Spotify
Barack Obama Shares 2020 Playlist, Includes Lil Baby, J. Cole, Travis Scott & More
Source: MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images / Getty Another year is coming to a close, which means plenty of year-end playlists are already being shared. Some lists tend to carry more weight—like that of the United States’ last legitimate President, Barack Obama. Spotify gets the distinction of housing Obama’s curated playlist. President 44’s favorite cuts from 2020 include notable Hip-Hop hits like Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce’s “Savage Remix” (which is first) and Lil Baby’s “The Bigger Picture.” Other rap joints that made the cut include Goodie’s Mob’s “4 My PPL,” Travis Scott’s “Franchise,” featuring Young Thug & M.I.A., Gunna’s “Sun Came Out,” and J. Cole’s “The Climb Back.” Not a single cut from Griselda, though? Clearly we gotta put Sasha Obama up on game. Prop...
Spotify “Spoken Words Analyzer” Patent Approved, Will Use AI to Analyze Song Lyrics
Spotify has successfully patented a “Spoken Word Analyzer” feature, which will allow the platform to make determinations about a song’s lyrical content through the power of AI. The streaming giant filed the patent, which was ultimately approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office this week, in late August 2020. The patent describes a feature that would automatically assign a set of tags to songs based on their lyrics. The utility of such a feature will allow Spotify to categorize songs based on their explicitness, mood, and even qualities such as danceability and energy levels, among other criteria. Tracks have historically had their tags assigned based on user input, but the system Spotify proposes would seek to standardize and auto...
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Ink Exclusive Podcast Deal With Spotify
Source: Max Mumby/Indigo / Getty Fans of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will soon get to subscribe to their podcast series after the couple announced their surprising partnership with Spotify this Tuesday. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex inked an exclusive multimillion-dollar deal with the streaming service to produce and host podcasts shows through their production company Archewell Audio. The multi-year deal will allow them to produce original content debuting the first holiday special hosted by the royal couple at the end of this month. Via Yahoo: “What we love about podcasting is that it reminds all of us to take a moment and to really listen, to connect to one another without distraction,” The Duke and Duchess of Sussex said in a joint statement. “With the challenges of 2020, the...
Here’s How to Upload Custom Spotify Playlist Covers from Your Phone
Those who pride themselves on their playlist-making abilities now have one more tool in their arsenal. You can now accompany the hand-picked Spotify selections chosen by your masterful ear with a custom playlist cover to help tie the experience together. While this feature has been available on desktop for quite some time, it hadn’t been included in the mobile version of the app, for some head-scratching reason. Luckily, the process to upload a custom playlist cover from your mobile device is incredibly simple and as easy as changing the wallpaper on your phone. Kapwing Check out the step-by-step instructions below to add some visual flair to your playlists on Spotify. How to Upload Custom Spotify playlist covers on your phone Open the playlist you would like to add a custom cover to...
The Creative Class Honoree: Carl Chery
Source: iOne Digital / other Honoree: Carl Chery The Grind: Creative Director, Head of Urban Music Find Him: @carlchery Carl Cherry knows music. He knows who is talented, what a hit sounds like and who’s up next before most people even know an artist exists. It’s why Apple Music hired him as Head of Curation, and why Spotify snatched him up and hired him as Head of Urban. Carl’s ear for Hip Hop and R&B in particular, is enviable. At Spotify, part of his job is curating Rap Caviar, a highly coveted playlist for artists and music fans alike. Thanks to Chery, who has described the playlist as “aspirational”, RC isn’t just a party, it’s a career changer. While most people in the industry rely on titles and places of employment to get them ahead, Chery is different. If you take a look at hi...
Spotify’s Annual Wrapped Returns But With A New Stories-Like Twist & Other Features
Source: Spotify / Spotify Wrapped 2020 It’s that time again when Spotify users flood your timelines, letting you know what songs, artists, and podcasts they have been listening to religiously all year long thanks to its annual Wrapped installment, but this time it comes with some new twists. Following the reveal of the year’s top music and podcasts on the service, today Spotify announced a more personal experience for users around the globe. This year’s wrapped experience will deliver the insights on artists, songs, genres, and podcasts that you enjoyed throughout the year, but this time in a stories-like feature. The new Wrapped 2020 experience can be viewed via the Spotify app on iOS and Android devices. Per a press release, this is what Spotify users can look forward to from Wrapped 202...
