The Spotify X-Files thread

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Blackstar said:

The General is not cool as a title for me. It reminds me of Iron Maiden or something like that

At least The General would out rank The Trooper

[WillBailey]

I listened to Taylor Swift's State of Grace, hoping it would change the French algo in case I switch to the Ritz YCBM next lol.

[Axl S]

4 hours ago, metalavenger99 said:

There has to be metadata placed somewhere. And is not coming from probably 23 users around the whole world that have Thyme in their local Spotify playlists. 

Yeah that's what I don't get. I don't get why these search terms have become associated with GN'R in Spotify's system. I really really doubt it's user searches. It could be scraped from various web sources but again... why only now? I can't think of a good answer for that at all.

 

I have a rule of thumb for lots of things in life, the simplest explanation is usually (but not always) the correct one. It makes the most sense if information for these tracks has been entered into Spotify's system or another music industry system that they integrate with. That doesn't mean the music is necessarily uploaded to Spotify's system and is primed for release, just means that at a minimum somewhere the basic information about these tracks has. That information has been ingested into their database and associatiosn between those terms and GN'R has been made.

That is a simpler explanation than trying to figure out how their search results have been influenced by user sessions and scraping websites, and why it's only happening now.

[Chrise78]

I listen to Ghost. A lot. They have a bonus track on one of their biggest albums - a cover of It’s A Sin. It’s nowhere to be found on Spotify. I have it in my local files, but when searching for it, not so much as a suggestion. I would imagine a lot of Ghost fans search for this particular song too being that the band are huge. 
I just find it odd that this is an actual song that was released and Ghost don’t come up as a suggested artist when you search for it, yet the G N’ R ones do. 🤷

[Billy Cundy]

21 hours ago, Blackstar said:

This is a thread for those who haven't given up on this and want to continue the discussion that has monopolized the last 150 pages (or so) of the "New album" thread (starting from here).

To sum it up for those who haven't followed this at all:

Last year, about 10 days before Hard Skool was released, searching for the title (or part of it) on Spotify brought up GN'R as an artist, first in the U.S. only and then gradually in other countries. Something similar has occurred with other artists that were about to release new music (this phenomenon is unique to Spotify and hasn't happened on any other streaming platforms). The same started happening about three weeks ago with GN'R coming up in the search results for titles of unreleased tracks, beginning with State of Grace showing up in the UK (first noticed by @gavgnr) and then gradually the same song and other tracks popping up in other countries. So there's been speculation on whether it means something or it's just the Spotify algorithm causing it (with the most recent indications pointing more towards the latter).

Here is what showed up as of yesterday (pasting my post from the "new album" thread):

I searched in 42 countries (on the Spotify webpage on the browser, not logged in) using VPN, so as to have a basis of comparison with the updates by members from these countries, and out of curiosity about whether there are results in other countries we haven't had updates from. Of course I'm not going to do this again (it's been fun, but that's just too much, lol).

The countries are in alphabetical order. The titles are in order of appearance since all this started (note: I didn't search for covers) and typed in lowercase letters (because that's only how it works on Spotify search):

*

Argentina: state of grace, atlas sh, the general, soul mo

Australia: state of grace, atlas shrugged, soul mon

Austria: state of grace, atlas s

Belgium: state of grace, atlas sh, the general, soul mo, thyme

Brazil: state of grace, atlas shrugged, the general, soul mo

Bulgaria: -

Canada: state of gra, atlas shrugged, the general, soul mon

Chile: state of grace

Croatia: -

Czech Republic: -

Denmark: state of grace

Estonia: -

Finland: state of grace, atlas sh, the general, soul mo

France: -

Germany: state of grace, atlas shrugged

Greece: state of grace

Hungary: -

Indonesia: -

Ireland: state of grace, the general, soul mo

Israel: -

Italy: -

Japan: -

Latvia: -

Lithuania: -

Mexico: -

Netherlands: state of grace, atlas sh

New Zealand: state of grace

Norway: state of grace, atlas shrug, the general, soul mo, perhaps

Poland: state of grace, atlas shr, the general

Portugal: state of grace, atlas s

Romania: -

Serbia: -

Slovakia: -

Slovenia: -

South Africa: -

South Korea: -

Spain: state of gr

Sweden: state of grace, atlas shrugged, the general, soul mon, perhaps, thyme (Hard Skool comes up), zodiac (Hard Skool comes up), oklahoma

