Poor content recommendations on Thumbprint Radio

[jsharp74]

This is an issue on my thumbprint radio station. I followed the instructions to remove the bad seed stations, which appeared mysteriously, but it didn’t improve my station experience. I also went through my thumbs up and no songs from these genres have been liked. It’s playing 80’s/90’s pop and rock music. Each time I give it a thumbs down but it plays at least 4 songs before it moves to a new genre. The stations I have in my collection don’t include this music. Please help! It’s ruining my experience.

Moderator Edit: Edited title for clarity

[AdamPandora · Accepted solution]

@jsharp74 I created a separate thread for you since you are running into a different issue.

To clarify, it isn't possible to add additional seeds/variety to Thumbprint Radio.

Thumbprint Radio uses your thumbs to create a unique listening experience. By playing both thumbed-up and non-thumbed tracks from across all your stations, we hope to bring you lots of your favorites while sprinkling in some new finds in a seamless listening journey.

If the tracks you're hearing don't appeal to you, feel free to give them a Thumb Down on Thumbprint Radio. It won't affect that song's Thumb rating elsewhere, but it will stop Thumbprint Radio from playing that track.

You may also want to review your other stations and Thumbs, as they inform the content on your Thumbprint Radio.

You can:

1. Edit your individual stations to delete your Thumbs Up or Down, or delete the station entirely to remove it from your Thumbprint Radio mix.
2. Try giving more Thumbs Up on other stations besides your Thumbprint Radio (if you're hearing too many unfamiliar songs), or 
3. Give more Thumbs Up across your Pandora account (if your Thumbprint Radio is becoming repetitive).

Hope this helps!

[jsharp74]

Thanks for the reply. I have done all of these things, yet it continues to play crazy things, even after I give them a thumbs down. I can assure you I have never given instrumental movie scores a listen on Pandora, much less any thumbs up. I only have 3 stations and Thumbprint radio has always done a great job curating music based on my preferences. No one else has access to my account so it doesn't make sense that it would take 1 reggae station and 2 country stations to come up with 80's/90's pop and hip hop and instrumental movie scores! It's clear there is something wrong with the algorithm. I'm really bummed because Pandora has been my favorite streaming platform for years, but even FM stations don't throw in random instrumental elevator music so I'm going to have to switch platforms. 

[AdamPandora]

@jsharp74 The next time it happens, please give the out of place track that plays a thumbs down and write us back with the following:

• The date/time the out of place track(s) played
  
• The name(s) of the out of place artist(s) on the station.
  
• The title(s) of the out of place track(s) that played.
  
• Were you able to give the out of place track(s) a Thumbs down?

Also if possible, please grab a screenshot of the out of place track that plays, and send that in a reply to this message.

Thanks for the help!

[Chusa]

I've been having this exact same issue for months now.  It's exceptionally annoying.  Every day we have to thumbs down songs which don't fit.  And we have to thumbs down the same songs again and again.  I don't use my Pandora account outside of my Alexa devices - I think this was relevant the last time my Pandora account lost it's way.

It plays classical music, which I've never thumbs-upped and Disney show tunes.  And it's always about 3 or 4 songs that it tries which just don't fit.  

Any suggestions?

[AlyssaPandora]

Hey there, @Chusa. 👋

Sorry to hear that this is happening when you listen to your Thumbprint Radio. 

Could you provide a few more details about this issue?

The next time it happens, please give the out of place track that plays a thumbs down and write us back with the following:

• The date/time the out of place track(s) played
  
• The name(s) of the out of place artist(s) on the station.
  
• The title(s) of the out of place track(s) that played.
  
• Were you able to give the out of place track(s) a Thumbs down?

We can take a deeper look to see what's happening. Thanks for your help with this. 🎧

[Chusa]

On 6-29-2022:  11:37pm opus 15, opus 31 songs without words mendelson, 11:38pm Spanish dances.  

We thumbs downed all of 3 of them successfully.

[TannerPandora]

Hi @Chusa! Thanks for letting us know. I've passed this along to our engineering team to take a closer look at what may be happening.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

[berniehenrie]

Why all of a sudden do I get so many non-thumbprint songs showing up?

And, how do I stop it?

Moderator Edit: Edited title for clarity

[AdamPandora]

@berniehenrie I'd be happy to help with any questions you have, but I will need additional information to do so.

Can you explain your issue a bit further?

Is the problem that you aren't seeing as many tracks you've thumbed up on your Thumbprint Radio station?

The more details you're able to provide, the better equipped I'll be to help.

I look forward to hearing back.

