Why the Radio Is Still Better Than the Spotify Algorithm
Sometimes you need actual human curation instead of just more of what you already like.
I still listen to radio at my desk, like an absolute freak. Yes, I know that streaming apps exist—I also use Spotify every day. Spotify is great for listening to entire albums, and even the occasional playlist. Where the service loses me, though, is when it tries to use my listening history to recommend more music. And the worst version of this is Spotify's auto-play feature, which automatically plays something else at the end of whatever you're listening to.
This might be my fault. Plenty of people seem to like the algorithm just fine. Maybe I'm using Spotify "wrong," or at least differently than the average user. But it's clear, every time I finish listening to an entire album, that Spotify's algorithms suddenly decide I'm obsessed with that artist and what to hear them all the time—even if I only listen to the album once. In other words, more often than not, it sends me right down a rabbit hole.
Rabbit holes can be fun, but I don't want to be in one of them all the time. Sometimes when I listen to music, I prefer to hear a blend of what's trending in the culture right alongside a bunch of old songs I already love and haven't heard in ages. Sometimes I want to hear weird music I'd never seek out and that the algorithm would never recommend to me. And yes, I like it when my music is occasionally interrupted by an actual human being who tells a corny joke or comments on the news.
Sometimes, it turns out, I want the radio.
The algorithm is a trap
The theory behind using an algorithm to recommend music makes sense in the abstract: You like Artist A,Artist B is similar, ergo you might also like Artist B. In practice, though, the result is that I end up listening to a lot of music in the same key, so to speak.
Last fall I listened to Boygenius' The Record at least once a day. Spotify seized on this and recommended me similar low key indie rock, which I passively listened to. Evidently the algorithm concluded that I'm a female 20-something art school dropout. If that sounds specific, well, it is:
Some people—those obsessed with things like "facts" and "reality"—would classify me a man in his late 30s. Even so, I'm not necessarily objecting. Some small part of me clearly vibes with sad girl indie. But sad girl indie was all Spotify recommended me for months, and it made up the bulk of what it autoplayed on my behalf. Any playlist that says it's "Created for" me tends to have the same three songs or so at the top, and the DJ mode tends to dip into to the same well.
But I'm more than just a sad girl. I'm someone with diverse musical taste, and I want to keep exploring and expanding my horizons. I'm not listening to music because I want to be lulled into complacency by always listening to the same things. I want to be surprised, to be exposed to weird and wonderful things that I'd never have gone looking for—and an algorithm trained on my listening habits probably won't push to me in that way.
For me, the best way to find that is with the help of other humans. A good disk jockey can serve me up a much more eclectic—perhaps even challenging—playlist, instead of several hours of the same vibes.
How to find a radio station for you
Now, the simplest thing you could do to find a radio station is to dig out an honest-to-god physical FM radio and see what's on the dial. Now, depending on where you live, the outlets not monopolized by the same corporate owners could be limited, and I willing to bet most people don't have an FM radio handy in their house, so you can start online if that's easier. I've spent some time seeking out online radio stations I like, with human curated playlists. I even wrote a guide for finding them a few years ago.
I like to recommend finding a few stations that are based locally—ideally community-run ones that don't interrupt the music with ads. Where I live in Oregon, I enjoy the Portland Radio Project and Shady Pines Radio, both of which are pretty eclectic, but there are great stations still broadcasting all over the world. NTS Radio is intentionally all over the map, and Radio Paradise goes some unusual places will still playing some songs you're probably familiar with. There's also SomaFM, which offers a bunch of different stations under one umbrella.
And those are just the stations I personally like. Part of the fun of escaping the algorithm is the thrill of finding your own favorites, tuning in, and discovering what you do and don't enjoy.
The best apps for online radio
There's nothing wrong with listening to radio in your web browser—in some ways, it's easier. But I prefer having an app for the job, if only because it makes it easier to pause or change the station on the fly.
I use Eter for listening to the radio on my Mac. You can use it to search for specific stations or discover new ones. You can also add stations yourself, assuming they don't come up in search, and there's a matching iPhone app that will syncs your preferred station list.
On Android, I like RadioDroid. It has a comprehensive database of stations and a decent user interface. It's also open source and free of ads.
If Spotify is smart, it will add radio stations
Spotify has been on a mission to dominate audio, as a category. That's why it spent so much money trying to take over podcasting, and it's why it's currently pushing audiobooks so hard. Another obvious way to take greater control of my audio life would be simulcasting actual radio stations.
Apple Music works really well for radio, especially if you have a subscription. There are even a few Apple-exclusive runs programmed by actual DJs, and you can also search for pretty much any station on earth and find it there, thanks to a TuneIn integration. I have no idea why Spotify hasn't copied this feature. Until then, I'll be avoiding the algorithm by heading elsewhere.