The short answer
Follow the artist on Spotify, then check the What’s New bell at the top of Home. That is the closest Spotify comes to a list of every new release from the artists you follow. What Spotify does not offer is a push notification when one of them puts out new music: its notification settings let you get notified of new podcast episodes, and list nothing equivalent for an artist’s new songs.
If you want your phone to tell you the day a record lands, you need something outside Spotify. That is why I built Sonaru. Join the waitlist so you never miss a new release from an artist you love.
What Spotify gives you today
Following an artist
Following is the switch everything else hangs off. Spotify’s own help page puts it plainly: follow artists “to never miss a new release and to improve Spotify recommendations.” Open the artist’s profile and tap Follow. Liking their songs is not the same thing, and it does not put them in the places below.
What’s New, behind the bell
What’s New is “a feed that gathers all the new releases from the artists and shows you follow”, reached from the bell icon at the top of the Home tab. Spotify says it updates in real time, and it has a filter to show music only, so podcast episodes stay out of the way.
It is the best of the three. The catch is in how you use it: it waits for you. Nothing arrives on your lock screen; a release sits in the list until you think to open it.
The Following feed
In July 2025 Spotify added a Following feed for music, which “brings music from the artists you follow into one convenient destination”, where you can preview a new track, play it, or save it for later. Like What’s New, it is somewhere you go, not something that comes to you.
Release Radar
Release Radar is the one most people know, and the one most people mean when they say Spotify told them about a new song. It is a playlist, and three details from Spotify’s own description explain why it misses things:
- It updates once a week, on Friday. A single that came out on a Tuesday waits until Friday to reach you.
- You get one song per artist per week. If an artist you follow puts out a ten-track album, Release Radar picks one of them.
- It is not only the artists you follow. It mixes them with artists you listen to and “other artists we think they’ll like”. In July 2026 Spotify gave it more personalised recommendations and new controls, which makes it a better discovery playlist and no closer to being a complete list.
None of that is a flaw in Release Radar. It is built to help you discover music, and it is good at that. It is just not built to tell you about everything the artists you follow put out.
Where the gaps are
Put the three together and a pattern shows. Spotify knows the moment an artist you follow releases something, and it records it in two feeds and a playlist. But:
- Nothing notifies you. Every one of these is a place you have to remember to check.
- The one that comes to you is weekly and partial. Release Radar arrives on Friday with one song per artist, alongside music you did not ask for.
- The more artists you follow, the worse it gets. With a dozen artists, glancing at the bell now and then is enough. With a few hundred, the feed scrolls past faster than you check it, and the release you actually cared about goes by between two you did not.
That last one is the whole problem. I got tired of missing songs from my favorite artists, and none of Spotify’s places was ever going to fix it, because none of them is designed to.
Making the most of what Spotify has
Before reaching for anything else, these help:
- Follow, do not just like. Go through the artists you care about and tap Follow on each one. Everything above is driven by follows.
- Open the bell, not Release Radar, when you want to know what is new. Filter it to music. It is the complete list; Release Radar is a selection.
- Check on release day. Most new music comes out on Friday, so a Friday look at What’s New catches the bulk of it. It will still miss the Tuesday single.
Getting an actual notification
This is the part Spotify leaves to you, and it is what Sonaru does. You tell it which artists you care about, and:
- You get a notification when one of them releases something, within the first hour of it landing worldwide, for the artists you choose. The ones you would drop everything for can tell you straight away; the rest can stay quiet.
- Every release goes into one feed, newest first: albums, EPs and singles, with no algorithm deciding what you see and nothing left out.
- New music can go straight into a playlist on your streaming service, so it is waiting for you before you open anything.
Sonaru does not replace Spotify. It works alongside Spotify and Apple Music: it tells you what came out, and you listen where you already do. The feed, the notifications and auto-add are free.
Sonaru is coming soon to iPhone and Android. Join the waitlist to hear the day it lands.
The short version
- Spotify has no push notification for new music from an artist you follow. Its notification settings offer that for podcast episodes only.
- What’s New (the bell at the top of Home) is the most complete list of new releases from the artists you follow, updated in real time, but you have to open it.
- The Following feed for music, added in 2025, collects the same releases in one place, and also waits for you.
- Release Radar updates on Fridays, carries one song per artist per week, and mixes followed artists with recommendations.
- Sonaru, an app for iPhone and Android, sends a notification within the first hour of a release from an artist you choose, and keeps every release in one feed. It works alongside Spotify and Apple Music, and its core features are free.