Next: Choose What to Play

Choose Your Next Record

Next helps you choose what to play from records you already own. You can ask for a genuine random pick or let Smart use your listening history and collection preferences to find something that fits.

You can give Next as much or as little direction as you want. Start with no filters for an open-ended choice, or narrow the selection by genre, personal tags, mood, and play history.

Next never recommends a wishlist-only record as something to play. Its choices come from your owned collection.

Random or Smart

Choose how Next should make the selection before choosing any optional filters.

Random

Random chooses from every owned record that fits your selections. Each eligible record has a chance to be picked.

Use Random when you want:

a genuine surprise,
a quick choice without analyzing your listening habits,
or a random record from a particular genre, tag, mood, or play-history window.

Random does not use DeeJay tokens.

Smart

Smart uses your listening history and collection preferences to rank the records that fit your selections. It considers your recent musical direction, broader listening taste, play frequency, play recency, favorites, ratings, and variety between artists.

Recent plays matter most when they form a clear musical pattern. If your recent listening is mixed, Smart relies more on the musical preferences visible across your collection and longer-term listening history.

Smart also tries to avoid repeating an artist from your recent sequence when other suitable choices are available.

The album selection itself is made from your DeepGrooves collection data. AI can then write the Why this pick explanation.

Choose a Genre

Genre is optional. Open the Genre picker and search the genres represented in your collection.

When you select a genre, Next only considers records with credible evidence that they belong to it. DeepGrooves can use your assigned genre information, trusted catalog details, and stored album profiles when evaluating the match.

This means a record can still qualify when its catalog genre is incomplete, but a weak influence should not be treated as the album's main genre.

Choose Any genre to remove the genre restriction.

Choose Personal Tags

Tags let your own organization guide the choice. The searchable Tags picker shows tags you have created and assigned to records in your collection.

Examples might include:

Sunday Morning
Party Records
Keep Close
Female Vocals
Deep Cuts
Road Trip
Needs Another Listen

Selecting a tag immediately limits Next to records carrying that tag. If you select several tags, a record may qualify by carrying any one of them.

Tags can be combined with Genre, Mood, and Play History. Tags are direct collection filters and do not use DeeJay tokens.

Choose a Mood

Mood is optional. It describes the kind of listening experience you want rather than a strict music category.

Mood	What it looks for
Chill	Calm, easygoing, low-pressure, or spacious records
Energetic	Propulsive, vigorous, urgent, or physically activating records
Groovy	Rhythmically compelling, pocket-oriented, or danceable records
Classic	Familiar, enduring, canon-minded, or tradition-rooted records
Deep	Immersive, exploratory, layered, or focused-listening records

Select a mood again to remove it.

Mood is evaluated from album-specific musical evidence. A Rock record is not automatically Energetic, and an older record is not automatically Classic.

Choose a Play-History Window

Play History controls how recently an eligible record may have been played.

Available choices include:

Any time
Never played
Not played in the last week
Not played in the last month
Not played in the last three months
Not played in the last six months
Not played in the last year

Use Never played to explore untouched records. Use a time window when you want to rediscover records without excluding everything you have heard before.

Combine Your Choices

Genre, Tags, Mood, and Play History work together.

For example, you can ask Next for:

a random Blues record,
a Smart pick tagged Sunday Morning,
an energetic Rock record not played in six months,
a groovy record tagged Party Records,
or any album you have never played.

Every active choice narrows the eligible pool. If the combination is too restrictive, Next may find no matching record.

Get a Pick

Select What's Next? in Smart mode or the Random action in Random mode.

The result card shows the selected album, artist, artwork, release details, and play-history information. Smart may also display Why this pick, which explains how the record fits your recent listening or broader taste.

Smart's explanation can take a few seconds to arrive after the record appears. The record has already been selected while the explanation is being written.

Why This Pick

The Why this pick paragraph is available for Smart selections when AI explanations are enabled.

It may describe:

the musical direction in your recent plays,
qualities the selected record shares with that direction,
useful connections to recent artists,
what the record adds to the current sequence,
and whether it is unplayed or has not been heard recently.

The explanation does not choose the album. It explains a selection that Next has already made.

Smart explanations use DeeJay tokens and share limited recent play-history and album evidence with AI. You can turn AI explanations off in Settings. Smart will continue selecting records, but the explanation area will not appear.

