Spotify Launches AI Playlist Beta Tool for Curated Tracklists Based on Text Descriptions

Published: 08 April 2024 at 10:19

Technology

Spotify introduces a beta tool for creating curated playlists based on text prompts, allowing users to generate playlists matching specific moods, genres, or themes by typing in prompts like music for a rainy day, initially available to Premium subscribers in the UK and Australia on mobile devices. The AI Playlist feature can generate playlists based on combinations of genres, moods, artists, and more, improving playlist results over time, with limitations on non-music-related prompts like current events or specific brands.

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Spotify Wrapped (Wikipedia)

Spotify Wrapped is a viral marketing campaign by Spotify. Released annually since 2016, every early December, the campaign allows Spotify users to view a compilation of data about their activity on the platform over the past year and invites them to share it on social media.Spotify Wrapped typically includes the five musicians a user has listened to most often, the songs which they have listened to most, and their favourite music genres. Producers of content on the platform also have access to a version of Spotify Wrapped, which includes the number of times their content has been streamed that year. In addition to individualized data, Spotify Wrapped also includes information about activity on the Spotify platform as a whole. While Spotify Wrapped is commonly referred to as an annual collection of data, only activity from January 1st to an unknown date in the last 2 months is counted for any given year.Spotify Wrapped is shared widely on social media each year and has led millions of people to promote Spotify on their social media accounts. Its release in early December each year or the ending of November, generally accompanied by billboards and television advertisements, has historically correlated with a boost to Spotify's app store ranking. The marketing campaign has been both praised and criticized for effectively providing Spotify with free advertising and has been discussed in connection with broader questions about data and Spotify's use of it. Commentators have also analyzed the effects of Spotify Wrapped on the music industry and contrasted it with offerings by other streaming services.

Spotify Live (Wikipedia)

Spotify Live, formerly Spotify Greenroom, was a social audio app by Spotify, that allowed users to host or participate in live-audio virtual environments called "room" for conversations. Each room had a maximum capacity of 1000 people. The app was available on Android and iOS, competing with Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse in the social media segment. It was shut down on April 30, 2023.

Criticism of Spotify (Wikipedia)

Spotify, a music streaming company, has attracted significant criticism since its 2006 launch, mainly over artist compensation. Unlike physical sales or downloads, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the artist's "market share"—the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Multiple artists have criticised the policy, most notably Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who temporarily withdrew their music from the service.Spotify faces particular scrutiny due to its free service tier, which allows users to listen free with advertisements between tracks. The tier has led to a variety of major album releases being delayed or withdrawn from the service. Spotify claims it benefits the industry by migrating users away from piracy and less monetized platforms and encouraging them to upgrade to paid accounts. Record labels keep a large amount of Spotify earnings.Spotify has also attracted media attention for several security breaches, as well as for controversial moves including a significant change to its privacy policy, "pay-for-play" practices based on receiving money from labels for putting specific songs on popular playlists, and allegedly creating "fake artists" for prominent playlist placement, which Spotify denies.Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was also criticized for making donations through his investment company to military research of artificial intelligence.

Spotify (Wikipedia)

Spotify (; Swedish: [ˈspɔ̂tːɪfaj]) is a Swedish audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 602 million monthly active users, including 236 million paying subscribers, as of December 2023. Spotify is listed (through a Luxembourg City-domiciled holding company, Spotify Technology S.A.) on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.Spotify offers digital copyright restricted recorded audio content, including more than 100 million songs and five million podcasts, from record labels and media companies. As a freemium service, basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists.Spotify is available in most of Europe, as well as Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania, with a total availability in 184 markets. Its users and subscribers are based largely in the US and Europe, jointly accounting for around 53% of users and 67% of revenue. It has no presence in mainland China where the market is dominated by QQ Music. The service is available on most devices, including Windows, macOS, and Linux computers, iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, smart home devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Nest lines of products, and digital media players like Roku.As of December 2023, Spotify was the 47th most-visited website in the world with 24.78% of its traffic coming from the United States followed by Brazil with 6.51% according to data provided by Semrush.Unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artist streams as a proportion of total songs streamed. It distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders (often record labels), who then pay artists based on individual agreements. While certain musicians have voiced objections to Spotify's royalty structure and its effect on record sales, others laud the service for offering a lawful option to combat piracy and for remunerating artists each time their music is played.

Spotify expands its free audiobooks perk to Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand

Spotify is offering 15 hours of free monthly audiobook listening time to users in Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, expanding its catalog from 200,000 to 250,000 titles. The service is already available in the U.S., U.K., and Australia. Spotify's audiobooks service is the second-largest provider after Audible, with over 150,000 titles listened to since the launch in November. Premium subscribers can access 15 hours of audiobooks, with additional listening hours available for purchase. Spotify recently introduced a $9.99 per month plan for free users in the U.S. to access its audiobooks.

List of most-streamed artists on Spotify (Wikipedia)

The following list contains the most-streamed artists on the audio streaming platform Spotify. As of March 2024, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is the most-streamed artist of all time on Spotify, while Canadian rapper Drake is the most-streamed male artist. Since 2012, Spotify has published a yearly list of its most-streamed artists, which has been topped by Drake and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny a record three times, with Bad Bunny being the only artist to do so in consecutive years (2020–2022). Swift is the only female artist to have topped the list (2023).

List of Spotify streaming records (Wikipedia)

The following lists contain the most-streamed songs and albums as well as charts records on the audio streaming platform Spotify.As of March 2024, "Blinding Lights" (2019) by Canadian singer The Weeknd is the most-streamed song on Spotify to date, while "Dance Monkey" (2019) by Australian singer-songwriter Tones And I is the most-streamed song by a female artist. English-Albanian singer Dua Lipa has the most songs in the top 100 for a female artist with five entries. The newest song in the top 100 is Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" (2023). The oldest song in the top 100 is Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975).There are ten songs known to have claimed the top ranking, starting with "Viva La Vida" by British rock band Coldplay in 2008. Spotify's most-streamed song for the longest period of time was "Shape of You" (2017) by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.As of March 2024, over 590 songs have surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, 67 have surpassed two billion, and eight have surpassed three billion. "Blinding Lights" is the only song that has surpassed the four billion mark.

OpenAI Refines Voice Cloning Technology Responsibly

OpenAI introduces Voice Engine, allowing users to generate synthetic copies of voices from 15-second voice samples, ensuring responsible deployment with no public availability date disclosed yet. The model behind Voice Engine has been used in ChatGPT and Spotify, trained on a mix of licensed and publicly available data, a sensitive topic in the AI industry.