Finally! Spotify Gives Real-Time Lyrics To Users
Thousands of Spotify customers have expressed to the firm over the years that they would prefer a feature that gave real-time lyrics rather than lyrics that are interrupted with facts and other background information via the company’s community feedback forum.
“Let’s face it: knowing the words to your latest favourite music makes it a lot easier to jam out to it. With the debut of Lyrics, Spotify is empowering millions of fans all around the world to sing louder and more confidently than ever before ” the company stated in a statement.
This is a welcome change after years of neglecting user demand for in-app lyrics, particularly in the United States. The new function is made possible thanks to a partnership with Musixmatch, an Italian business that has long provided real-time lyrics for songs in your library. Musixmatch has international connections with nearly every music streaming provider, as well as Instagram, Facebook, and Google Search.
“So, after a lot of iteration and testing, we’ve come up with a simple, interactive, and even sharing experience. We’re bringing song lyrics to life with in-app access across the bulk of our huge catalogue of tunes by partnering with Musixmatch “The Swedish music streaming company went on to say.
After testing the function in 2019, Spotify made real-time lyrics that sync with the music available to users in 26 global countries last year. According to the company at the time, this was the first time 22 of the 26 markets had ever had any kind of lyrics support. Later, the arrangement was expanded to include 28 markets.
Through a separate partnership with SyncPower, Spotify customers in Japan have also had access to lyrics. Users in other markets, on the other hand, have only had access to “Behind the Lyrics,” a feature that was introduced in 2016 in collaboration with Genius and featured lyrics interwoven with knowledge about the music, its meaning, the artist, and other remarks. Users on mobile can swipe up from the “Now Playing” panel to see the lyrics of the music scroll by in real-time while the song plays. Instead, in the desktop app, select the microphone icon from the “Now Playing” box. You can also enable Lyrics from the lyrics button on the Spotify TV app by navigating to the top-right corner of the “Now Playing” screen.
The feature will be available on the big screen via the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung, Roku, LG, Sky, and Comcast apps, according to the business. The new feature also includes built-in sharing via a button at the bottom of the page on mobile that allows users to choose which lyrics they want to share.
On the Now Playing bar of the desktop version of the software, there’s a new microphone icon; clicking it brings up the scrolling lyrics. A new “lyrics button” has been added to the TV version of the app, which, when selected, displays lyrics in the Now Playing view.
Spotify’s relationship with lyrics is complex. It used to allow third-party apps to be installed within its app, allowing for lyric syncing, but Spotify Apps were stopped in 2014. It used to work with Musixmatch to display song lyrics until the two parted ways in 2016. Thanks to a partnership with Genius, it now has a “Behind the Lyrics” feature. It’s a cool function that gives you background information about songs, but it’s not very useful for karaoke. Although it offers lyrics in some regions, such as Japan, the function has yet to be widely adopted in western markets such as the United States.
This does not come as a surprise as real-time lyrics on music apps have a history of being convoluted. When music publishers don’t offer lyrics, businesses turn to a third-party source. However, those providers don’t always play by the rules. In 2019, Genius accused Google of plagiarizing its lyrics collection, which Genius detected by skillfully putting secret codes within its songs that spell out “red-handed.” Later, those lyrics turned up in Google’s search results. However, Google blamed its partner, LyricFind, for the problem. It didn’t stop the partnership because there are few other options for significant lyrics deals – most corporations use Genius, LyricFind, or Musixmatch (or a combination).
Spotify said last week that it would buy Findaway, a global leader in digital audiobook distribution, for an undisclosed sum. Findaway serves authors, publishers, and consumers across the whole audiobook ecosystem with a platform and products that serve this fast developing market, which is predicted to increase from $3.3 billion to $15 billion by 2027.
