Day 18

The first thing I noticed when logging on today was the introduction of a new subheading. 'Uniquely yours' featured three playlists, each recommending me music that matched the energy to what I most enjoyed and seemed to play more than others. One playlist called 'Daylist' was described as offering me a ' chill and floaty vibe'. Featuring genres like Hip Hop and RnB (It seems like I cant escape this genre) this playlist was providing a sombre vibe and included experimental musicians like Steve Lacy and Tyler The Creator. Overall it was I fun experience and the variety of artists and sounds on this playlist kept it feeling different. However, the experience it was offering was not new, I have heard these artists and genres before. It was advertised as something curated for my tastes though so I can understand why it would so heavily push rap and RnB content. I will say that the Rap artists I was hearing were very different from what I had previously heard. Kanye West, Tyler and Mac Miller are artists who are in a very different area of Rap than the music artists such as Travis Scott make. 

Another playlist 'On repeat' had no new content at all. As it was described as 'Songs I love right now'. 

'Daily drive', another playlist, was interesting. Recommending me music I was familiar with, while interjecting it with news podcasts and clips, even including an introduction. Obviously this was trying to capture the feel of radio. I could understand this being recommended to someone in an older age bracket as this would be familiar to them. However, as a 20 year old student I was not interested in using this playlist, I do not want the flow of the music broken by news clips. 

Along with this I checked out my new daily mix that had changed on Monday. I was pleasantly surprised with the inclusion of some new interesting genres that I really enjoyed. This inclusion of genres such as:

Afro bop / Latin music / Alternative pop 

Made the playlist seem fresh and worked incredibly well with the weather for today. Move by Adam Port seemed to take inspiration from Afro bop, along with Show me Love by WiztheMc. If I could get more songs like these pushed to my account I would be so happy. Like last time it was a breath of fresh air as the content seemed varied and fun, surprising me with each song. Overall I was recommended three songs that could be classified as Afro bop, I hope this means the RA is trying to diversify the content being pushed to my account, I would love to see more of this on other playlists.

However, just like last time. Quite a few of the songs featured were songs that are very popular on social media. While listening I marked down:

  • Anxiety (Sleepy Hallow) 
  • Genesis (Grimes) 
  • Move (Adam Port) 
  • Feel it (d4vd) 
  • Where'd all the time go (Dr. Dog)

As all being songs that are popular on TikTok and Reels. Why does the RA push me incredibly popular content, and never anything niche or 'underground'.

This could be something to research about moving forward. Focussing on the aspects of how hard it is for artists to become noticed on Spotify.

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