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Ask HN: Why is Spotify playing so many covers?

9 points by mrobins ↗ HN
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.

14 comments

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PaulHoule
Personally I go looking for covers on YouTube all the time. I think how Yello Magic Orchestra’s cover of ‘Fire Cracker’ is much better than the original or how Richard Cheese got the emotional tone of ‘Fight for your right’ correct.

I remember finding out that Freebase knew about 200 tracks titled ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and these were copies from greatest hits collections, live versions, remasters, covers, etc. Finding the ‘right’ track in this case is challenging if only because of the large number of candidate tracks.

altdataseller
Same here. Whenever i hear a new favorite song, i always go search for cover versions, especially those done in another language. Like you said, some of them are done even better than the original.
recursivenature
The Verge had a write up on this years ago that answers your question [1].

I only remember it because I had the same reaction you did!

The short version is - different royalty rates + algorithm preferences.

While it may seem immaterial to each user, the ability to lower the royalty cost on billions of plays is likely material to Spotify's margins, which are already caught between the cost of the platform and the strongly defended royalty structure on most music.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/8/9260675/spotify-cover-song...

HardwareLust
Just curious, but if you "jumped ship", where would you go? I'm also about at the end of my rope with Spotify and the others I've tried, like to the point where I'm about ready to switch back to ripping CD's and putting tracks on my phone or an Ipod but I would sorely miss the recommendation algorithm, even as bad as it is.

What other streaming service is even comparable?

_mhr_
I've found YouTube Music to be quite good!
shaftway
I've found the exact opposite.

- The "radio" feature sucks

I used the radio station feature of Play Music heavily to find new stuff. If I asked for a radio station of The Cure I'd get a nice variety of 80's music matching the genre with The Cure about every 6-8 songs. When I asked YouTube Music for a radio station based on The Cure I get 17 out of the first 30 tracks were The Cure.

- It has a habit of losing tracks

I think what happens is that your band releases a remastered version of a song that's almost identical. The old song is removed from the catalog and the new song is added, but playlists only get the removal, so the track just disappears.

- It's unclear what I can play where

There are a variety of tracks that have different usage abilities. Some songs can be played locally, but can't be cast. So when I create a playlist and then cast it to my Google Home, some tracks just won't play.

So why do I still have it? It's cheap for a family (since all members get it) and it's bundled with YouTube Premium, so I don't get YouTube ads. I've forgotten that ads even run on YouTube, to the point that it's a jarring experience when I see them on somebody else's screen.

the_only_law
> It's unclear what I can play where

This seems to be a feature of YouTube in general. I can’t count how many times I’ve been “unable to view a YouTube kids video in MiniPlayer” for a video that’s definitely not for kids.

collegeburner
yt music radio also seems to "converge" toward the top 100 songs. like recommending jack harlow on an art blakely radio station or doja cat on the beach boys is goofy ash and i've had both happen.
rozenmd
I jumped ship to an ipod and ripping my CDs - big box electronics shops dump albums for 5 euros each, decent stuff to be found.

Would recommend tbh.

mrobins
I don’t know but I’m interested in trying Qobuz. They have supposedly personalized recommendations but I don’t know if they’re any good or algorithmic vs editorial. That said one of the main appeals is they’re just focused on music rather than all audio or being one part of a giant bundle.
novafacing
I have some suggestions. Now, I'm a bit of an audiophile and also I'm willing to deal with amounts of jank that others find intolerable. YMMV.

I use Deezer as a music service. It's $15/month for HiFi comparable to Tidal's HiFi subscription. Tidal, however, has DRM that does not allow it to play on Linux as a webapp nor does it have a Linux desktop app. Tidal's out. Now, here's the interesting thing: I never use Deezer to listen to music.

- I use Deemix Server (https://download.deemix.app/server/) to serve a webapp on my media server. This plugs into my Deezer account and I use it to download FLAC quality audio into my media server.

- My media server, of course, runs Plex (https://www.plex.tv/). I have a lifetime pass and it's totally worth it, but keep in mind it is required for this setup.

- Locally on my (phone|laptop|desktop) I use Plexamp (https://plexamp.com/). Plexamp is a beautiful high quality player with no bells and whistles but does one thing really well and that's play my music.

- Since this is all offline playing downloaded files, I use last.fm which plugs into both Deezer (https://blog.last.fm/2012/01/06/scrobble-with-deezer) and Plex (https://www.plex.tv/blog/plex-media-server-v0-9-12-5-a-tasty...) for recommendations, tracking listening, and connecting with friends. Honorable mention to MusicButler (musicbutler.io) which used to be free and simply notifies you of new releases for a "Release Radar" experience.

All this combines to be a less seamless but far better experience than using spotify.

dangravell
Disclaimer: this is about the commercial service I operate.

I run a service, https://asti.ga , which is a "third way" - a streaming service for your own music. You stream your music from cloud storage services, of which you can pick your own (the biggies are supported - Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc etc). Let me know if you have any questions or feedback!

speedgoose
I have a conspiracy theory that expensive songs have very negative weights in their recommendations engines.

But people still like popular songs so we eventually ended up with all these covers being listened and recommended again and again.

o0-0o
This isn't a conspiracy at all. Back around 2000 old songs became more expensive in general, and a lot of the oldies stations dried up. The original cuts are still harder to hear in the version you remember hearing on the radio. Same with all digital stuff. If you understand how royalties and payments work in the music industry, this isn't a surprise.