Switzerland: -

Turkey: -

UK: state of grace, atlas shrugged, the general, soul monster, perhaps, thyme, cuban s

USA: state of grace, atlas shrugged, soul monster, thyme, cuban sk (the general didn’t show up)

*

So in most of the countries we haven't had updates from (which probably means that there are no forum members there searching) there are no GN'R related results. However, there are also no results for countries that have people searching (France, Italy and likely a couple of others).

Blackstar is the unofficial forum historian and statistician… We salute you! 

[SoulMonster]

39 minutes ago, Chrise78 said:

I just find it odd that this is an actual song that was released and Ghost don’t come up as a suggested artist when you search for it, yet the G N’ R ones do. 🤷

I don't find it strange that "atlas shrugged" would result in Spotify suggesting GN'R, while the same doesn't happen for "it's a sin" and Ghost; there are likely much less people who listen to Ghost and search for "it's a sin" compared to all who search for this song (pet shop boys, elton john), than there are people who listen to GN'R and search for "atlas shrugged" compared to all who search for this song. 

[Chrise78]

4 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

I don't find it strange that "atlas shrugged" would result in Spotify suggesting GN'R, while the same doesn't happen for "it's a sin" and Ghost; there are likely much less people who listen to Ghost and search for "it's a sin" compared to all who search for this song (pet shop boys, elton john), than there are people who listen to GN'R and search for "atlas shrugged" compared to all who search for this song. 

I think my main point was that “It’s A Sin was actually released on an official platform, yet doesn’t show on Spotify with Ghost as a suggested artist. I don’t understand what’s going on though, however I am cautiously optimistic for a release! 

[Axl S]

For what it's worth "its a sin" and "it's a sin" pops Ghost for me in the UK even though I can't listen to the track.

[SoulMonster]

3 minutes ago, Chrise78 said:

I think my main point was that “It’s A Sin was actually released on an official platform, yet doesn’t show on Spotify with Ghost as a suggested artist. I don’t understand what’s going on though, however I am cautiously optimistic for a release! 

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, you have to include 'ghost' in the search for it to show up. Kind of suggests to me that there are just so much fewer people who listen to It's A Sin by Ghost compared to the people who listen to It's A Sin by pet Shop Boys and Elton John. 

[Lio]

54 minutes ago, Axl S said:

For what it's worth "its a sin" and "it's a sin" pops Ghost for me in the UK even though I can't listen to the track.

Yeah, same in Belgium.

Also, yesterday Thyme didn't do anything for me. Today, it does suggest GNR. It's really odd it seems to shift from day to day.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Lio

[Chrise78]

17 minutes ago, Lio said:

Yeah, same in Belgium.

Also, yesterday Thyme didn't do anything for me. Today, it does suggest GNR. It's really odd it seems to shift from day to day.

 

1 hour ago, Axl S said:

For what it's worth "its a sin" and "it's a sin" pops Ghost for me in the UK even though I can't listen to the track.

How weird. I’m in the UK too and Ghost doesn’t come up. Yet searching for Atlas Shrugged etc still brings up G n’ R. I do wonder what would happen if we all agreed on a made up song title and search for it several times a day. 

[Axl S]

26 minutes ago, Chrise78 said:

 

How weird. I’m in the UK too and Ghost doesn’t come up. Yet searching for Atlas Shrugged etc still brings up G n’ R. I do wonder what would happen if we all agreed on a made up song title and search for it several times a day. 

I think nothing happens. Don't think it's (strongly) driven by that. Would require a much large scale of people doing it

[ZODIAC]

Atlas doesn't show up for me anymore... 

[Nick85]

I just deleted Spotify. I can’t with this anymore. 😩

More of an Apple Music guy anyway. 

[Blackstar]

19 minutes ago, ZODIAC said:

Atlas doesn't show up for me anymore... 

You're from Germany, right? It still appears for me with VPN to Germany, but not the whole phrase (only as "atlas shrug")

[Lethalis]

17 minutes ago, sofine11 said:

I just deleted Spotify. I can’t with this anymore. 😩

More of an Apple Music guy anyway. 

