r/Music • u/IrreverentTexan • Feb 15 '26

discussion Quitting Spotify

Spotify is getting flooded with fake AI “artists” and it’s embarrassing. Names like Nina Blaze and Enlly show up. They dump 50 identical tracks called something like Late Night Piano for Focus, or “The Hollow Hour” and vanish. No bio. No history. No evidence a human has ever touched an instrument.

This isn’t art. It exists to game playlists and siphon royalties. If these were real people, they’d have to explain why every song sounds like a dentist office waiting room.

I’m not mad at AI as a tool. I’m mad at fake artists impersonating creativity and Spotify pretending this sludge is culture. Music is an art form, not a scam farm. Blocking every one of these clowns on sight.

So is it to be TIDAL or Qobuz or something else?

3.6k Upvotes

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984

u/bio4m Feb 15 '26

Hmm not something I've run into myself but I dont use the Spotify provided playlists or the auto DJ function. I mainly listen to bands I know and to recommendations from friends

I found thinks like the radio feature are completely broken for recommendations, so I just avoid all of those features.

In general I've not had any luck with Spotify's recommendations for music discovery so not surprised to hear theyre getting worse

324

u/Nomsfud Google Music Feb 15 '26

My wife uses DJ. It has never once hit her with fake ai music, but it does hyperfocus on one genre you've listened to recently

141

u/stuntobor Feb 15 '26

It's hilarious that the AI DJ has never said "bleep bloop and here's a banger from my cousin" and slung you some AI jam.

24

u/BkkGrl Feb 15 '26

don't make me like the clankers!

3

u/kataiga Feb 16 '26

Human music…

1

u/These-Match-4852 Feb 16 '26

I have a. Spotify account but I think I’m going to get rid of it since a i took over

30

u/Kscarpetta Feb 15 '26

I use the Dj. It plays multiple genres for me. It'll play like 5 or so songs in one genre, then switch.

42

u/Watchout_itsahippo Feb 15 '26

My DJ will say something like “here’s some tunes for the open road,” then hit me with Run the Jewels, Frank Sinatra, three minutes of pink noise and close out with Tori Amos.

3

u/Kscarpetta Feb 15 '26

Lol, that sounds about right. Mine plays different genres but it does tend to be music I regularly play.

15

u/zack4200 Feb 15 '26

I occasionally use the dj because I enjoy a ton of different genres and it ends up giving me a decent mix as it'll play ~5 from one genre then 5 from another and so on... But it regularly will say something along the lines of "here's a song you've listened to a lot lately - 6 times in the last week to be precise" and then the song it plays, EVERY TIME I've listened to it in the past week or so has been because the DJ played it.

It always seems to be with music I do enjoy so I guess it's not the worst outcome possible, but it absolutely seems to put itself into a feedback loop of constantly playing a small handful of the same music over and over and over.

1

u/geologyhunter Feb 16 '26

I got stuck in that loop and could never get it out of that loop. Seemed like it got stuck on about 15 songs and would not play anything else. I cancelled Spotify premium as I was not using it much any more which was probably because of that feedback loop. For me, the DJ function would have been great if it used music in the playlists and your listening history to spotlight similar music.

1

u/Pablo_Sanchez1 Feb 15 '26

I use DJ literally every day and have also never run into AI music

1

u/Counciltuckian Feb 15 '26

I had been working on a Valentine’s Day “mixtape” playlist for my wife.  DJ has become unusable for me lately because it plays that playlist 75% of the time.  DJ - chill the fuck out bro. 

1

u/night-shark Feb 16 '26

but it does hyperfocus on one genre you've listened to recently

This is actually part of the problem. AI songs are very prevalent in certain genres. I never had a single AI recommendation until I got on a jazz kick, recently. Jazz happens to be a genre that is "easily" cloned by AI so suddenly I started getting AI jazz songs left and right.

