How to use Spotify's radio magic to level up your personal playlists

Spotify prides itself on its playlist prowess. There's a reason that Spotify's Home tab is covered in playlists rather than just popular songs and albums like most music apps. A good, long, curated playlist can hit all the right spots even better than Spotify's radio stations, but if you're having a little trouble fleshing out your budding playlists, never fear!

Spotify Radio is here to make your playlists pop.

Spotify offers a few recommended songs at the bottom of every playlist but only five songs at a time, and you really only have three options with these recommendations: tap the song to listen to it; tap the Add button to stick it in the playlist; or, hit Refresh at the bottom to replace them with a new set of five. If you want some real recommendations in some real numbers, you should turn to Playlist Radio.

Playlist Radio will turn your playlist into your own personal radio station, playing more songs from the artists and albums in the playlist as well as pulling in music based on the genres of the playlist. While you listen to Playlist Radio, you can judge how the song will sound alongside your playlist's other tracks, which will occasionally come up in the radio's rotation.

More importantly, you can thumbs tracks up and down as you go to refine both the station's algorithms and the recommendations for songs to add to your playlist. If I'm looking to build a playlist out that's sparse, I'll start up Playlist Radio and rate each and every song that comes up in the rotation. I may not listen to the whole song each time, but I will rate each and every song, see if it's worth adding to my playlist, and then keep going until my playlist seems full enough or I'm out of time.

Another benefit of using Playlist Radio to work your way through recommendations is that you get the full menu of options on the playback window, so an album comes up that you want to further explore, you can View Album or View Artist before you Add to Playlist. If you're looking for more songs to compliment a particular track, you can start a Song Radio and proceed the same way you would with Playlist Radio.

Play and rate

Have you been using Playlist Radio to improve your playlists in Spotify, or do you curate your playlists the old-fashioned way? Have you been perfecting any playlists you're ready to share with the world? Let us hear them in the comments below.

Want to move to Spotify from your current streaming service? Here's how to get started

Ara Wagoner

Ara Wagoner was a staff writer at Android Central. She themes phones and pokes YouTube Music with a stick. When she's not writing about cases, Chromebooks, or customization, she's wandering around Walt Disney World. If you see her without headphones, RUN. You can follow her on Twitter at @arawagco.