There are so many different music services out there right now. But to me, Spotify is the best one — and it all boils down to one feature I couldn't imagine living without.
It's called Spotify Discover Weekly.
Every Monday morning, Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist will deliver 30 songs the streaming service thinks you'll like, based off the songs and artists you already listen to. Then, next Monday, that playlist disappears and you get another 30 songs.
We've written about Discover Weekly several times before, but it bears repeating: Discover Weekly is an incredible feature. Even the cofounder of Pandora, which offers a similar feature, called Discover Weekly "absolutely perfect."
Since I started using Spotify Premium last June, I've noticed my Discover Weekly playlist continually improves each week. I actually created a "Best of Discover Weekly" playlist so I could save all the best tracks from each week, and each week, I find myself saving more and more tracks.
Discover Weekly is a testament to how well Spotify understands music.
Music is a deeply personal experience. We all enjoy different music, sure, but we also all enjoy music differently. Even if you like certain genres, there's no "one size fits all" playlist. There's a ton of nuance involved in picking music for people — one person might only like hip-hop that's socially conscious, while another person might only like old school hip-hop, or just gangster rap. Some people might like one or two songs from one album, but not like the rest.
In September, we talked to Matt Ogle, the man in charge of Spotify's Discover Weekly. He told us that Discover Weekly uses algorithms to find out what people are playing, and how often they're played, in order to find tracks that are usually played alongside those songs, based on other people's playlists. He said Spotify tries to mix new songs with songs you've probably heard before since "it can be exhausting to just listen to stuff you've never heard before."
This strategy — blending familiar music with new music, and serving up new tracks each week — works exceedingly well because it requires zero effort on your part. All you have to do is listen to music like you normally would and Spotify handles the rest. Music discovery is not nearly this easy on rival services like Apple Music, which offer curated playlists that feel nowhere near as personal.
If you're looking for the best music service out there, you'll want to get Spotify Premium. There are a ton of great features in addition to the vast library of music (and now videos and podcasts), but Discover Weekly is easily the pièce de résistance. It's a great reason to look forward to Mondays.
