My Wave (Моя волна in Russian) is Yandex Music's endless personal stream. You press play, and it keeps choosing songs for you without a playlist or a search. For an artist, it matters because it can put a song in front of people who never searched for you. The first thing to understand is that there is no single My Wave playlist to get into: every listener has their own wave.
What My Wave is
My Wave works like a personal radio station. It starts from what the listener already likes, mixes in familiar and unfamiliar music, and adjusts as the person reacts. The listener can also steer it with settings such as activity, mood, character (for example more familiar or more unfamiliar music) and language. Check the app for the current options, because the names and choices change over time.
Two people who press the same button hear different songs. A track can appear on one wave a lot and never on another, depending on who is listening.
The signals it reads
Yandex doesn't publish its exact method, and you shouldn't trust anyone who claims to know it. But the general idea of recommendation systems is well known, and it's the behaviour of listeners that does most of the work.
- Likes. When a listener likes a track, that's a strong positive signal for similar music.
- Dislikes. A dislike tells the system to show less of that song and music like it.
- Skips. Skipping within the first seconds is a negative signal, especially if many people do it.
- Full listens. Hearing a song to the end suggests it matched what the person wanted.
- Repeats and saves. Playing a song again or adding it to a collection or playlist shows real interest.
- The listener's settings and history. The language, the mood and the music the person usually plays all shape what is offered.
In short, the system learns from how real people react to your song. A song that people finish, like and return to is shown to more people who resemble them.
What you can influence
You can't control the wave, but you can make a song easier for it to place correctly and easier for people to like.
- The first thirty seconds. A clear opening keeps people from skipping. A long ambient intro before anything happens costs you listeners on a stream where the next song is one tap away.
- The correct genre and language. The metadata tells platforms who the song is for. A pop song labelled as something else reaches people who don't want it, and they skip. Fill in genre, language and credits honestly.
- Sound quality and loudness. A well-mixed, properly mastered track sounds fine next to professional releases. A quiet or distorted one gets skipped.
- A clear artist page. Make sure your releases are attached to one artist page, with a photo and a short bio, not split between two similarly named profiles.
- Regular releases. Every new release gives the service fresh material to show people who already like you, and it gives you new chances to earn likes. A steady rhythm of releases helps more than one big push followed by silence.
- Real fans. Ask the people who actually enjoy your music to like the track and add it to their collection. Real signals from real listeners are the only ones that help.
When you submit through CULT, the portal shows the status of the release on each platform, so you know when it's live and can send people to it.
What you can't influence
- You can't buy a place on My Wave. There is nobody to pay and nothing to apply for.
- You can't choose who hears it. The system decides per listener.
- You can't know the exact formula. It changes, and it isn't public.
- You can't fake it. Artificial plays, bots and purchased likes don't come from real listeners, so they send the wrong signals, and platforms act against them. They can damage a release instead of helping it.
A simple plan
- Check that the genre, language and credits are right before release.
- Listen to your first thirty seconds the way a stranger would. Would you skip it?
- Release regularly, and keep the artist page tidy.
- Ask real fans for a like and a save, and tell the people who speak the language of your song where to find it.
- Watch the trend over several releases rather than judging a single song.
My Wave can't be gamed, and that is good news. It rewards the thing you already want to make: a song that people choose to hear to the end.