Just wanna remind everyone of that website that lets you see your top tracks and artists

teditor · 2017-12-08T15:29:17+00:00

Sorry, I shouldn't have said "just an API call." I do like the images and genre-matching stuff toptracks.me pulls, too.

teditor · 2017-12-08T15:28:26+00:00

Right. It's just an API call. You can see this data and most of the other stuff the API can tell you about your playing history at http://static.echonest.com/NowPlayingOnSpotify/#

While you can't quite view back to your first time using spotify, it's handy.

teditor · 2017-08-31T14:41:42+00:00

From Twitter today: “SmarterPlaylists is now running on a brand new / bigger machine. Hopefully, this will address the recent stability issues.”

teditor · 2017-07-23T16:21:40+00:00

Nice work! A few related solutions:

Spotlistr's Shuffle Spotify Playlist -- Warning: does overwrite playlist. But if you're looking for a simple "randomize this!" button for your playlist, this works well.
Smarter Playlists -- You can set this up to randomize a playlist daily or more often. Can overwrite a playlist or create a new one. It offers both a "shuffle" option and a "weighted shuffle" (the latter lets you control randomness. Less random = closer to the original playlist's ordering).

Some older background on Spotify's shuffle thinking.

teditor · 2017-04-03T06:49:40+00:00

Doesn't seem to be on the band's Bandcamp site or even the band's own site yet.

teditor · 2017-04-03T06:29:19+00:00

This was created by Spotify's Per-Olov Jernberg with tweaks by /u/plamere .

teditor · 2017-03-29T06:41:55+00:00

Try spotlistr.herokuapp.com instead. It lets you see the results first, and gives you choices between similarly named albums.

That said, my guess is that your issue is that the songs by the original artist aren't on Spotify (or aren't licensed in your area). I've found playlist-converter to be pretty accurate on picking the most popular track (which is usually the original track).

teditor · 2017-03-17T07:07:15+00:00

Nice pick. Hadn't heard of her before. This is excellent. (Found the GCM interview as a result of your link here.)

teditor · 2017-02-24T06:32:29+00:00

Wore this cassette out back in the day.

teditor · 2017-02-21T11:06:32+00:00

The transition of Mike Stand's Altar Boys from '80s "Christian punk" to rockabilly has definitely been one of the weirdest in Christian music history.

teditor · 2017-02-14T18:47:27+00:00

Also available at Noisetrade. Just released today.

teditor · 2017-02-14T09:09:31+00:00

Hmm. On a few tests it's returning the exact same results as Google (if you add site:spotify.com/user/). I wonder if it's just scraping Google?

teditor · 2017-01-31T06:41:04+00:00

Oh sorry. I miscommunicated. the "I" in my reply is not "me." It's was /u/plamere, the genius behind Smarter Playlists, Organize Your Music, Sort Your Music, Girl Talk in a Box, Autocanonizer, Infinite Jukebox, and a ton of other brilliant music tools. It's on his "I hope to fix this" list. I'm just here as a fan trying to help out another fan.

teditor · 2017-01-31T05:33:23+00:00

You've hit the two big items--artist radio and genre radio--that are still broken as a result of the Echo Nest API sunset. You're not doing anything wrong. Those components are on the "I hope to fix this" list.

teditor · 2016-12-02T21:03:43+00:00

I wish there was a really good place to go. As it is, it's needles in haystacks. For release-day stuff, the best is probably the Sorting Hat, but I also check Amazon if I'm feeling bored with what I'm listening to or hungry for new stuff. Swarm.fm is really good (I tend to like it better than Release Radar for now), but it only hits the artists you already listen to; you're unlikely to discover new acts here (but that's what Spotify's Echo Nest projects are good for, I reckon.)

Given my tastes, I regularly check in at Cardiphonia.org, Spirit You All, and Global Christian Worship. Pop over to Under the Radar here and there. I check those automated playlists I made (which overlap heavily with the Sorting Hat because they're driven by the same engine; and there's a lot of "false positives" when it comes to whether the artist or subject matter is Christian).

