One of the key advantages that allows YouTube to maintain its leading position among global video platforms is its ability to create highly personalized recommendation algorithms for each user. This system not only works well on the main site, but also extends to YouTube Music, allowing users to enjoy the same personalized experience on the music streaming service.
YouTube Music launches new “Don’t recommend artists” button
However, the power of the algorithm also means that users must bear certain “passive acceptance” consequences. As long as you have listened to certain songs and watched certain videos, the system will automatically guess your preferences and continue to push similar content to you. This is convenient most of the time, but occasionally it can cause annoyance, such as when an artist you’ve long since stopped listening to suddenly appears on your playlist, or even an ex’s favorite band you’d rather never see again. The more you listen, the more the algorithm reinforces this direction, creating a cycle that is difficult to reverse.
In the past, YouTube Music offered few effective ways to prevent this. You can “dislike” a song, but that doesn’t block the entire artist; you can also adjust the playlist, but the algorithm will still work silently in the background. For many users, this is a long-standing but unresolved pain point.
However, this situation seems to be changing. According to Reddit user RouFGO in the r/YouTubeMusic subreddit, YouTube Music is currently testing a new “Don’t recommend an artist” button. The news was first published by Android Authority Reports indicate that this feature may be gradually rolled out to some users. Based on current user reports, this button will only appear in the recommended songs card on the YouTube Music homepage. In other words, you can only see it on the home page, not the play queue, playlists, or album pages. This is a bit paradoxical, because those “singers you don’t want to see again” often appear in the play queue or random play, rather than in the featured recommendations on the home page.
YOUTUBE FINALLY GAVE ME THE “DON’T RECOMMEND ARTIST” BUTTON!… Aaaaaaaand it’s trash.
by u/RouFGO in YoutubeMusic
Even so, this is still an important starting point. At least YouTube Music is finally starting to offer more granular control, allowing users to directly tell the system “I don’t want to see this artist anymore.” In my real-world testing, the button has appeared on the iOS version of YouTube Music, but is still missing on Android devices. What’s more interesting is that even on iOS, this button does not appear for every song, indicating that YouTube may still be conducting A/B testing, or gradually opening it to different user groups.
From a functional perspective, the current blocking mechanism is considered normal. When you select “Don’t recommend an artist”, a “Revert” button will briefly pop up on the screen, allowing you to quickly regret it. After that, the artist will no longer appear in your frequently viewed recommendation list. Although this feature is not perfect yet, it can at least effectively prevent certain content you no longer want to see from appearing repeatedly on the homepage.
However, there are currently some restrictions. For example, I couldn’t find any settings page where I could view a “list of blocked artists,” and there was no way to manage or unblock it in settings, which means that if you accidentally blocked an artist, your only remedy was to press “Undo” shortly after blocking. This isn’t surprising for a feature that’s still in beta, but YouTube Music will definitely need to add a more complete management interface to its settings in the future.
Overall, although the “Don’t Recommend Artist” button is currently only a small update, it symbolizes that YouTube Music has finally begun to face up to users’ needs for algorithm control. For users who have long been entangled with songs they don’t want to listen to, this feature is undoubtedly an improvement direction worth looking forward to.
Source: KOCPC Chinese