Music fandom is about so much more than simply putting on your favorite album or listening to a playlist on repeat. It’s about understanding the meaning and context behind your favorite artists’ songs – and Spotify’s newest feature takes listeners under the hood of their favorite pieces of music.
This week Spotify launched what I believe to be one of the platform’s most valuable upgrades yet. About the Song allows you to dive deeper into the context of the song you’re streaming, displaying tabs beneath each one with nuggets of information about the song’s development, production, or story, which Spotify sources from various sites.
Spotify has pushed out a slew of changes recently, and while its upgrades to Lyrics has breathed new life into one of the best streaming services, About the Song is by far my favorite new addition to the app. While it’s currently a limited feature, there’s plenty of scope for Spotify to expand it.
Not quite Apple Music, but it’s a start
During my time exploring Apple Music last year, one of my favorite parts of the experience was taking time to read album descriptions. As a serial album-listener, there’s nothing I love more than context and background on how those albums were made, and Apple Music delivers on that front. Until now this was something that was noticeably absent from Spotify.
While it doesn’t offer summaries of full albums in the way Apple Music does, what Spotify’s version does better is provide detailed info on each individual track, resulting in a more engaging listening experience. I’ve been using About the Song non-stop since its rollout, and I’ve learned new things about my favorite music that I hadn’t know before, no matter how many times I think I’ve researched and album of track — which brings me to my next positive observation.
I’m a music nerd, and I could spend hours going down a Wikipedia black hole to learn more about an album — but having all that information in one place as you listen is even better, and with About the Song, I don’t need to flick between Spotify and other web pages.
Don’t get me wrong, Genius Lyrics is still one of my favorite ways to dive into the context behind albums when I have more time on my hands, but Spotify’s approach is much less time-consuming.
Blending ‘Storyline’ with ‘Behind the Lyrics’
Spotify has actually had similar features in the past. In 2019 it introduced Storylines, which allowed artists to add extra layers of interest to their songs by sharing insights to the stories behind them. Similarly to About the Song, Storylines appeared beneath the playback bar but looked like an Instagram Story slide show – not the most appealing look. It was phased out after a few years, but this wasn’t the only way music fans could explore the background of songs.
Behind the Lyrics was a partnership between Spotify and Genius, which showed insights from artists into the meaning behind their words. That feature lasted from 2016 until some time in 2021, when Spotify replaced it with what we now know as real-time lyrics.
New Spotify features have been a mixed back of late, with some useful additions but also some unwelcome AI slop, but About the Song looks to be mostly winning praise from users. It’s a great tool with a bright future – I’m just praying that Spotify doesn’t mess this one up.
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