If you didn’t make time to read The Sunday Times’ Culture magazine last weekend, it wrote an interesting how to guide on Spotify, the online music streaming service. And what a guide it was!
Following an explanation on how to download the software from the Apple’s app store and the Google Play Store to devices, the UK paper offered tips to make the most out of your Spotify playlist.
It’s all about discovering new music and there are three ways to do this, according to the paper. The first is using the Browse feature, which allows users to find the latest songs, bespoke collections and releases that are popular with other users.
What you also need is recommendations and Spotify’s software enables this by analysing songs you have listened to in the past and making guesses on what other tracks you might like to listen to in the future.
Once you find the Discover button on your smart device or computer, you’ll get a list of tracks and playlists similar to what you’ve listened to in the past.
The radio function plays tracks based on artists or genres of music you like, allowing users to create a station based on these preferences. If you don’t like the station, you can click a thumbs-down next to each song that plays and vice versa.
Now if you want to go that step further and get your playlist out in the open, the key is to pick a playlist by someone whose taste you trust and similar to your own.
The article looked to Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and Facebook’s first president who has the most influential playlist with 900,000 followers, as a case in point. He has rules for his playlist, for example, "songs must be less than six months old and indi, have a chatty hook that comes within the first seven seconds, and not be disposable pop". He also recommends songs that take you on a journey and updating the list when songs become overexposed.
