Dear Spotify: Only Post Music I Like on Facebook

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

Victor Hugo

Have you ever had this happen to you? You’re listening to your music on your iPhone on the bus or train, and it cycles to a song you know all the words to so you start singing along…aloud. Sometimes those songs aren’t the best to share, and you get a bit embarrassed afterwards. I know I’ve had my moments in the past, but nowadays I really don’t care. If it’s good enough to sing, it has to be somehow. You can find me doing this a ton when I drive.

As much as I love to let everyone know what I’m listening to, I kind of only let them know when they’re good. With Spotify, there isn’t such a filter. What ever I listen to, it gets posted on Facebook. This is happening a lot with articles also due to Facebook’s Open Graph. You can see whatever anyone is viewing on The Washington Post or The Guardian. Note, I said “view” and not “read.” If they just view the article for two seconds and close, it still shows their network that they “read” it and give an unconscious recommendation. This is similar to what Spotify is doing with music. I skip a lot of the music I don’t like, but low and behold — Facebook tells everyone I listened to it.

I really do want to share what I’m listening to with my friends and family, but I only want to share the music I feel is worth sharing. Sometimes on Spotify, I listen to lists just to find music, or just tune out. In this case, sometimes songs come up with K$sha or Justin Bieber and that’s shared with my network — and to me that doesn’t make any sense. I’m not a fan of either, so I wouldn’t want to share it.

It would be nice to have the ability to set a hotkey to post to Facebook when I hear a song I’d like to share on Spotify. This will allow me to listen to all the music I want and with a push of some keys, I can feature the songs I really like and share it accordingly with my network. Is that so much to ask?