Spotify Updates Discover Weekly Playlist with Personalized Genre Controls

Spotify is rolling out a major update to its Discover Weekly playlist, adding genre customization tools for Premium users to shape their music recommendations. Since its launch a decade ago, Discover Weekly has become well-known for automatically delivering fresh song suggestions every Monday. Now, listeners can influence those recommendations more directly—ushering in a new era of user agency on the platform.

New Genre Controls Enhance Personalization

With the new update, Spotify Premium subscribers will find genre filters at the top of their Discover Weekly playlist. These controls allow users to nudge the playlist toward specific genres they are interested in exploring. For example, a user who predominantly listens to 80s rock but wants to hear more K-pop can now select both genres, and the playlist will adapt accordingly. This move is designed to help users discover not only more of what they already love, but also dip into new musical territories.

Giving Users More Power Over the Algorithm

Spotify has streamed over 100 billion tracks through Discover Weekly, with 77% of those plays going to emerging artists. The new controls build on Spotify’s recent efforts to give listeners greater influence over their playlists and recommendations. Recent updates include the ability to modify the listening queue—so users can see upcoming Spotify recommendations and adjust them—and the new feature to “snooze” songs, temporarily hiding tracks for 30 days without removing them forever.

To try the new genre controls, Premium users can open the "Made for You" hub, select Discover Weekly, and—if using the latest app version—find the controls at the top of the playlist.

Deep Founder Analysis

Why it matters

This shift illustrates the growing demand for personalization and control in digital platforms—a trend highly relevant to any startup building user-facing products. By moving away from opaque, one-size-fits-all algorithms and offering users real agency, Spotify is responding to consumer expectations of transparency and customization. For founders, this signals the importance of designing products that empower users and make algorithmic decision-making more participatory.

Risks & opportunities

One risk is that granular controls may overwhelm or confuse users not interested in tweaking algorithms. However, if executed well, these features foster deeper loyalty and engagement. Market opportunities also arise for startups that can offer innovative personalization features—especially in domains such as media, e-commerce, learning, and even B2B SaaS. Historically, streaming competitors that ignored user customization (e.g., Pandora’s slow innovation in personalization) lost ground to those with more adaptable experience.

Startup idea or application

This development suggests room for a B2B white-label tool that enables media and commerce platforms to add real-time, user-facing controls to their recommendation engines. For instance, a startup could offer plug-and-play modules letting users fine-tune news, video, or product feeds by topic, style, or mood—and provide analytics to measure engagement uplift.

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