An interesting new feature from Spotify. Finally get rid of unwanted songs

During the SXSW conference, Gustav Söderström, co-CEO of Spotify, announced the Taste Profile feature. This is a new tool that, for the first time in the history of the platform, will allow users to look “under the hood” and see what the algorithm really thinks about them. And, as it turns out, he thinks various things – not always flattering.

Taste Profile is an algorithmic model of your musical tastes, based on which Spotify generates personalized playlists such as Discover Weekly, “Made For You” recommendations or the annual Wrapped summary. The problem is that for years users have had no meaningful insight into what goes into this profile – much less the ability to edit it.

And here the stairs began. Spotify has long allowed you to exclude a specific song or playlist from your profile, but it was a very small weapon. Nobody has time to scrupulously remove items from the list after each “accidental” session of listening to lullabies. Effect? Over time, the algorithm simultaneously became a composite of a) what you really are, b) what you are not, and c) what your seven-year-old child is.

The new feature aims to change this. After entering the profile, the user will see a full list of their listening habits in one place – music, podcasts, audiobooks. More importantly, he will be able to edit this profile using natural language. Not by tediously clicking on individual songs, but by typing something like “too much quiet stuff, I want more energetic music” or “I’m training for a marathon, I need something for running.” Spotify declares that the system also understands more complex commands – for example “music for commuting to work” or “something to focus on”.

After making changes, the application’s home page should immediately reflect the new preferences – without waiting weeks for the algorithm to “guess” itself.

It’s also impossible not to mention Wrapped. For a huge number of users, the annual summary turned into a guilty plea – a playlist full of songs they had never consciously selected, dominated by what was playing on CarPlay for the kids or on the JBL speaker in the living room. Spotify has been taking a beating for this problem for years. Taste Profile is supposed to be the answer – albeit a little late.

The feature will launch in beta for Premium users in New Zealand in the coming weeks before rolling out to other markets. This is Spotify’s favorite testing ground – Prompted Playlist was recently tested, a tool for generating playlists based on specific queries (e.g. “only songs from TV series X”), which was available to users in the US and Canada after a month.