Gotta love this forum and the overdramatic reactions of disgruntled GnR fans.

Everybody who still believes GnR will release an album needs therapy by now. Maybe I do too, but my shrink gave up on me 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Lethalis

[chrismcquillan]

Not to pour water on the fire, but GnR also comes up if you search "Cats in the Cradle".

[Blackstar]

4 minutes ago, chrismcquillan said:

Not to pour water on the fire, but GnR also comes up if you search "Cats in the Cradle".

Of course it does, probably also for "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". These songs have been mistaken for GN'R songs by thousands of people for years, so  many must have searched the title along with "Guns N' Roses". Plus, Spotify probably considers GN'R as a related artist to these bands.

[chrismcquillan]

5 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Of course it does, probably also for "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". These songs have been mistaken for GN'R songs by thousands of people for years, so  many must have searched the title along with "Guns N' Roses". Plus, Spotify probably considers GN'R as a related artist to these bands.

In which case, if they've changed their algorithm in some way, the same could apply to these GnR demo titles?

[Blackstar]

Just now, chrismcquillan said:

In which case, if they've changed their algorithm in some way, the same could apply to these GnR demo titles?

Anything is possible, especially if many people have searched the demo titles along with "guns n roses" (although it doesn't seem to be the case, because most people have been typing only the title just to see if GN'R comes up).

[metalavenger99]

Just one more song and all the ISRC spots between Absurd and HS are now filled

[gavgnr]

5 minutes ago, metalavenger99 said:

Just one more song and all the ISRC spots between Absurd and HS are now filled

Seriously, have you checked?

How many blank spaces were there?

Edited September 30, 2022 by gavgnr

[AxlRoseCDII]

Here's a theory I've been thinking of that can explain most of our confusions.

"CDII" has been at the very least, submitted to album and song databases in some form. Whatever this is, one of the websites that Spotify can extract data and web crawl from. It might be similar to whatever people found missing numbers between Hard Skool and Absurd from, except now they have titles, or quite possibly placeholder titles like "The General" and "Oklahoma" which are subject to change. It is not an imminent release, and with GNR it could get cancelled at any notice anyways, but something planned for next year, like if GNR plans to tour the USA again which many are theorizing. This is why the songs only appear in some countries, there is not an imminent rush to finalize everything or put it in every country's database right now since it will not have a wide release for quite possibly months. This could happen with every artist but we just don't know it since it's very rare fanbases know the titles of possible songs up to 20 years in advance. Or if it's algorithmic, it finds a link between the two if people are searching for it and they exist in song databases in some form, since the song titles that have shown up minus Ballad of Death* are very legitimately tracks on the new album and nothing far fetched to think about.

*Ballad of Death showing up is not a surprise for a lot of people since the song, Ashba and GNR has a large history together so it can be purely algorithmic a lot more reliably 

This explains why we can't make things like Going Down, Red Panda, Circus Maximus appear when in reality if we've made Cuban Skies appear all three of those should've shown up by now. It explains why some countries only have some results, and some have none, and in months from now they theoretically should all appear when the album is closer to release. 

This makes the most sense to me ultimately. This doesn't mean the album is 100% since it's GNR but maybe it's been submitted in some databases that Spotify specifically can pick up on.

[metalavenger99]

5 minutes ago, gavgnr said:

Seriously, have you checked?

How many blank spaces were there?

Absurd ended in 50

HS ended in 61 

And we have 9 imaginary songs

Yeah just checked for fun ( I meant imaginary filled)

Edited September 30, 2022 by metalavenger99

[Blackstar]

11 minutes ago, metalavenger99 said:

Just one more song and all the ISRC spots between Absurd and HS are now filled

6 minutes ago, gavgnr said:

Seriously, have you checked?

How many blank spaces were there?

There are 12 more between Hard Skool and the next song by another artist. But it doesn't mean that all these blank spots would be filled if there was an album. As we were discussing then, it seems it's a standard practice by major labels to reserve about 25 spots (because, for example, there could be a change in the mix of a song at the last minute, so that new mix would need another spot since it counts as a unique recording).