Whether it’s over royalty payments, AI partnerships or the investment choices of its former CEO, Spotify has become a lightning rod for criticism in the streaming era. In that context, its expanded Song Credits and new SongDNA features could be viewed as an attempt to shift the narrative and do something that creators might actually appreciate.
“Now, more than ever, we believe it’s critical to spotlight the humans, creative process, and stories behind the music, so we’re building new ways for fans to see and celebrate the people and musical connections behind the tracks they love,” says Spotify. “The more fans understand the careful craft that underpins the music they love, the deeper their fandom grows and the more invested they become in the people who create it.”
While Spotify previously enabled you to see who performed, wrote and produced the song you’re listening to, you’ll now be able to view all the listed contributors to a track (engineers, for example). This information comes directly from labels and artist distributors, so relies on them keeping their databases up to date.
SongDNA, meanwhile, is a new interactive view that enables you to join the dots between different songs, showing collaborators, samples, and covers all in one place. If you’re thinking that this is the kind of service that’s currently offered by the excellent WhoSampled website, you’d be right - in fact, sample and cover information is powered by WhoSampled, which Spotify appears to have acquired.
“With WhoSampled’s community-built knowledge, fans can dive into the influences behind the music they love, while giving sampled and covered artists fresh ways to get discovered and celebrated,” says Spotify.
Looking ahead, Spotify also plans to roll out a feature called About the song, which will add swipeable cards to the Now Playing view. These will share stories of what inspired songs and their cultural impact, taking you behind the scenes of the creation process. We’re told that these stories will be “sourced from third parties”, though it’s not clear what these will be or how they’ll be credited.
You’ll start seeing the expanded Song Credits from today, while SongDNA will arrive for listeners later. Prior to that, there’ll be a Spotify for Artists Preview of SongDNA and About the song, so that the creators themselves can “check out the features first, redeliver your credits if there are inaccuracies, and give us feedback.”
Find out more in a blog post on the Spotify website.
