How does Discover Weekly work? We speak with Music Hacker Hall of Fame inductee Paul Lamere, part of the team that created Spotify’s Discover Weekly service. Discovery Weekly automatically creates a playlist of 30 new songs for you to discover each week. We learn about its early roots in the Echo Nest platform, how it works today and some tips for listeners to optimize their own weekly discoveries.

We talk through the upsides and the downsides of computer-generated playlists. While it’s almost as is if we all  have our own personal music guru telling us what we should listen to next, how does a fresh new artist get a share of our attention and break onto the scene? How are biases introduced that skew playlists towards, say, male artists? Paul has a language for understanding our musical listening habits, like: ‘tilt’ (how much we lean into new vs. old familiar tracks) and ‘functional music’ (what we listen to passively while perhaps working, driving or cooking).

We discuss some of Paul’s music hacks including Boil the Frog, which lets you create a playlist of tracks that gradually takes you from one music style to another. You can try it yourself at: http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com More of his musings and legendary music hacks can be found on his blog, Music Machinery http://musicmachinery.com

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