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Slacker "Artist Channels"

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wayner

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,294
1,787
Toronto
Does anyone have any insight into how Slacker works when you search for an artist and then select that artist to create a channel?

Slacker then plays songs that are by that artist and other songs that are similar to that artist. I would have thought that it would play all songs by that artist but it seems to me that it only includes a handful of songs before repeating. For example, I have created a Rolling Stones channel. Slacker must have hundreds of Rolling Stones songs in its licensed catalog. But after a couple of hours I start getting repeats of songs that I have already heard. So it seems that they only use a very small subset of music by an artist when you are listening to an Artist channel.
 
Licensing?

I was shocked when "The Beatles Radio" stopped after a few days and said it had run out of selections. Just stopped cold after a song.

That hasn't happened before or since, even with more obscure "Ricardo Villalobos Radio."
 
I'm confused by and not too impressed with how these channels work. As a huge Rush fan, I selected Rush Radio. It plans a handful of Rush songs off of the same couple of albums. As for other artists, Slacker must assume Rush only existed from 1978-1981, because all of the songs it picks are from that time frame, and most of them range from bad to terrible. Come on, the band's been recording and touring almost non-stop for forty years.
 
We are all using freebie account, which is limited. May have something to do with it. Hope someone with premium slacker account chimes in so we can see if that improves. I don't use artist channels on any service.... The predictive algorithms for similar artists usually quite a reach.
 
As a huge Rush fan, I selected Rush Radio. It plans a handful of Rush songs off of the same couple of albums. As for other artists, Slacker must assume Rush only existed from 1978-1981, because all of the songs it picks are from that time frame, and most of them range from bad to terrible. Come on, the band's been recording and touring almost non-stop for forty years.
I don't know if you meant the non-Rush artists when referring to 78-81 but my Rush channel does play songs from a bit of a wider time frame as I am pretty sure that it occasionally play Working Man which was from their first album. Since I own a Red P85D Red Barchetta is my car's "theme song".

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We are all using freebie account, which is limited. May have something to do with it. Hope someone with premium slacker account chimes in so we can see if that improves.
I did sign up for a Premium account soon after I got my car but I didn't notice much difference in these artist channels so I cancelled it.
 
I'm confused by and not too impressed with how these channels work. As a huge Rush fan, I selected Rush Radio. It plans a handful of Rush songs off of the same couple of albums. As for other artists, Slacker must assume Rush only existed from 1978-1981, because all of the songs it picks are from that time frame, and most of them range from bad to terrible. Come on, the band's been recording and touring almost non-stop for forty years.

Slacker is also convinced that Rush fans have a deep abiding attachment to, among others, Kansas, ELO & Boston. Grrrr.
 
Some of my channels will do the same. It seems to be a combination of licensing issues plus their "similar songs" affinity engine. Put in "weird al yankovic" and you'll get a song from Weird Al, then a bunch of stand-up comedy routines. I would expect to get Weird Al, maybe mixed with Cledus T. Judd, Dr. Demento, etc.
 
When you create a channel on the web interface with a premium account, you can specifiy whether or not to include other artists. This is the main reason I bought the premium. It has a rather extensive collection of Rush songs, although it tends to feature better known tracks when the channel first comes up. If you listen to it for a while, you will hear most of their catalog represented.
 
I was curious...
Slacker Radio Plus -- (this is what Tesla provides us, right?) -- $3.99 / Month
Slacker Premium -- (thinking about it) -- $9.99 / Month

I'm currently playing with Amazon Prime Music, which offers to download tons of content to your Phone but of course is subject to Bluetooth fidelity. I actually haven't gotten off my lazy posterior to Rip any CDs to FLAC and try that upper-end of quality.

My listening ranges from Scruggs to Skrillex, and JS Bach to Blue Man Group, not to mention spoken material from Gabriel Iglesias to TED Talks... So I enjoy when Slacker suggests artists that I am not yet familiar with!
 
The account itself is a Plus account, but the Tesla app does some different stuff. If you use the credentials on their web page, you'll get all the plus features.

Actually, Tesla's implementation is slightly better than the standard Plus in some limited cases. For instance, you can't select a specific song with Plus, but Tesla does it (most of the time). With Premium, its pretty easy to set up specific albums or build custom playlists as well as the artist-only channels discussed upthread.