Normally this blog is on software development, however this really bugs me and I think I figured it out. There seem to be a set of rules you must abide by if you do not want suggested (random?) songs played on or added to your playlist. This I believe is only a problem for free users.
Years back I was a premium user of spotify, but in recent years I have had less time to listen to music, so I went with a free account. Recently when I started using spotify again I heard songs on old playlists that should not be there and when I made new ones, random songs also appeared. I found this thread which helped me, but the information is scattered on several pages, so here is a summary:
- Toggle off Autoplay (Settings > Playback > Autoplay)
- Playlists with less than 12 tracks will have suggested songs added to them.
- Have multiple artists in your playlist
- Make sure you do not add songs to radio playlists instead of regular playlist
This is not very intuitive and a horrible user experience, there is no warning why this is happening and it is very frustrating. I can understand the advertising and 5 skips, this is a free service after all, but this hits the user experience hard as it is less visible.
I started using Spotify back in 2011, it was already a great service back then with great intuity. I am disappointed that there is not a warning why suggested songs get played. An icon with a reason why this song is played would be great, or simply stop playing music that we have not asked for.
I hope the above solutions help you and that you can understand my rant :)