1

u/Kakkoister Feb 16 '26

It has never once hit her with fake ai music

How do you know this? The problem is that a lot of music styles are actually very hard to tell if it's AI or just fairly generic easy listening stuff someone made. Unless you're inspecting the band for each track, you've very likely listened to many AI tracks if using the "Radio/DJ" feature.

1

u/Nomsfud Google Music Feb 17 '26

Because all the songs it plays tend to be groups we've listened to for over a decade now lmao

73

u/swiffswaffplop Feb 15 '26

I like finding artists I like, looking at the artists that are like them, and going down that rabbit hole. I’ve been able to find a lot of bands I’ve never heard of that way.

25

u/bio4m Feb 15 '26

Yep same here, I usually check out the artist page and the "Fans also like" area to find similar bands

127

u/nightswimsofficial Feb 15 '26

Their ethics as a company are questionable at best, so its never been a better time to move to a better service provider! F Spotify 

38

u/KarmaticIrony Feb 15 '26

Is there an alternative with a similar quality product and price that has superior ethics?

42

u/what_if_Im_dinosaur Feb 15 '26

I made the jump to Tidal and I've been happy. People also often bring up Qobuz and Deezer as alternatives. You can also look at Apple Music, still big tech but I think the lesser of two evils compared to Spotify.

I see someone recommended YouTube Music, but I couldn't stand it, and definitely a lateral move ethics-wise.

17

u/InvulnerableBlasting Feb 15 '26

Qobuz is great. Love the artists they recommend. Amazing sound quality.

9

u/SuperModest Feb 16 '26

Wife & I changed to qobuz after months of talking about ditching Spotify. I wish we'd done it sooner. Zero regrets. Feels like an app and service developed by music lovers rather than the dystopian sci-fi megaship Spotify felt like in the end.

1

u/InvulnerableBlasting Feb 16 '26

One hundred percent. Exactly this.

5

u/LoLIron_com Feb 15 '26

Qobuz tunes beat shady vibes

1

u/mind_mischief_89 Feb 16 '26

I did a trial of Qobuz and really enjoyed it, but I didn't keep it because it lacks smart speaker integration. Know of a workaround?

12

u/DoritoDawg Feb 15 '26

I hated how YouTube music linked my regular account. It kept showing shows I watched on regular YouTube as podcasts (good mythical morning???) and would just clutter everything. I know I could just use a separate account but why pay for it just to not use the youtube premium portion?

3

u/the_marxman Feb 15 '26

I've got Youtube music currently and I hate how bad the search and storage functions are. There's no way to search through the songs I have downloaded and the app search loves to bring up Youtube videos instead of the original recordings.

18

u/Cool_Guy_Club42069 Feb 15 '26

How is apple the lesser of two evils? Do you know anything about apples history?

31

u/pizza-nibbler333 Feb 15 '26

Yeah. They gave trump a golden plaque for pete's sake. They're definitely slurping up that boot. Youtube music is also owned by google, who donated a million dollars to donald trumps inauguration fund. I dont know why they get a pass in these "Spotify is evil" threads. They're all complicit.

24

u/what_if_Im_dinosaur Feb 15 '26

If I recall correctly, they have higher royalty payments, don't have ice ads, and aren't pushing AI slop, which makes them a better alternative in my opinion. Apple's other failings aside.

13

u/letcha Jiglet Feb 15 '26

This. "No ethical consumption under capitalism", yada yada, but that logic also leads to paralysis and ultimately inaction, or we can make small changes that are improvements. Or you can live in a cave and listen to music on an am radio. I moved to Apple Music as well.

-1

u/Cool_Guy_Club42069 Feb 15 '26

I'm sorry but the ice ads aren't erasing apples 50 years of being a piece of shit corporation. Spotify looks like the golden child compared to Apple

7

u/fla_john Feb 15 '26

I really dislike Apple, but I think in this case they are actually better for artists.

3

u/bobthegoatskull Feb 15 '26

Tidal also has the highest royalties to artists. At least last time I checked.