Spotify Has Invented AI Technology for Songwriters to Detect Plagiarism
Spotify has filed a new European patent after inventing technology for songwriters to detect and combat plagiarism. According to a report published by Music Business Worldwide, the streaming giant recently filed a patent for a “Plagiarism Risk Detector And Interface” that is able to detect plagiarism in a musician’s lead sheets. For our non-musician readers, a lead sheet is a form of musical score that notates a song’s core elements, including its melody, lyrics, and harmony. With Spotify’s new tech, musicians are able to feed their lead sheets through a “plagiarism detector,” which would then cross-reference its components with the encoded lead sheets of Spotify’s vast library of songs. The platform will then spit out a s...
Everyone is Sharing Their Spotify 2020 “Wrapped” Roundup—Find Yours Here
Thanks to the impact of COVID-19, 2020 was a catastrophic tsunami of a year for the music industry. But we’re almost at the finish line. Before we come up for air, though, Spotify has begun the rollout of their “Wrapped” campaign, which lets listeners discover just how much time they spent streaming on the platform. “Wrapped” offers a personalized virtual storybook of listening habits to each of its users. You’re able to find out how many minutes of music you’ve listened to on Spotify, your top artists of the year, and even whether or not you were in the top percentage of those artists’ most frequent listeners. Beyond just seeing your listening stats, you can also access a curated playlist of your top 100 songs of the year, in case you ...
Spotify Shares Jump 16% to All-Time High
On a related note, information about podcasts could have reinforced some investors’ belief that non-music content can improve both growth and margins. Spotify’s run-down of most popular music and podcasts revealed The Joe Rogan Experience, exclusive to Spotify as of Tuesday, is its top podcast. Its popularity suggests the controversial podcast is going to be worth the $100 million Spotify is spending to license the show from Rogan. Owned and licensed podcasts give Spotify a chance to differentiate itself from its competitors. In the last two years, Spotify has purchased podcast producers The Ringer, Gimlet and Parcast and has landed exclusives with Michele Obama and Kim Kardashian West, among many others. It has also launched proprietary, music-focused franchises such as Sound Stories: Wom...
Spotify is Testing an Instagram Stories-Like Feature In Editorial Playlists
There’s a running joke that soon every digital interface—from Instagram to Microsoft Excel—will offer some kind of stories-related social feature. However, it’s becoming less of an exaggeration by the day, as Spotify has drawn attention for its latest stories feature test. If you take a look at Spotify’s “Christmas Hits” playlist on a mobile device, you may be lucky enough to see the latest test of Spotify stories. The playlist, which currently boasts music from Jennifer Lopez, Meghan Trainor, and Kelly Clarkson, includes a reel of short clips from the artists akin to Snap and Instagram’s stories features. Spotify (via The Verge) In a statement to Engadget, the company confirmed that the availability of this feature is still limited in scope. &...
Streaming Symmetry: See the Countries Where Apple Music is Cheaper Than Spotify—and Vice Versa
CashNetUSA‘s personal finance blog SavingSpot recently published a study that highlights the difference in the cost of an Apple Music subscription between countries. Their data shows both the actual cost of the monthly subscription and also the relative cost which computes the subscription price as a percentage of the country’s average monthly income. As shown in the infographic below, India, China, and Turkey have the cheapest monthly subscription costs while listeners in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have the highest costs. However, the ensuing charts—which compare the costs to monthly income—show that Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Macau pay the least while subscribers in Niger, Mozambique, and Madagascar pay the most when the cost is examined in t...
Radiohead, Elbow Members Call for Better Streaming Royalties at Opening of UK Parliament Probe
Garvey and Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien were among a group of four artists and two industry analysts that provided evidence on the first day of the inquiry, which is anticipated to stretch for several months and will call upon executives at major labels and streaming platforms to answer questions. The Parliament probe — which so far is being done with witnesses testifying virtually, as the U.K. is in lockdown — is also addressing a lack of transparency in record contracts and opaque accounting practices, safe harbor provisions and the European Copyright Directive, which will hold online user-generated services like YouTube liable for unlicensed content. The inquiry comes at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has decimated income from touring, focusing artists’ attenti...
