Spotify builds on TikTok-style song explorer
Get a taste of an artist and discover new music with a simple swipe and play feature, now expanding on Spotify.
Do you like the convenience of swiping through TikTok videos and love discovering new music? Spotify‘s new(ish) feature may well be exactly what you didn’t realise you’ve always wanted.
Spotify’s TikTok-style song and podcast feeds give you a swipeable stream of previews that you can explore until you find something you want to hear more of. Spotify have emphasised a combination of video and audio to present artists’ dynamic artworks (Spotify Canvas) with their song preview. Songs that don’t have a Canvas will just feature the album artwork.
Spotify have added a little GIF-like icon at the top of artist pages, album pages, podcasts and playlists. Clicking on it will open up a preview with which you can swipe through to find more. For example, if you click on the icon from an artist’s page, swiping will take you through popular songs of that artist.
From the video page, you can easily add the songs to your library or playlists, follow the artists, and share the track elsewhere. Song previews come with hashtags that allow users to hop between feeds based on the sound you’re after. Swipeable podcast previews feel less natural, including a lack of hashtags.
A Spotify spokesperson told The Standard: “This is all part of our ongoing effort to enable listeners to discover fresh finds, while also allowing them to quickly sample content they can enjoy later.”
Whilst the feature has become a lot more prominent, it’s not exactly new. In fact, Spotify launched the scrollable feeds of previews nearly a year ago. What’s new is just how easy it is to enter and explore these feeds with the new icon.
So, what do you reckon? Are these a great idea that will help to give you a taste of new artists and records, or is it a bit too much like a social media format within a music streaming service? Let us know how you’ve gotten on with the new feature in the comments below.