have listened to in recent times, and then identify the tracks that no longer match your taste. Tap the profile icon and select Recents to do this.
It’ll show your listening history from the past three months, so a couple of minutes is usually enough to skim through the list and identify what no longer works for you.
However, don’t make the mistake of going through the list twice.
If you spot a track that you don’t want to influence your recommendations, exclude it from the taste profile before going any deeper into the history. Exclude tracks one by one as you scroll through the list.
To do this, tap the three-dot view option and select the Exclude tracks from your taste profile option.
The next step will be to play or search for artists and genres of playlists you want to listen to more of.
The ability to exclude tracks from the taste profile lets the bad stuff go away, while deliberately playing and searching for things you like makes way for better recommendations.
This can all be done in well under five minutes. You’ll likely still have a couple of minutes left, which you can use to reinforce your habits, which can lead to sound recommendations.
Don’t let your music identity slip
Spotify can still make errors in correctly judging your taste, even after you exclude something from the taste profile. If you don’t like something, skip the song quickly, preferably under 30 seconds.
It sends a strong signal to Spotify that you don’t like the song, and it’s quicker than telling Spotify to exclude tracks from your taste profile.
After skipping the song in a recommendation feed, you can always go back and exclude it from your taste profile. It’ll be even more effective than skipping alone.
You also need to add your favorite tracks to Liked Songs, replay songs, artists, and play songs fully. If you have your own playlists on Spotify, add your favorite songs to the one where they would fit in perfectly.
These are all positive signals, and Spotify learns from them to recommend better songs.
You can also use the remaining time to follow your favorite artists. This action tells Spotify to recommend more songs from that artist.
Similarly, try to recall the name of the artist that you no longer enjoy listening to. Unfollow those that you don’t enjoy anymore.
All these won’t take more than five minutes, but you might need to perform these steps once in a while, depending on how fast your taste changes.
My taste in music hasn’t changed much in the last five years, so I don’t need to set aside five minutes for this every month or year.
Instead, I do a clean-up every time I come from a family gathering or a meetup with friends, or places where I’m the music host. This is when my listening history fills up with songs that I won’t listen to on my own.
Stop bad signals before they reach your Spotify algorithm
I have managed to keep my Spotify recommendations clean while still listening to all my guilty pleasure songs.
I also let my trusted gym partner use my phone and play their favorite songs while my Spotify is connected to the gym’s Bluetooth speaker.
I wouldn’t have dared to do anything like this had Spotify not offered Private Session, a feature that allows users to listen to music and podcasts anonymously.
Whatever you listen to in a Private Session, it won’t affect your algorithm. This way, I prevent bad signals from reaching the algorithm. It doesn’t fix your Spotify algorithm, but it prevents it from getting worse.
