I’ve used Spotify for more than a decade, and during that time, I’ve seen countless features come and go. Some removed features even return once they’ve been tweaked and refined.
Still, Spotify can remove features without warning, and once they’re gone, I want them back again.
1 Spotify Playlist Radio
I loved Spotify’s Playlist Radio function. Just as you can now create a radio station from a song, artist, or genre, you could also create a unique radio station from any playlist. It was the perfect option for creating a personal radio station based on a broader selection of music rather than those more specific options that still exist.
Playlist Radio was removed in 2023, around the same time Spotify’s Smart Shuffle began appearing on more playlists. But Smart Shuffle pales in comparison to Playlist Radio, which adds a new song to your playlist every four songs or so rather than a whole new playlist with new music.
2 Spotify Running
Spotify Running is another feature I’d love to see again. In short, you switched Spotify Running mode on, and it would beat match to your pace. Amazing, right? Barely any app or service has even attempted this since then, and it’s beyond me why this is the case.
You can attempt to recreate specialized running playlists using Spotify’s niche mix mode, which builds a unique playlist on almost anything you want. In this case, you could create a “165 bpm mix” if that’s your rough running pace (or what you’re aiming for). Just type the required BPM into the Spotify search bar, and the Mix option should appear.
3 Single Click to Find Current Playing Song
Why, Spotify, why did you remove this extremely useful and supremely basic function?
Well, I know the answer: to unify the user experience process across Spotify’s mobile and desktop apps. But by doing so, desktop users now have to click through the Now Playing sidebar to find the currenty playing track, rather than just clicking the song name, album name, or cover art.
I know, it’s a tiny change. But there is no need to “unify” this experience, especially since it makes the desktop experience worse. I’m not alone in this irritation: this Spotify Community post has hundreds of responses and is multiple pages long, each person equally bamboozled by Spotify’s decision.
4 Thumbs Down to Remove a Song
Remember how easy it was to remove a song from a playlist or your overall “Listening Profile”? There was a thumbs up and a thumbs down; you can image what they did.
Spotify has attempted to replicate this behavior in two ways, neither of which works as well. First, you can use the Hide icon to remove a song from a playlist. The issue with this is that it only removes from your current play-through. Next time you fire up the same playlist or radio station, that hidden song will be back there once again. As per this Spotify Community post from an official Spotify account:
Currently there is no way to permanently block or hide a song. What you can do is block the artist profile if you really don’t like their music. This way all content from that artist will be skipped.
The other option is to exclude a playlist from your Listening Profile to stop it getting mixed into your algorithm. This similarly irritating because you’re unlikely to remember to do this each time, and again, it focuses on a whole selection of music rather than a single track you don’t want to hear. It cannot be that difficult to block out a single track, Spotify.
5 Spotify App Finder
Now, this goes back a good few years, but Spotify had an integrated app platform where you could find all manner of extensions and fun tools. Spotify apps have a bunch of functionality, like this Spotify app that plays a completely random song or these Spotify apps that show your listening statistics.
But tracking these apps down isn’t always easy, especially since half the time, you’re not sure what apps and extensions even exist. Having a single Spotify app store would unify the experience and make it easy to find these interesting, experience-boosting apps.
