On Wednesday, Spotify announced new features designed to showcase the people behind users’ favorite music. These features will highlight producers, engineers, songwriters, background vocalists, and more. The company will also release tools that show how songs are connected and what inspired them.
The second set of tools is showcased in a new, interactive feature called SongDNA. This feature shows which songs are being sampled in a given track, who has covered the tune, and what other projects the song’s collaborators may have been involved in.
TechCrunch reported in October that Spotify was developing the SongDNA feature to help users discover music through a song’s credits. References to the feature were found in the app’s code by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong. With SongDNA, users can explore the other projects that the artists, musicians, and others who worked on a track are involved with. Previously, the Song Credits feature had only included the topline performance, songwriting, and production credits.
Information about sampled music comes from the online community-built database WhoSampled, which Spotify has acquired. Notably, the streaming service TIDAL also offers interactive credits that let users explore music through the contributors behind the songs.
Spotify has also planned a feature called About the Song. This will allow listeners to explore swipeable cards in the Now Playing view. Those cards will offer details like what inspired the song, the stories behind the music, the cultural impact, and more. These stories are sourced from third-party resources, which will be linked in the cards.
This type of background information about music is something Spotify has offered in previous years. The company previously partnered with lyrics site Genius on a feature that offered details on certain tracks’ backstories. However, that feature was limited to the stories Genius had in its database. The upcoming feature will link out to various places on the web, including informational sites like Wikipedia and news sites.
Spotify says the expanded Song Credits will roll out starting Wednesday on mobile devices and will come to desktop in the months ahead. SongDNA and About the Song will only be available to Premium subscribers. However, these features will not launch until early next year, initially as a Spotify for Artists Preview. This will allow those involved with the music to preview the features first and ensure the credits are accurate before they are made available to the wider public.