[berniehenrie]

I have two concerns, first I show 1463 thumbs up and I would estimate that I get about 100 of those songs when I play on thumbprint. Secondly,  also very concerning is the fact that I get way too many songs that I never gave a thumbs up to.

I hope I explained this well enough.

Thank you for your response.

Bernie Henrie

[AdamPandora]

@berniehenrie Thanks for following up.

The next time you feel a poor song recommendation plays on Thumbprint Radio, can you write me back with the following?

• The name(s) of the artist(s).
• The title(s) of the track(s).
• Were you able to give the track(s) a Thumbs down?

Let me know, and I'll take a look.

[berniehenrie]

Thumbs down does work for me.

List of poor song recommendations that just happened:

1-Abends by Udo Jurgens

2-The learning by Big Noyd

3-instant Karma by John Lennon

4-A love that will last by Renee Olstead

Thank you for your help Bernie

[AdamPandora]

Thanks for following up with those examples, @berniehenrie.

I've added your feedback to the ticket we have open with the engineers who are looking into this.

Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

[Chusa]

So...  EVERY NIGHT we thumbs down about 12 or more songs - the minimum is 3.  They are generally in lots of 3 before it will finally get back to something tolerable.  I'm not certain why this continues to happen but at this rate, my number of disliked songs should far outweigh the ones I do like (which there's about 600 of those).  I don't listen to anything other than my  thumbprint radio thru my Amazon echo...  So I'm confused as to why it's picking so poorly on a daily basis.  Today in the app, in my thumbprint radio, it was playing a song inspired by 0 of my thumbs-upped songs.  How or why would this even happen? What would make it think that that's a good idea?

I also noticed that there are some songs that I like that are thumbs-down, I'm guessing that's because we get frustrated with this process of poor song picks and when there's a lull after 3 or so duds and when the song intro is quiet, we just start thumbsing down.

Has there been any progress into looking at this?  It's been about 20 days, which means that we've thumbs downed well over 60 songs, probably more like 120 or more and likely thumbs-upped 0.  This seems like me doing a lot of work instead of this service working for me.  It's quite frustrating on a daily basis. 

[AdamPandora]

@Chusa I definitely understand your frustration.

I've passed your additional feedback along to our engineering team so they can help look into this further.

Thanks again for all your patience with this.

[keduco520]

When you delete a Collection are the thumbs deleted? I'm deleting a bunch of old collections but it appears the Thumbs are still being utilized by the My Thumbprint Radio station. Anyway to delete some of th thumbs that thumbprint is using to curate the station?

[AdamPandora]

@keduco520 Deleting a station will remove the Thumbs Up left on that particular station from your total Thumbs Up count showing in your profile.

This being said, if you were to ever re-create the station after it is deleted, all of those Thumb ratings will be restored with the station.

So we do save those Thumbs for you on the back-end in the event you ever want to re-create the station.

Additionally, those thumbs will no longer affect your Thumbprint Radio after you've removed that station from your collection.

If the tracks you're hearing on Thumbprint Radio don't appeal to you, feel free to give them a Thumb Down on Thumbprint Radio. It won't affect that song's Thumb rating elsewhere, but it will stop Thumbprint Radio from playing that track.

You may also want to review your other stations and Thumbs, as they inform the content on your Thumbprint Radio.

You can:

1. Edit your individual stations to delete your Thumbs Up or Down, or delete the station entirely to remove it from your Thumbprint Radio mix.
2. Try giving more Thumbs Up on other stations besides your Thumbprint Radio (if you're hearing too many unfamiliar songs), or 
3. Give more Thumbs Up across your Pandora account (if your Thumbprint Radio is becoming repetitive).

Hope this helps!

[GordonPwn]

I also had such a problem. I liked the genres I was interested in. But when I disliked some artists, the radio offered me a similar one. Then I found advanced settings with mood and themes (on the road, at home, happy cleaning, party, video games, etc.). Now the algorithm has adjusted to me, but sometimes it surprises me with irrelevant tracks. I want many apps and websites to buy Vody for good recommendations. I read about this algorithm of the future. Imagine Vody will be able to understand the emotions of commentators, understand emojis and many things inaccessible to other AI.

Moderator Edit: Link sharing

[GME]

Has anyone noticed that Pandora has gotten more aggressive about suggesting songs for your Thumbprint station?  I find suggestions for Thumbprint annoying.  The station is intended to capture songs that I like.  I don't want Pandora suggesting songs for this station; let me  populate it with songs that I give "thumbs up" to on my other stations.  Also, it seems to me that Pandora is more aggressive in recommending songs for my Thumbprint station than it is for my other stations.