Spotify wishlist: 10 features I’d like to see

I’m a genuine fan of Spotify. I don’t just mean the convenience and vast song library that could describe many music streaming services, I’m talking about the innovative features, handy recommendations, and other things that make it a fairly polished product. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of room for improvement, especially considering the cost of the Premium plan. I’m paying Spotify enough of my money, so the developers can also have my two cents on what could be better. To that end, here’s my wishlist of ten Spotify features I’d like to see introduced.

I’m just talking about Spotify Premium in this rundown. I had the free version of Spotify for a long time, so I know how maddening it is. I eventually relented and started paying, and that’s exactly the point. It’s meant to tease you enough to want the service but annoy you enough that you end up going Premium. It’s deliberately limited, so suggesting improvements to it is pointless. Spotify probably also has reasons for not yet implementing any of the features I’m about to suggest to the Premium service, but whatever they may be, they’re not about extracting more cash from me.

1. Delete listened history

It makes zero sense that you can’t remove a song from your listened history. I get that Spotify might want it to be an accurate reflection of everything you’ve played, but it’s hardly likely to be key evidence in a trial. Even if it were, Spotify actually keeps a detailed list of what you’ve listened to — you can request it on the website. Web browsers let us delete history, so I don’t see why it would be so difficult for Spotify to do the same.

I don’t mind embarrassing songs showing up in my Recently Played list, but it’s how they then feed Spotify’s algorithms that bugs me. Even if you remove those songs from your taste profile, they can still show up in the recommendations on your home screen. My friend could send me some trash track, or my voice assistant could mishear me, and I’m stuck with Spotify pushing that song at me for a while. It’s madness.

Failing the above, at least let me reorder or remove stuff from my home screen. I get that Spotify wants to push me recommendations, and I also get that this may be more of a cynical attempt to keep me streaming as long as possible than the kindness of bringing more music to my life. Fine, whatever. But where’s the harm in letting me change it? Even replacing a recommendation I’ve removed with a different one would be progress, but I can’t even remove them to begin with.

3. Fewer cover suggestions

Some of the items on my wishlist are just settings I’d like to add. Everyone enjoys music streaming in their own way, and I’m not here to step on any toes, but a bit more individual control would be nice.

In my case, I’d like the option to stop Spotify from recommending alternative versions of the same song to me. If I play a track by an artist, it’s generally because I want to hear that artist’s rendition of it. On the rare occasion that I’m curious about alternative versions of the same tune, I’m happy to go looking for them. I don’t want the Spotify algorithm trying to push every remix, cover, acoustic version, and whatever else on me. Give me something new.

Why on earth can I not see all of an artist’s songs in one comprehensive tracklist? It seems like such a basic request. Sure, you can search for the song title, go find it in the album if you happen to know which one it’s on, look in the ‘This Is’ playlist, etc, but there’s no reason why it should even take that much effort.

I mentioned at the top that Spotify might have reasons for doing or not doing the things it does, but the lack of this type of feature really makes you question the app’s approach. Maybe there’s some subtle commercial value in not offering something so fundamental, but it isn’t apparent.

5. Regular discography

If you go to an artist’s discography, you’re shown a list of every album they’ve released, and that’s often not what you really want. It could be done with a filter, but I wish there was a way to show just the regular studio albums from that band or artist rather than every remastered, anniversary, live, and compilation album.

You can see a glaring example of this setting being needed if you check out the discography of The Rolling Stones. Their last two regular studio albums were Hackney Diamonds in 2023, and Blue & Lonesome in 2016, but the Spotify discography for the iconic group shows a whopping 17 albums between the two. Let me filter those out.

I’d love a setting for the mobile Spotify app to open on my Library as I always go straight there anyway. Alternatively, I’d be happy enough if I could create a shortcut to go straight there on my phone’s home screen. Either would be better than going through the Spotify home page each time when I’m rarely in the mood for recommendations.

It would also be nice if the display of the library could remain as I leave it. I’m personally always going to my playlists once I’m on the main library page, which means that I have to tap Library in the bottom right then Playlists in the top left every time I open the app. That might only take a few moments each time but it still frutstrates me when there are easy solutions that Spotify could implement.

7. Search credits

You can search by several categories on Spotify, including song lyrics. That’s cool and all, but if the app can scour that much text in your search, why will it not allow you to search for anyone credited on a track, outside of the listed artists? If you enjoyed certain elements of a tune and want to look up other work that the lyric writer or the producer was involved in, you can’t do it.

Some of the people in the credits have profiles on the Spotify website. A white arrow next to their name in the credits takes you to their profile page, where you can see more of their work listed. But they’re in the minority, and at that point, you might as well just Google them to find out more. Letting me search them directly in the Spotify app should be a no-brainer.

I can shuffle the tracks on one album, but I’d like to be able to choose three albums and shuffle the songs on all of them. It’s not a lot to ask, and it presumably wouldn’t be hard for Spotify to do. The same goes for playlists — perhaps I want to listen to randomized songs from a couple of my favorite lists.

I know there are simple workarounds for this. I could combine all the tracks into one playlist to shuffle, or I could manually add them to my queue. But I’d like it to be even easier.

9. Playlist folders on mobile

As an overly organized person, I like the fact that the desktop version of Spotify allows you to create playlist folders. If you have a ton of random playlists, you can compartmentalize them with folders by genre, era, or whatever.

Then you go to the mobile Spotify app, and the folders are gone. Why? Please get on it, devs.

10. Translated lyrics

I realized that my Spotify features wishlist has largely turned into an old-man-shouts-at-cloud rant, so I’ll end on a slightly more positive note. I don’t know how feasible it would be, but I think it would be pretty cool to be able to see translations of lyrics in different languages. Sometimes you hear a track you like the sound of, but you don’t know what the artist is singing about. It would be fun to be able to see a translation within the app, even if it isn’t perfect. Let’s face it, some song lyrics are so colloquial that they might be difficult to translate.

That’s my Spotify features wishlist, but I’m just one guy with a limited imagination and bad taste in music. If you have any more fun or innovative suggestions for features that you’d like Spotify to introduce, drop them in the comments below!