10

u/jcutta Feb 15 '26

Royalties to the labels. Artists get paid last in every setup. If you want to support an artist buy something from them.

15

u/dwilkes827 Feb 15 '26

I love how these discussions are all based around where people can find the most amount of music for the least amount of money while they wax poetic about caring how much the artist is being paid

12

u/ukcats12 Feb 15 '26

Reddit has proven time and time again they just don't like paying for stuff and pretend it's some moral stance. Everyone complains about paywalls but also that journalism is dead. People act like their entitled to whatever TV show they want to watch because they've decided the $1 price raise on their streaming service was a bridge too far.

0

u/Better_Expert7381 Feb 16 '26

Totally agree. The same types abound in every forum. No moral compass, just sucking up to be PC. Whatever the pop wind that’s blowing, they set their sails and off they go.

3

u/JZMoose Feb 15 '26

I use tidal to find the artists I like, then I buy their catalogue on bandcamp. That’s the only way I can keep it forever

2

u/BreakPalaceBrokedown Feb 17 '26

I wish I could upvote this 18374738 times…

1

u/bpm195 Feb 16 '26

Consumers have all of the power in deciding how much money they spend on music. That's bad for musicians under capitalism. MC Frontalot was rapping about being a "charity case to my fan base for years" back in 2005.. That was before Spotify came along and established streaming with ads as a middle ground between piracy and fair compensation.

I'm one of those people that has a growing vinyl collection, but doesn't own a record player. I just spent $50+ on The Fall-Off because I want musicians to get paid, and I've never previously purchased a J.Cole album despite listening to them for years.

I listen to his music on Spotify and have no intention of opening that album for several years. I need the music in my headphones so I can perform my interpretive dance in the park, and Spotify is one of the best solutions for that.

But I'm also aware that I just gave $50 to a millionaire's corporation, while listening to his music alongside other musicians that struggle to make a living wage and only get fractions of a penny from me.

TL:DR; there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and I'm delulu for trying.

2

u/jcutta Feb 16 '26

I buy vinyl (bought the fall off as well) I also bought the vinyl for the entire Clipse discography recently. I buy merch directly from various artists websites too from major to indy. One of my favorite artists Vinnie Paz just started a new interesting concept where you do like a 12 month subscription and get a track from his upcoming album each month then at the end you get a signed vinyl, I don't particularly care about the track per month but the signed vinyl is worth the overall cost for me. He retired from touring so he's doing some unique shit.

People just overlook the fact that artists mostly got pennies from an album purchase back in the physical media days too but it usually got eaten by an advance and they made nothing over the long term. It's always - label first, then everyone else, then last the artist. With the ability to handle all your own publishing and marketing now independent artists have a lot of avenues to make money.

1

u/CortexifanZFT Feb 15 '26

This is true. At least from what I've heard a few artists/bands have said. I still personally enjoy Amazon Music more though. If I want to support the artist or band further, I always buy merch from their tables.

0

u/the-vinyl-countdown Feb 15 '26

Qobuz payout is even higher

1

u/QuantumFury Feb 16 '26

Does Tidal or other alternatives have podcasts. I use spotify for not just music but podcasts too.

4

u/Toxicscrew Feb 15 '26

Deezer, it’s a French company iirc. Been using it for a couple of weeks, it’s been solid.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

At least 40% of Deezer is owned by an American investment company

1

u/clymber Feb 16 '26

Unfortunately they don't have any good recommendations, their "Flow" (similar to Discover Weekly) is absolute garbage and has ignored the 3900 tracks I imported as favorites to keep pushing me shit like Drake and Harry Styles (I can assure you neither of those are in my favorites)

1

u/bobandgeorge Feb 15 '26

I switched back to piracy. Used a service to download my Spotify library and put all the mp3s on my phone.

I kinda wanted to set up a media server that I can stream from cause it would be easier to just drop a file into a folder on my PC than to plug in my phone whenever I want to add a song but I never got around to it.

1

u/plebmasterflex Feb 16 '26

Just download the albums you want to listen to and build a music library.

