
4 million songs on Spotify have never been played. Let’s change that - henryaj
http://forgotify.com/
======
kahirsch
There was a funny story[1] (transcript[2]) on the NPR program _On The Media_ a
couple of weeks ago about someone[3] who writes and records dozens of songs
per day to put on Spotify (playlist[4]). Many songs deserve to not be played.

[1] [http://www.onthemedia.org/story/100-songs-
day/](http://www.onthemedia.org/story/100-songs-day/)

[2] [http://www.onthemedia.org/story/100-songs-
day/transcript/](http://www.onthemedia.org/story/100-songs-day/transcript/)

[3] [http://www.moternmedia.com/bio.html](http://www.moternmedia.com/bio.html)

[4] [http://spoti.fi/1gnQ7nd](http://spoti.fi/1gnQ7nd)

~~~
lost_name
There are also hundreds of "cover" songs on Spotify that, from what I can
tell, only try to earn plays through mistaken clicks.

For a good example, search for Thrift Shop -- you might be inclined to play
"Thrift Shop" by "Thrift Shop" on his hit album "Thrift Shop." It has 675k
plays already.

~~~
ilamont
AC/DC has an interesting twist related to cover bands -- the band only has one
song (through an old soundtrack) on Spotify. About a dozen cover bands have
filled the gap; the top tunes for each of them collectively have over a
million listens.

------
urmane
Most songs don't deserve to be listened to.

In the old days one had no choice - whatever was on the radio was what you
heard, and it was very difficult to hear the whole CD/tape/ancient-media. I
used to have a 3-4 song rule - if I didn't like 3-4 songs on the album I
wouldn't buy it. It was very hard to adhere to, and breaking the rule almost
always resulted in disappointment.

MP3 changed that, but not because of pirating - because listeners could start
sampling the whole product to see if they wanted to buy it. Tech improvements
keep making that easier. Bands will have to work harder to produce quality
work for their fans (including having a good handle on what 'quality' and
'fans' means for them), instead of producing one good song and ten fillers and
calling it an album.

------
zimpenfish
It's not very (at the track level) - but at the same far too (at the 'release'
level) - accurate.

"Wayward Wind" by Gogi Grant (off "Sweet Memories") is listed -but- the track
itself is listed as one of the most popular if you search for her, just not
off that particular album. There's a metric ass-ton of releases which probably
explains why one particular release has zero even when the track is clearly
very popular.

F-. MUST TRY HARDER.

~~~
hesselink
This is very annoying on Spotify itself as well. If you use the 'radio'
feature (basically random tracks based on some genre/artist), it often repeats
the same track over and over, from different releases.

~~~
ajtaylor
Oh, so THAT'S why it repeats tracks! I always assumed that the radio feature
just wasn't very smart.

------
mmahemoff
Does OP or anyone know how it's built?

I see there's a track popularity figure in the API [1] so maybe these songs
have zero popularity. And then I can only assume they've crawled every track
as the search API [2] doesn't support filtering by popularity.

1\. [https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/web-
api/lookup/](https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/web-api/lookup/)

2\. [https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/web-
api/search/](https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/web-api/search/)

~~~
henryaj
Sorry, I don't. Your explanation sounds pretty plausible.

------
chipsambos
This is the antithesis to sites promoting quality content (hn, reddit, etc).
It only encourages people to publish shit. Like this guy:
[http://www.gigwise.com/news/88051/spotify-joker-
earns-%C2%A3...](http://www.gigwise.com/news/88051/spotify-joker-
earns-%C2%A313000-uploading-slightly-rubbish-tracks-online)

May as well try and rack up views for all the unseen ads on the internet.

~~~
bgilroy26
The "Knights of 'New'" on reddit have to wade through a lot of junk, but
everyone else who uses the website benefits from their efforts.

This is a similar deal for Spotify. Some percentage of these songs are good,
it might be less than one percent, but if you can get 500 people with decent
ears to listen to 1 song each, you can move the needle.

------
arvidj
Would be nice to have a counter of the number of forgotten songs, updating in
realtime.

~~~
maaarghk
I absolutely agree!

------
mediaserf
Their cache engine will love you for this!

------
wldlyinaccurate
I'm gonna be "that guy" and complain again that developers (web developers in
particular) really need to learn the basics of scaling. There is _no_ point
having your app publicly available if you're not prepared for small spikes
like this.

Edit: At the time of posting, the service was 503ing.

~~~
gizzlon
Is there a service that tests the scale of web apps? I'm _not_ thinking of
software, rather a service that web developers could use to test their app
with simulated "real" traffic..

~~~
taylan
There is Loader.io from SendGrid ([http://loader.io/](http://loader.io/)) that
lets you load test your web apps with thousands of concurrent connections.

~~~
gizzlon
Thanks..