Act on a Pick

After Next chooses a record, you can take one of four actions.

Played It

Select Played It when you actually play the record. DeepGrooves updates its play count, last-played time, recent history, Listening Profile, and future Smart choices.

After recording the play, Next can continue the session with another selection.

Skip

Select Skip when the choice is valid but you do not want it right now. Next moves to another eligible record and avoids repeating the skipped record during the current session.

Never Suggest

Select Never Suggest when you do not want the record included in future Next recommendations. This does not remove the record from your collection.

Pick Another

Select Pick Another to keep the current filters and request another eligible record.

Start a New Session

Select New Session when you want to begin again.

A new session clears:

the current pick,
records already suggested during the session,
Random or Smart mode,
Genre,
Tags,
Mood,
and the Play History choice.

Recorded plays remain in your permanent listening history.

When Nothing Matches

Sometimes no owned record fits every active choice. Next will show the restrictions it could not satisfy and offer ways to loosen them.

You may be able to:

clear selected tags,
remove the Play History restriction,
try the genre without the mood,
try the mood without the genre,
or clear all filters.

Next does not silently ignore your choices or return an unrelated record merely to produce a result.

Listening Profile

Open Listening Profile near the bottom of the Next page to explore your listening activity.

The profile includes:

total recorded plays,
number of distinct albums played,
top genres,
top styles,
and top artists.

When AI explanations are enabled, the profile can also include a short introduction describing your established taste and the clearest direction in your 20 most recent plays.

The profile introduction uses DeeJay tokens and shares limited listening evidence with AI. DeepGrooves reuses the existing description while the underlying evidence remains unchanged. Recording another play allows the description to update.

DeeJay Tokens and Privacy

Random choices, filters, deterministic Smart ranking, Tags, session controls, and recording plays do not use DeeJay tokens.

DeeJay tokens are used for:

Smart's Why this pick explanation,
and the AI-written Listening Profile introduction.

These features may share bounded recent-listening and album evidence with AI. The Next page identifies this behavior, and you can disable it from Settings.

When disabled:

Smart still works,
the selected album is still based on your collection and listening history,
no AI explanation is requested,
and the AI-written Listening Profile introduction is hidden.

Help Next Make Better Choices

Next becomes more useful as your collection history develops.

Helpful actions include:

recording albums you play,
rating records,
marking favorites,
assigning accurate genres,
creating personal tags,
and using Never Suggest for records you do not want recommended.

You do not need to complete every field before using Next. Stored album information can help fill some gaps, while your own collection data remains an important guide.

Adjust an Album's Sound Profile

DeepGrooves creates a researched Sound Profile for each album. The profile describes the album's genre family, styles, moods, and musical character. Next uses this evidence when it builds a filtered Random pool and when it ranks Smart choices.

Musical categories are not always absolute. An album may sit between Rock and Blues, feel energetic to one listener and moderate to another, or have a secondary style that matters more in your collection than it does in a general catalog. You can adjust those judgments without replacing the shared researched profile.

To make an adjustment:

Open the album's detail page.
Find Sound Profile.
Select Adjust.
Open Genres, Moods, Styles, or Character.
Choose a personal fit for the trait.

Your adjustments apply only to your collection. They do not edit the shared album record, affect another collector, or disappear when DeepGrooves later improves the researched profile.

Personal Fit Levels

Choice	What it means	Effect in Random	Effect in Smart
Use researched	Accept the current researched judgment and remove your personal override.	The researched profile decides whether the album qualifies.	The researched strength contributes to ranking.
Strong fit	This trait is a defining quality of the album in your collection.	The album can satisfy this filter. Once the eligible pool is built, Random still gives every eligible album an equal chance.	The trait receives the strongest personal weight and can strongly connect the album with recent listening or long-term taste.
Good fit	The trait clearly applies, but is not necessarily the album's defining quality.	The album can satisfy this filter. Random does not favor Strong over Good after eligibility is established.	The trait contributes normally, but less than Strong.
Slight fit	The trait is present only as a minor, adjacent, or occasional quality.	The trait alone does not qualify the album for that strict filter. This prevents a weak Blues influence, for example, from turning a Rock album into a Blues Random pick.	The trait can provide a small similarity signal when Smart has no explicit filter, but it should not govern the choice.
Not a fit	You do not want DeepGrooves to associate this album with the trait.	The album is excluded when that trait is selected as a filter.	The trait is removed from this album's personal ranking evidence.