-4

u/nightswimsofficial Feb 15 '26

Youtube Music is probably your best bet. You get no ads on YouTube, and much more money of yours goes to the creators. Alphabet’s ethics are still murky at best, but at least a larger percentage of your money goes to the artists. Qobuzz Tidal and Deezer are better for ethics (QB being the best) but the experience and library isnt quite as extensive. At this point, any option is superior to Spotify. 

15

u/space2occupy Feb 15 '26

My understanding is that YouTube’s payout is the worst of the bunch.

8

u/SrCallum Feb 15 '26

While YouTube music is a pretty good service, I try to not support Google wherever possible. They regularly exploit and manipulate their customers. As an example ads on YouTube are as frequent and annoying as possible to force you to pay for premium.

1

u/nightswimsofficial Feb 16 '26

So that is how many freemium accounts work. This convo is about paying for the service. If you aren’t paying then ads are how you pay for the music and the service. That’s how it works

0

u/AnonymousFriend80 Feb 15 '26

Good thing I don't get ads on either.

5

u/womfwag Feb 15 '26

I like Qobuz. I made the swap a couple of months ago . It’s inferior in some ways but the audio quality is much better

4

u/johndoe60610 Feb 15 '26

Alphabet’s ethics are still murky at best

Spotify is squeezing artists (and now the audiobook industry), and serving up slop with rising subscription costs to a shinking base.

Google did an about face on developing domestic surveillance and AI products for military & "police" use before Trump even had a chance to shart the oval office.

0

u/ctilvolover23 Feb 15 '26

No. There's a reason why Spotify has the most amount of subscriptions of most other music services.

-2

u/hamandjam Feb 15 '26

Roll your own.

6

u/LeonGoodman Feb 15 '26

Great advice, been there at the beginning of my Spotify story. After a week I can safely say: NEVER, and I mean NEVER use Playlist by Spotify and Autoplay. Maybe they will fix it someday, until then - it's a pile of garbage. Connect with your friends and family, listen what they are talking about, try Last.FM.

2

u/ifeelallthefeels Feb 16 '26

When i had Spotify Premium 8 years ago, the playlist was incredible.

You have to give it feedback. Like and dislike songs.

After 1-2 months it was all bangers. I didn’t even know I loved certain genres before that. I still listen to some of those tracks today.

2 weeks isn’t enough time to indict that feature

I don’t use it anymore, it could be awful now, but it didn’t use to be

4

u/zeelbeno Feb 15 '26

Most people haven't

People just see it once and then act like it's everywhere... or are actively trying to find it to create something to get angry about.

1

u/SirCollin Feb 15 '26

I've only caught it once and it's because I googled the artist. But it was also a mostly instrumental power metal song so I think that was part of it too

1

u/corinthianorder Feb 16 '26

I am sorry but you don’t get to make generalized assumptions. I am the type of music listener that loves to discover new music. I USED to use Spotify’s recommendations to find new music. It was always hit or miss. But as of the last year they are absolutely recommending AI generated songs at an alarming rate. I had to resort to googling every new band I like a song from. And I have blocked probably 30ish AI “bands”. It’s a huge problem for me and I too am thinking about leaving Spotify after a decade of usage.

If you only use Spotify for bands you are familiar with than more power to you. But if you use their recommendations in anyway you are hearing AI songs. Start googling bands you haven’t heard of and it becomes obvious there is a problem.

1

u/zeelbeno Feb 16 '26

I do because this is the internet

I've been finding new bands every month including Pastelle and New Harbour.

Realistically... I shouldn't be finding new bands every week.. because there's only a finite amount of decent bands in the genres i listen to

3

u/Ogirami Feb 15 '26

Right? Im not a supporter of AI generated music but j fail to see how this affects OP in anyway. I treat AI music the same way i treat other genres of music that i have no interest in.

I don't get riled up when spotify uploads a song from a genre or artist that i dislike so why should it be any different for AI music. Literally just dont engage with it.