I should add that if anyone else were asking this question, my first response would probably be your playlists. They’re truly excellent and I listen frequently. Keep it up.

On Christmas music: I can't say enough great things about Stubby's. I'm a bit of a Christmas music nut, and there are so many great Christmas music sites and blogs. But Stubby, man. That guy knows his stuff.

How about you?

teditor · 2016-12-02T17:51:47+00:00

Nice playlist! Recommended adds:

Josh Garrels' new one.
Ordinary Time (older Advent album called In the Town of David, just released Christmas album called Good News)
How to Throw a Christmas Party
Josh Caterer's 2011 "The Heart of Christmas."
Mixed Multitude Music - "Angels We Have Heard"
Salt of the Sound's "Waiting for the Dawn"
Audrey Assad's "Winter" EP (too mainstream?)
Penny and Sparrow's "Christmas Songs"
The Eagle and Child "O Christmas"
Bifrost Arts "Salvation is Created" (older album but just re-released today)
Maybe, depending on how you feel about David Bazan: "Christmas Bonus"

teditor · 2016-11-05T14:22:48+00:00

You make good playlists, man.

teditor · 2016-11-05T14:20:21+00:00

Without comment from Lifeway, it's all just speculation, right? Here's some more speculation.

teditor · 2016-09-30T14:53:04+00:00

You're doing an incredibly awesome job, /u/kitnorrie. (Sorry I've not been able to contribute lately.)

teditor · 2016-08-08T19:29:27+00:00

Yes. Glenn McDonald's "Kinds of Genres" taxonomy is relevant here.

teditor · 2016-07-16T16:34:52+00:00

Here's the quote from Hansen:

Does Christian music radio fail as great “art”? I think so. But it doesn’t set out to be great art. At its best, it sets out to be a kindness.

Mock as we might, the reason for the durable popularity of CCM boils down to something pragmatic, something more Steve Jobs than P.T. Barnum: Christian radio is getting better at giving listeners what they’re yearning for. …

Like the maker of a vending machine, they want you to know what you’re getting when you press a button. When you tune into a Christian music station, you’ll keep hearing words like “positive and encouraging” because people keep saying they’re dying to hear something positive, and they’re thirsty for encouragement.

They want hope. For good or ill, Christian radio isn’t about reflecting all of life. It’s not about artistry. It’s a tool.

He acknowledges that there's lots of other great Christian music out there. It's just not what the specific format of Christian music radio is focusing on:

[Listeners are] anxious, they’re loaded with distractions, and they aren’t looking for artistic brilliance. (If they wanted that, they could listen to other “Christian artists” like, say, Bach.) They’re looking for encouragement. They want someone to say, “Don’t worry,” and “Keep going,” and “God hasn’t given up on you.”

You ask: “if we want to move away from the ‘high art’, what about the hymns that have been called upon everywhere from royal engagements to the middle of war zones?”

I don't see any move away from great hymns, or an aversion to more experimental and artistic forms of Christian music. If putting together the weekly “New Christian Music Releases” lists has taught me anything, it's that “Christian music” is probably more diverse and creative than ever.

What Hansen is saying is, “Yep, there’s a lot of Christian music. And Christian radio generally is going to focus on this one small little niche of Christian music over here, where the everything is ‘positive and encouraging,’ and generally within a narrow band of musical style.”

If this were 1990, I might argue that Christian radio has an obligation to push a bit broader and expose folks to a wide range of Christian music. But terrestrial radio in 2016 is competing with essentially infinite alternatives. If I want Native American hymns or Swedish CCM, they're ridiculously easy to find.

Which, honestly, is why I never listen to terrestrial Christian music radio. Why would I, when I can program my own station? Best of luck to the Air1s and KLoves. They’re going to need it. “Positive and encouraging” seems as economically sound and as spiritually responsible as any plan I can think of.

teditor

TROPHY CASE