Some time ago, I built and showed HN[1] brew.fm, a tool helping artists remix each other’s work. It had been quiet, and I remembered how fun it was to work with the Spotify API, so I repurposed the tool to solve one of my own problems: missing out on new music of my favorite artists. I shared it on Reddit yesterday[2], and this seems to hit a spot for more people: so far 833 people connected their Spotify account.
How it works: The tool simply shows your top 50 artists on Spotify over short, medium and long term, and checks those artists for new music. If you select a playlist, every artist involved in the tracks will be checked for new music, after which new releases are shown sorted by most recent release date.
Here’s a video of me demoing the tool: https://youtu.be/Nh2Ognb4PgU. Enjoy! Very open to feedback.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29952633
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/wsq8rl/let_a_1000_...
I understand that via the API you can't get access to their whole graph and recommendation engine.
Currently when I like something I go to "artist radio" or "song radio" to find new things.
For a better discovery tool you need to use data from outside of Spotify
However. If the goal of this is to not miss out on artists you already know... Then it's simply a competitor to the "release radar" weekly playlist.
I've looked at the API reference [1] and couldnt find any of the stuff you mentioned, am I looking in the wrong place?
[1](https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc...)
Or finding similar bands from a similar time and area
I hope it’s ok to do a bit of shameless self promotion here on HN. I shared my open source Reddit Playlists project here as a Show HN post recently which aims to do exactly what you suggest by using Reddit posts.
The idea is pretty straightforward - Each week ~100 music subreddits are scraped for the most popular posts in the last week, and then a Spotify playlist is compiled with the tracks have been posted. Each playlist updates automatically every Sunday.
The main project page with a link to all the playlists is here: https://jameslawlor.github.io/reddit-playlists/
Code on Github: https://github.com/jameslawlor/reddit-playlists
I did find the service very useful for the 3ish years I used it, but I didn't jump to premium, and kinda stopped using it.
Curiously, what makes this service different and how will you ensure "100% perpetually free with no strings attached"?
And to /u/bartproost - good luck with your new adventure! Your note on monetization reminds of myself 4 years ago when I'd just started with MusicButler. Luckily I didn't make any promises about it being free forever because, well, hobby projects have associated costs too.
Here's a demo of how I use Brew.fm to keep my 2 most used playlists up to date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh2Ognb4PgU.
I have no plans to monetize the tool. I'm scratching my own itch here and am very much at the mercy of Spotify. I'm hoping to keep this one a hobby project.
If it were for Soundcloud, but ultimately I'd like to discover new tracks and songs on my own. Where's the fun in machine doing it for you?
I would never be able to find that stuff on my own.
This is actually what prompted me to create https://digs.fm - I wanted an easy way to see what music my friends digged lately (something like Goodreads, but for music).
If you're looking at expanding the feature set there's something I've been thinking of for a while, but haven't gotten around to it yet, and this looks miles better than anything I would cobble together. I really miss Apple's smart playlists[0] from when I used iTunes for my iPod. It was really easy to quickly make a playlist with songs with 4+ stars that I hadn't listen to for at least a month, and stuff like that. I think something similar should be possible to do with the Spotify API, with either manual updating on my computer, or automatic via a batch job on some server. Maybe even expand it to similar artists or something, to take advantage of having access to almost all music, not just my own collection. Imagine being able to create a playlist with 100 random trance songs from 1995-2005 with at least 50 000 plays, and having it updated daily, or the 50 most listened to pop songs right now released in 1980-2020.
The similar artist thing would probably be a good addition to this new releases feature to, to help you expand your horizon...
[0] https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/create-delete-and-use...
I've been disenfranchised with algorithmic recommendations. It's lead me down the RNG path of music discovery.
I built Audile to simulate the old feeling of walking into someone's basement, thumbing through their vinyl collection, and finding all sorts of weird and interesting music: http://audile.app/
Is audile basically randomizing Deezer's entire library?
Don't want to get too negative, but I don't think this can seriously compete with spotify's built-in song discovery. They have tons of advantages in that respect, some moats (can only play 30s with API, integrated playlists), and some by virtue of scale (can compare with other people's listens to find new tracks).
The only way I can see this working is with features that spotify doesn't provide, like social recommendations or shared listening. Still a good showcase of your programming + design skills though!
I made a jukebox prototype for spotify a while back (http://spotifight.herokuapp.com/, click spotify authorization at the bottom), and got around the 30s limit by playing the songs over users' spotify instead.
I think you're right re: Spotify's built-in song discovery. Brew.fm's concept as is now would be easy to copy for Spotify, they'd be crazy not to if enough people seem to find value, and I'd love it if they do.
A way to properly differentiate would probably be by serving a (slightly) different audience. I can imagine Brew.fm is a little overkill for the average Spotify user, who'd rather hit play and lean back. It'd be cool if there's room for Brew.fm long term by serving the more hardcore music fan, who's more than happy to put extra work in, in exchange to feel on top of new music, and closer to the artists.
I could totally see Brew.fm working for hardcore discovery. People who are in the music industry or are really serious about finding new stuff. Choose who to follow, see who's released what every day. The really amazing thing would be being able to see what's new + popular, hot releases by unknown artists. Unfortunately I don't think that info is available through their API.
Are you hiring at Welcome?
Not sure if the settings page is related, but that was when it started.
It sounds like you're not interested in stats on your listening behavior. There's a section called Missed New Music that points out releases you might have missed, and there a button saying 'See stats for playlist' which lets you check missed music per playlist. If that isn't interesting either, Brew probably isn't for you
"Your listening habits have gotten less diverse over time. You've been listening to 95 genres over the last month, which is 9 less than your average of 104.
Your taste is set in stone. It was and still is indie rock"
I got a laugh, because this is absolutely and 100% true. Awesome job!
I have a suggestion for your next iteration, 'Lyric based music playlist' i.e. Songs for niche categories like Philosophy; There are people looking for it[1] as current music scene seems to be flooded with Romance/break up songs.
So a tool which classifies using the lyrics and are able to find obscure songs irrespective of the artists could be able to address that need-gap.
[1] https://needgap.com/problems/31-lyric-based-music-playlists-... (Disclosure: This is problem validation forum).
(Whoever downvoted please at least explain why you are downvoting a legitimate comment asking for a similar tool)