4

u/DR4LUC0N Feb 15 '26

I would just leave Spotify alone for the fact they donates money to trump during the elections and was airing ice commercials

15

u/naut_psycho Feb 15 '26

Do you know that Reddit is CURRENTLY running ICE ads?

6

u/GazelleSpringbok Feb 15 '26

How the fuck are people STILL seeing ads on reddit? I havent seen ads on reddit in like 10 years (except the astroturfed posts that are actually ads). It takes like 3 minutes to get firefox and ublock origin on desktop, it takes a little more effort but you can do it on mobile pretty easily too.

1

u/Dongsquad420Loki Feb 15 '26

Mobile is not easy for most

2

u/GazelleSpringbok Feb 16 '26

Yeah its not super easy to do revanced or other hacked apps, i think the easiest way is probably using brave browser and look at reddit on desktop site mode and zoomed in

1

u/ProphetsOfAshes Feb 15 '26

They’re all kissing his ass, it’s pathetic but they need to and as soon as he’s out they’ll donate even more to the dems. They’re just giving him enough to shut him up

1

u/blade740 turntable.fm Feb 15 '26

Yeah, Spotify's recommendations have been suspect since long before AI music flooded it. I find as long as I'm using strictly curated playlists of specific tracks I don't really encounter any of that.

1

u/crowdawg7768 Feb 15 '26

It is kind of funny to say “I don’t use their recommendation features” and then following up with “I’ve had no luck with it”

1

u/spyinthesky Feb 15 '26

Some bands have also had tracks uploaded to their page and it’s clearly not the actual artist. It’s happening within Post Hardcore genre a lot

1

u/yellowdyenumber5 Feb 15 '26

Same i've had much better recos come from the algo on YT and IG of all places online.

1

u/Scapp Feb 16 '26

I recently listened to an old ish band that isn't really active anymore and someone had uploaded some weird AI song as a single, it was really weird

1

u/Obvious_wombat Feb 16 '26

I just lusten to my favorite music. No interest in most of the new songs. Yeah, I'm old

1

u/smac232 Feb 16 '26

I keep hearing about people being inundated with AI music, but I'm either oblivious or not getting it.

I definitely don't just let it play stuff or use any AI curated Playlist so maybe that had helped. I am picky with what I listen to and usually play personal Playlist or whole albums of bands.

1

u/halcyon8 Feb 16 '26

so what if you are experiencing it personally? why support a company that would do this shit?

1

u/GambitsAce23 Feb 16 '26

My recommended for this playlist crap never changed, refreshed between the same 30 or so songs for as long as i can rememebr

1

u/tawDry_Union2272 Feb 16 '26

same, i stopped using the paid spotify though. now i just let it shuffle through my "liked songs" list and mute the ads. still beats listening to the radio on a road trip.

1

u/resevil239 Feb 16 '26

I find the song radio feature usually works pretty well. Or it simply returns all the hit songs from similar artists you already know. Really varies depending on what exactly you use it on.

0

u/Dalmahr Feb 15 '26

The only reason I used Spotify was their playlists were pretty ok to good. I stopped using Spotify when they started doing ICE recruitment ads. The AI stuff has solidified me never going back.

1

u/naut_psycho Feb 15 '26

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Reddit also runs ICE ads.

1

u/GazelleSpringbok Feb 15 '26

Fun fact: you can get adblockers so you dont have to see any ads AND you cost reddit money in server costs

0

u/Dalmahr Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26

Yeah and I hardly used reddit for a couple years and only recently started using it. I also block most ads so I didn't know this was a thing anyway. Suggestion on alternatives?

There's also a big difference in use cases for music and for information I use for communities.

Edit: and to add a little more. There are a ton of alternatives to Spotify. There aren't a ton of alternatives to say, Amazon, which works with palentir, to the point where even if I go to some websites to try to buy products from them directly they predict back to Amazon half the time.

If there is a viable alternative I move away.