Spotify has been busy in the past 24 hours having introduced an upgrade with added features for following users and discovering new music, plus the addition of Metallica’s 30-year back catalogue to its library.
Spotify finally reached Ireland less than a month ago and users are already getting a huge upgrade to the service.
New Follow and Discover tabs have been introduced to help artists connect with fans and to assist music lovers in finding new bands and songs they might like. Users can follow friends, artists or influencers, from Paul McCartney to One Direction to Barack Obama, and get updated on what they are listening to in real time. (Something tells me Obama listens to plenty of Al Green.)
Users can also now receive mobile push notifications when an artist they follow releases a new album, and the Follow tab also highlights Facebook friends and recommends more people to follow.
The Discover feed highlights new single and album releases from artists that a user follows, as well as music and playlists shared by their influencers and intelligent recommendations based on their listening history. These can be recommendations on music, reviews or concerts users may be interested in, with content provided by Pitchfork, Songkick and Tunigo.
Other improvements include Audio Preview, which will let users preview a track without interrupting what’s already playing, and New Collection, which is a new way for users to save music for listening later. There’s also a more curated social feed, better personalised profile page, and redesigned artist pages.
The new features will begin rolling on as part of a desktop app update over the coming weeks, and a full cross-platform upgrade is due next year.
Meanwhile, the music-streaming service also revealed that Metallica’s 30-year back catalogue is now fully available to Spotify users. The band’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, who is a vocal opponent of illegal downloading of music, said, “We now feel that Spotify not only has a proven track record, but is by far the best music-streaming service.”
Sean Parker, one-time nemesis of Ulrich due to his file-sharing service Napster, was on stage to make the announcement with Ulrich and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.
Sean Parker, Lars Ulrich and Daniel Ek, photographed by Kevin Mazur