Adding a Missing Trait

Search for an existing value or type a new one in Add another trait. A newly added trait starts as Good fit. You can immediately change it to Strong, Slight, or Not a fit.

Add a trait for the album itself, not merely because the artist sometimes makes that kind of music. For example, an artist with both acoustic and hard-rock records should have each album judged on its own sound.

How Adjustments Affect Random

Random first builds an eligible pool from all active choices. Genre, Tags, Mood, and Play History are restrictions, not suggestions.

For a Sound Profile trait:

Strong fit and Good fit can put the album in the eligible pool.
Slight fit does not satisfy a strict filter by itself.
Not a fit keeps the album out for that filter.
Use researched returns control to DeepGrooves' stored assessment.

After the pool is built, Random does not rank the albums by profile strength. Every album in that valid pool has the same chance. This means changing Good to Strong will not make an album appear more often in Random. It matters for Smart ranking, not Random probability.

Personal Tags work differently. Tags are direct labels you assigned. Selecting a tag limits the pool to albums carrying that tag; Sound Profile strength does not alter tag membership.

How Adjustments Affect Smart

Smart uses Sound Profile traits as weighted musical evidence.

With no Genre or Mood filter, Smart compares albums with the musical direction in recent plays and with your broader collection taste. Strong traits contribute more than Good traits. Slight traits can contribute modest supporting evidence but should not become the main reason for a pick. Not a fit contributes nothing for that trait.

With an explicit Genre or Mood filter, the filter is honored first:

Strong and Good fits are eligible.
Slight fits and Not a fit are not eligible from that trait alone.
Among eligible albums, Strong can rank ahead of Good when the rest of the evidence is similar.

The adjustment is one signal, not a command to select that album immediately. Smart still considers the requested filters, recent musical pattern, durable taste, artist repetition, play recency, and session variety.

Examples

If a Rock album has a small Blues influence:

set Blues to Slight fit if you want Smart to understand the connection but do not want it in a strict Blues Random pool;
set Blues to Good fit if you consider it a credible Blues album as well as Rock;
set Blues to Not a fit if Blues should play no role in your choices.

If an album marked Energetic feels only moderately active to you:

set Energetic to Slight fit to preserve a weak connection without allowing it to satisfy an Energetic filter;
set it to Not a fit if it should never qualify as Energetic;
leave Use researched if the original judgment is acceptable.

If a trait is missing entirely, add it and start with Good fit. Reserve Strong fit for a defining characteristic. This keeps broad categories from overwhelming more precise musical evidence.

Undo an Adjustment

Choose Use researched to delete your personal override for that trait. If the trait was added only by you, this option removes it from your personal profile. The shared researched profile is never deleted.

Troubleshooting

Why did Smart pick this record?

Read Why this pick when AI explanations are enabled. It should connect the record to recent listening or broader collection taste. Smart may also favor a suitable record that has not been played recently or avoid an artist that appeared in the recent sequence.

Why is the explanation still loading?

The record is selected first. The explanation is written afterward and may take several seconds. You can begin reviewing the record while it loads.

Why do I not see Why this pick?

Open Settings and check whether AI explanations are enabled. Random selections do not show an AI explanation.

Why does a Smart explanation use DeeJay tokens?

The selection itself does not use AI. DeeJay tokens are used to turn the selection evidence and recent listening context into a natural explanation.

Why is a tag missing from the picker?

The picker shows tags available in your collection. Confirm that the tag exists and has been assigned to an owned record, then reload Next.

Why did several selected tags produce a broad pool?

Multiple tags use any tag matching. A record qualifies when it carries at least one selected tag.

Why did Next find no records?

Your Genre, Tags, Mood, and Play History choices may be too restrictive together. Clear one restriction at a time. Missing collection information can also reduce the number of credible matches.

Why was a recently played record selected?

Check the Play History setting. Any time allows previously played records. Choose a time window or Never played when recency must be a strict restriction.

Why does Played It not appear in Recent Plays?

Reload Next and check the album's play history. If it still does not appear, try recording the play again and note any error shown by the app.

Why does New Session not erase a play?

New Session only resets the current Next session and its filters. It does not delete recorded listening history.