I will never forget my friend Jose’s wonderful answer to the question “What do you listen to?”: “I listen to everything. From ‘Mutter’ to ‘Sehnsucht’ or ‘Reise, Reise'”. We won’t kid ourselves, everyone has their own taste. We almost always come back to timeless songs that we love and can’t stop listening to on loop. But From time to time you should open your mind to discover new groups. It’s not easy, I know. That’s why I’m leaving my Spotify experience here for you to discover new songs.

I’ve been paying for Spotify Premium my entire life. At least 15 years. I always say it’s the most stable relationship I’ve ever had. I listen to music at least eight hours a day while I work. I’ve had a broken record for weeks now, but fortunately, I’ve gotten used to some of the tools the streaming service offers to find different music. Always within limits, to be honest.

From the ‘Search’ tab we can directly access the genre and greatest hits lists. Among all these special lists, there are two that I particularly like.

The first of these is ‘Discovery Weekly’. Perhaps it is the playlist with the algorithm most tuned to our tastes. Every Monday we’ll have a list of 30 songs we might like and some we haven’t heard yet. There’s everything here, from songs by bands we’ve rarely heard of to new bands similar to the ones we usually listen to. These aren’t new songs, just basic songs that for whatever reason we haven’t listened to until we die.

I love publishing Discovery Weekly He’s playing a song that’s already familiar to me, but I don’t know the name.. It’s those little moments of excitement that make it worth it.

The second of the suggested lists that I use most is ‘News Radar’. we found it here Every Friday, some of the bands I listen to have new songs released.. The classic single from a new album or a band you haven’t heard in a while that just happens to come back to life decades after the grave.

There is also the manual option, to rediscover old albums from a favorite artist’s discography. Most of the time we listened to some songs a lot but not the whole album. ‘British Steel’ is an epic album beyond ‘Breaking the Law’.

If it’s time to change bands, Spotify’s indispensable option is “Your fans are listening too.” You can choose one of your favorite groups and similar groups will be recommended to you. It is good for discovering new groups. I love when you suggested a new band I remember seeing on a festival poster.

Spotify’s algorithm is very well trained and I can’t forget two functions that generally get this pretty accurate. The first is “Radio” based on a specific artist. It’s perfect when you want to hear a very specific band, but it doesn’t have to be 100% that band. Overall, if I hear an Airbourne song on ACDC radio I don’t think I’d even notice it.

The other option is “Shuffle”. Here Spotify uses it as an all-encompassing tool. It’s a mix of everything we want. We probably have the Daily Mix, which is very old, from one to three, but Daily Mix 4, 5 or 6 is ideal for listening to songs you usually like but don’t repeat too much.

There are many more mixes throughout the app. By genre, by era, by mood… Sometimes I’ll get caught up in a suggestive title of one of these mixes and try to see how it goes.

It’s something I like too, because I’m a nostalgic person after all, ‘Time Capsule’ brings you back songs you listened to when you were youngBecause even though it’s hard for us to accept it, they’re still our favorites.

And I leave the playlists for last. Everyone will have their own collection here. Spotify, which is also a social network, allows us to share playlists with our friends and, in some cases, see what our acquaintances are listening to.

We also have a very good recommendation algorithm when creating the lists. As you add new songs to the list, it recommends similar ones. With this we can outline and create very specific lists from scratch. This is yes, this is no. The interface is very simple and the truth is that you can create very interesting lists in a few minutes.

Speaking of lists, don’t miss the lists for festivals. When I have a concert or festival coming up, I always put it on a playlist to find out what the best songs are from the bands that will be playing. The headliners are usually well-known, but there are always some bands that you don’t know about and they end up being quite the discovery.

These are my tricks and my way of discovering music, but of course each of you has your own method. Whatever the case may be, long live music.

On Xataka | Spotify: 32 tips (and some extras) to get the most out of the music service