Recommendations for me if I like AC/DC Back in Black
On what universe would the Eagles and Michael Jackson be recommended if you like AC/DC?
.sjb
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Very similar over here.
Interesting. I have no AC/DC albums and don’t play them. But I am not uninterested in Metal and there are a few bands like Metallica I do play. So when I brought up Back in Black from Qobuz initially roon did recommend Metallica and a few other metal bands I might be interested in. So I started looking on Qobuz. To my surprise, within a few minutes the recommendations of related albums not in my library were all gone and replaced with mostly unrelated recommendations that happened to be in my library like Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Bowie, Eagles, Michael Jackson etc. Very strange.
I wonder if release date plays a part. These are all '76 - '84 (sjb’s post), it’s a fairly big window I know but I suspect you have music in your library you consider more similar that was released after 1984?
These are all popular albums by the respective artists and I realise the likelihood is they will be in your library if you like the artist, but are they looking at popularity rather than sonically similar releases?
I don’t have Roon running but I checked Plexamp.
I have The Wall, Eliminator, Dire Straits, Blizzard of Ozz and many Queen releases in my library mentioned below but none are recommended.
If I look at sonically similar releases to The Wall, it only lists one in my library:
I’d expect Roon to do a better job with streaming services included.
Nope Valence having its own mind again. Been smoking something dodgy again.
Mine has Queen-Best of, ZZ Top-Elimator, Van Halen-Van Halen, Eagles-Hotel California, MJ- Thriller, David Bowie-Let’s Dance, Fleetwood Mac- Rumours, Pink Floyd-TheWall all the same as @tripleCrotchet Feels like its choices are based on classic rock/pop albums not the style of music. I don’t have much heavy rock, metal nor this album.
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The section is called: “If you like…”. This is somewhat vague and I believe it can be interpreted in many different ways.
Additional sections on the album page are “Recommended for you” and “Similar Albums”, each of which seems to give me results that are a lot closer to the selected album than what the “If you like” section is showing.
Looking at all this, I would interpret the “If you like” as listing albums that, for many different reasons could, but also might not be interesting for you.
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They all seem to be from roughly the same small release date window and many of them also have “pop/rock” genres so that gives roon a wide scope to over-write individual listening patterns with collective user-base listening patterns. I saw roon doing that, replacing its initial recommendations that were very similar to Plexamp’s sonically similar above with the unrelated but “popular” recommendations we all seem to be getting. Surely roon cannot be actively rejecting individual preferences?
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Machine says no we cant have freedom of choice. I never saw it change for me instanlty came up with those albums.
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I don’t have “if you like” section 
But, I have “Similar Albums”
AC/DC - Razor Edge
GNR - Appetite for Destruction
Metallica - Black Album
Nirvana - Nevermind
Led Zeppelin IV
Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
Deep Purple - Machine Head
That looks like what I was initially offered before roon changed its mind. I wonder if the same thing happens for you.
Hilariously it’s now changed the albums shown. So it’s definitely random, now have U2, GnR, Toto and Bon Jovi. So someone’s likely played those following on from this album.
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They’re pretty bad suggestions if you ask me. I don’t really get the idea of recommending crap everyone’s already heard but alas.
“If you’re interested in Metallica, you might like AC/DC or Iron Maiden”, isn’t a recommendation of any value, everyone who would be interested in one, probably is aware of the other. These recommendations are often highly popular releases, it’s just illogical to think there would be a usefulness here.
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That sums up most of Roons recommendations from my experience. NRFY is the worst of the lot.
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Same on my box.
Gosh I hope that’s wrong? Valence and it’s supposed virtues with discovery is more or less the only use case I have for Roon… at least the application that costs $15-per month.
You talking about New Recommended For You?
Yeah, I mean, it seems to look at your top artists by plays, sees if any of them have recent releases and then might pad things out with your top ‘genres’ (played, not library), most popular recent releases.
I have Qobuz connected to my Roon so I can’t speak for someone whose local only.
Any word from Roon devs about how they build those results in NRFY?
They also hang around and don’t change for weeks at a time. Its suggestions sometimes are ok but the time they pop up I have already listened to them and if liked bought and added to my library. This doesn’t seem to affect them hanging around like a bad smell.
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The best NRFY I have ever seen was with Spotify, I unsubscribed when the promised lossless service deadline passed and they said nothing. I found many new and obscure bands that way.
Finding new music now takes more effort.
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Yeah, for whatever reason they don’t do any exclusion based on ‘user already listened to / interacted with this entity’ which is… I dunno, it’s an oversight I guess.
Like in my own system, I loosely keep track of whatever I interact with, and that partially influences what I display in views like this, specifically to get rid of the ‘why do I keep seeing this entity’ issue.
Id like to go further than this, the ‘netflix’ approach, and I have some plumbing for that in place but I’m not totally sure if the pay-off is worth it.
It always was charmingly unstructured, but I was willing to pay to make it less of a time sink. But that’s how it goes. My daughter is big with the Spotify algorithm, and it’s actually kind of cool to scope what she is in to.
I needn’t whine, but I wish Roon was truly the go-to for the music collection. Maybe over the hill…