- Deezer’s Flow Tuner just got a big upgrade
- Now you can ban, or encourage, certain genres depending on what you like
- AI slop is also omitted
Recently, I’ve been having a big Spotify problem — the algo-generated playlists insist on dropping random pop artists into my thoroughly non-pop playlists. Sorry, Spotify, but Chappell Roan and Olivia Dean aren’t 90s folk rock.
So, is Deezer coming to the rescue?
The French music streaming service (a subscription platform from France, not just for Guetta and Daft Punk) is rolling out an upgrade to its Flow Tuner feature, which creates a custom playlist based on your listening.
Now, you can nudge Flow Tuner in the right direction, which should help you tweak the playlist generator in the right direction. The key bit is that you can now deactivate certain genres or subgenres, forbidding Flow from adding them to the playlist — and you can reactivate them later, if you decide your metal embargo has ended.
You can also add genres you’ve not listened to before, if you want to discover something new. The Flow playlist will reflect your changes immediately.
Another step in the road
Plenty of streaming services give you the illusion of power over your algorithm-built playlists. Apple Music lets you thumbs-down songs you’d like to hear less often, though what this actually does with that information is anyone’s guess. Spotify lets you exclude songs from your ‘taste profile’ though that seems to only remove one song, and only from the ‘made for you’ lists.
Deezer’s Flow Tuner, then, gives you much more control over the playlists you get given. If you like using these features to discover new music, it’ll be a lovely little change – and stop you having Roan or Dean lumped in with 90s rock.
Using the feature is easy: when you’re creating a Flow, the app will automatically ask you which genres to include (or not). The tool seems to have quite a few subgenres, so you should be able to wrangle the playlist to your liking despite how loose genre labels can be.
We rate Deezer as the best music streaming service for features, with quizzes, collaborative playlist building tools and music recognition tools that you don’t get in its rivals. This new change to Flow Tuner sounds like it’s just the next step of many, in making the algorithmically-generated playlist tool world-class.
Case in point? AI-generated tracks are banned from Flow Tuner, with Deezer’s tools automatically excluding them. Less slop, more rock? Easily the most tempting reason to switch from Spotify I’ve heard in some time…

The best music players for all budgets
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course, you can also follow TechRadar on YouTube and TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/pM7jspSisTfcoKBac9zEwn-1200-80.jpg
Source link
tom.bedford@hotmail.co.uk (Tom Bedford)




