Spotify combines music and talk content in an easy and elegant package, allowing full songs and talk commentary to live together wrapped up in one show. With shows that use this new format, listeners can interact with the music within the episodes, in the same way they interact with all other song tracks on Spotify (for example liking, saving, and reading more information about a track) without having to leave the episode page or search for it manually.
For any episode of a show with music, hit ‘Explore Episode’ on the episode page, or tap the play bar at the bottom of the screen to pull up the episode track list. From there, you can skip around to different segments and songs and save songs for future listening.
Shows using this format are exclusive to Spotify because they rely on Spotify’s music catalogue licenses and compensate musicians and songwriters just like any regular stream of a music track on Spotify. Spotify Premium listeners will hear full tracks as part of these shows, and those with the Free tier will hear 30-second music previews.
Spotify are releasing seven Spotify Original Shows to showcase the new feature. Each explores a different aspect of music, from the stories and inspiration behind a song to the listening trends of a decade or genre. All of these can be found in the ‘Shows with Music’ hub in Browse, or in a programmed shelf on your Home tab. The shows are:
- 10 Songs that Made Me
- Rock This With Allison Hagendorf
- 60 Songs that Explain the 90s
- Conspiracy Theories: Music Edition
- Our Love Song
- Halleloo Happy Hour with DJ Shangela
- Murder Ballads
Spotify have also created new tools in Anchor to enable creators to produce these new music and talk shows. The new format solves a variety of limitations previously inherent to audio creation and distribution, which haven’t been able to leverage the power of music streaming. For creators, it will now be possible to use licensed music in an easy and fair way. Creation tooling is available for Anchor users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Further details can be found in an Anchor blog post.
