While sadly it’s no longer possible to DJ directly with Spotify (although there are workarounds), a large number of us still keep a Spotify account for general streaming and music discovery, with its Release Radar weekly playlist being a first port of call for many of us looking for new tunes to add to our DJ collections.
Now Tracknack, a dedicated music discovery service, aims to make uncovering great new music on Spotify easier. It does so by combining the user’s own data from Spotify with much deeper metadata from Discogs, to produce a regular personalised playlist that goes way further than anything Spotify produces.
Wait, isn’t that what Release Radar is?
While Spotify’s own auto-generated Release Radar playlist is a good start, Tracknack’s developer says the new service improves on Release Radar in a whole host of ways, which it can do because it draws on the much richer metadata of Discogs.
Like Release Radar, Tracknack watches your follows and listening history. But it does a whole host of additional things too. For instance, it lets you specifically follow labels and producers you’re interested in; auto-filter your list to clean out old tracks; apply text filters (eg exclude “radio edit”); specify the inclusion or exclusion of singles/EPs, albums and compilations; and choose how regularly the Tracknack list is updated.
There’s also no limit to list size – and crucially, Tracknack lists are free from the inclusion of tracks paid for by the record labels.
A user’s Tracknack list appears as a playlist automatically on Spotify just like Release Radar does, and the service also emails the user with a personalised email containing info about the new music waiting for them inside Spotify.
Read this next: The Playlist Pyramid – How To Build A DJ Music Collection To Be Proud Of
We’ve had a quick play – the service runs via a clean, well thought-out website where you log in and manage the preferences around your list, and it is indeed exciting to receive a list that feels like it’s much more tailored to you than Release Radar.
In short – if you are worried about missing good new music, or you struggle to find tunes you like, it’s definitely worth a look.
How to try it
Tracknack is free to try with up to 10 “follows” so you can see if it will be a good match for you – but if you like it, you will want to subscribe, as the free version is too limited for serious use. It’s priced at $5/month if paid annually or $6 a month otherwise – which if it helps you discover even a single new track per week for your collection (that you wouldn’t otherwise have found), seems like a no-brainer to us.
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Phil Morse
