Overview and Discovery

First off, Roon is outstanding, easily the most intuitive and useful music software that I’ve ever used. Two features that I’ve grown quickly to enjoy are the Overview screen and Discovery screen. I wonder that, with a few minor improvements, they couldn’t be even more useful.

  • On the Overview screen, featured artists should be limited to artists with more than just a few songs in a user’s library. I’m more likely to want to listen to an artist when I have at least an album or two of their work. One song means they’re just on a compilation, which basically means nothing.
  • Along with “Recently Added” albums, why not have a pane of featured albums, perhaps randomly selected with a thumb on the scale in favor of favorited albums?
  • Perhaps it could be possible have multiple panes of featured albums, one per genre selected by the user: e.g., “Featured Jazz Albums,” “Featured Experimental Ambient Albums,” etc.
  • Having reviews and artist overview essays in Roon is just wonderful. Why not surface on the Overview screen a review or artist essay, with the first couple sentences as an enticement to keep reading and perhaps listen?
  • Does anyone use Tidal’s “New Albums” or “Top Albums” pane? I doubt that the audience to which these lists are geared overlaps much with Roon’s user base. For me, at least, neither has had a single item of interest.
  • Tidal’s “Recommended Playlists” pane is OK, but hardly ever updates. Why not also include recommended artists and recommended albums from Tidal?
  • It would be neat (although perhaps not easily implemented) to have a pane of albums (via Tidal) recently reviewed on, say, NME, Pitchfork, RS, or some other publication, selectable by the reader.

Anyway, just a few thoughts, inspired by Roon’s excellence and promise.