{"id":2444140,"date":"2019-05-13T14:53:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T20:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=834844"},"modified":"2019-05-13T14:53:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T20:53:21","slug":"spotify-is-testing-its-own-version-of-genius-behind-the-lyrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/spotify-is-testing-its-own-version-of-genius-behind-the-lyrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify Is Testing Its Own Version of Genius\u2019 \u2018Behind the Lyrics\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Untitled-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Off the back of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/spotify-hits-100-million-subscribers-and-still-isnt-making-money-828502\/\">triumphant (enough) first quarter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/spotify\/\" id=\"auto-tag_spotify\" data-tag=\"spotify\">Spotify<\/a> is busy this month buffing up its user experience with new features. The music-streaming service recently began testing a homescreen view that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2019\/5\/1\/18525550\/spotify-playlist-daily-drive-algorithm-recommendation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">puts podcasts<\/a> front and center, and it\u2019s also played with a subscription plan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2019\/03\/28\/spotify-testing-premium-duo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">for couples<\/a>. Spotify\u2019s latest experiment: An artist-driven behind-the-scenes look at songs \u2014 which rivals a feature that it already has in place.<\/p>\n<p>The Storyline feature, first spotted by tech blog <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidpolice.com\/2019\/05\/13\/spotify-storyline-lets-artists-tell-the-story-behind-their-songs-instagram-style\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Android Police<\/a> on Monday, takes the form of Instagram-Story-like timed cards that show up underneath the Now Playing screen, onto which artists upload their own text and images. On \u201cLights On\u201d by Maggie Rogers, pictured above, Rogers shares her personal inspiration for the song\u2019s lyrics. On the Storyline cards for Jonas Brothers\u2019 \u201cSucker,\u201d the band reveals that it chose to get back together after a hiatus because \u201cit took us filming a documentary to realize that we wanted to make this step and be the Jonas Brothers again.\u201d (The next card says: \u201cFun fact, Nick can\u2019t whistle.\u201d) Storyline also appears on a handful of Billie Eilish songs at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>In reply to <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2018s request for comment, Spotify offered a statement that\u2019s more or less become its refrain for quietly beta-tested features: \u201cWe are always testing new ways to create better experiences for more users.\u201d A spokesperson said Storyline has been rolling out to select users in select territories for about two weeks now.<\/p>\n<p>Storyline falls perfectly in line with the music-streaming service\u2019s missive to get closer to artists \u2014 Spotify has both direct deals and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/spotify-artists-direct-music-upload-726352\/\">direct distribution deals<\/a> with musicians in place, and founder Daniel Ek has regularly emphasized the company\u2019s \u201cartist-first\u201d mentality in interviews, financial filings and press materials \u2014 but what\u2019s unusual about the beta-tested feature is that it seems to compete directly with Spotify\u2019s popular Behind the Lyrics feature, which is powered by lyrics company Genius via a partnership the two tech entities struck in early 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The Storyline cards appear directly underneath Behind the Lyrics cards, so that Spotify\u2019s Now Playing screen resembles less of an audio player than a social media page with music at the top (Myspace, anyone?). While Spotify did not comment on whether it is testing Storyline as a Genius replacement, the company has gotten some <a href=\"https:\/\/musically.com\/2019\/04\/25\/paramore-star-complains-about-spotify-genius-lyrics-feature\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">negative feedback<\/a> from artists recently on their lack of ability to control the Genius feature.<\/p>\n<p>By the latest count, Spotify has 217 monthly active users, 100 million of whom are paying a monthly fee for its premium subscription tier.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/spotify-genius-behind-the-lyrics-834844\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Off the back of a triumphant (enough) first quarter, Spotify is busy this month buffing up its user experience with new features. The music-streaming service recently began testing a homescreen view that puts podcasts front and center, and it\u2019s also played with a subscription plan for couples. Spotify\u2019s latest experiment: An artist-driven behind-the-scenes look at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 02:18:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}