I wonder if there's a marked for (helping to) optimizing sites and web-apps..

------
gizzlon
This is great for hipsters who want to start listening to a band before
they're popular :)

Since the chances are kind of slim, you'd have to listen to a lot..

~~~
jbrooksuk
Thou shalt not stop liking a band just because they have become popular.[1]

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk)

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Yeah, you just gotta tough it out; eventually, _every_ band becomes unpopular
again ;)

------
test1235
There probably a very good reason why people don't listen to those songs ;)

~~~
zimpenfish
Well, I can vouch for Dimitris Arapakis being a bit hard going.

Imagine a half speed version of Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn mating with a Klezmer
band and you'd be about right.

~~~
Joeboy
> Imagine a half speed version of Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn mating with a Klezmer
> band and you'd be about right.

Thanks, I will definitely be checking this out later.

------
FigBug
When DistroKid launched, I put a song on iTunes, Amazon and Spotiy. So far it
has had no sales, but 3 streams, earning me 2 cents.

I highly suggest everybody streams 'Goatsemon - Penis Bird' or buys it on
Amazon. [http://www.amazon.com/Penis-Bird-
Explicit/dp/B00FQS30W6](http://www.amazon.com/Penis-Bird-
Explicit/dp/B00FQS30W6)

~~~
samweinberg
I'd rather download it off the Pirate Bay.

~~~
FigBug
I just checked, it's not there. But it is on YouTube and my old Geocities page
has been mirrored. You could find it if you wanted too, but it's not worth the
effort.

------
wiremine
Spotify has around 20 million songs [1], so around 20% of songs are never
played.

Two random questions:

\- How much is Spotify paying to host those unplayed songs?

\- How many of songs have a small number of plays? (< 5 plays, for example)?

[1]
[http://press.spotify.com/us/information/](http://press.spotify.com/us/information/)

~~~
drharris
Storage is cheap with digital music. Even assuming 10 MB/song, you're looking
at 40TB, less than $4k/mo on S3. It's not trivial, but it's probably a drop in
the bucket compared to their other costs. Realistically the file sizes are
much less than 10MB.

~~~
janinge
They have multiple encodes in various qualities for each title too, though.

~~~
lotyrin
Do they produce these from the source audio _before_ they're listened to
though?

------
ctdonath
4M? Interesting. One of the recurring themes of "long tail" discussions is
that _everything_ is requested at least once every month or so. Would like
more consideration of why that's not the case here.

~~~
MrRage
I was in a band in my college years that played this "indie / experimental"
instrumental rock. We only played maybe a dozen shows that were sparsely
attended. There's one show we played that had at least 50-100 people, but that
was because we opened for a semi-popular local band. In 2003-2004, just about
when I left the band, we recorded an album in on of the band member's bedroom.
I doubt more than a handful of people have ever listened to it.

This album is on Spotify. If it has any listens it's probably because I
listened to it, or maybe another one of the former band members did.

~~~
techtalsky
Alright what is it. Now I want to hear it.

~~~
MrRage
Album is _Hurt Seconds_ by The Shy Trafficker. I'll warn you that it's a long
poorly recorded slog. There's a couple songs with some vocals but most of it
is instrumental. Instrumental rock tends to be pretty unpopular I've found so
I felt like the "warning" was needed.

~~~
techtalsky
Well Explosions in the Sky do pretty well.

------
jsumrall
Fun times listening to:

Lesson 7: Education and Government part 5 by Morris Schreiber

------
brokenparser
It would be nice to have this as a real Spotify app, they're written in HTML5
so it's pretty easy to do.

------
philipb
"Sorry, we're not available where you are. Leave your email to stay tuned for
good news."

Thanks Forgotify!

~~~
kissickas
I really wanted to listen to the first random song, as well! What is the "I
have Spotify" button for? It doesn't work for me... I was hoping that would
let me log into my (US) account without being in the country, but nothing
happens when I click it.

------
defcon84
i only get Indian music :p

~~~
jessevanhouten
Getting mainly german schlagers here

~~~
nyrina
Mexican music here.

~~~
hoektoe
Service Unavailable music here

~~~
honestcoyote
I love that stuff.

The 404's playing their 808's, buzzing happily into oblivion.

------
tehwalrus
I got a cool looking jazz trumpet piece, but it seems to want me to sign up
for a Spotify account. I guess I should have known, I'm just too used to sound
cloud.

------
treskot
HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

------
wyclif
503 Error.

------
archemike_
I was going to listen then I saw how the extension was Coldfusion...

------
barlescabbage
Surprisingly, just heard a song that I loved on it,
[http://open.spotify.com/track/6cZ1tXMm5BaYQzddgcY7W9](http://open.spotify.com/track/6cZ1tXMm5BaYQzddgcY7W9)

