Spotify confirmed on the morning of February 9th that it had begun testing a new feature to synchronize lyrics in the US market after being reported by Engadget. The streaming music service currently offers live lyrics in 27 markets, including South Korea, which recently launched, but hasn’t been available in the United States for years. Instead, Spotify has partnered with Genius to offer a “Behind the Lyrics” feature that allows you to view lyrics and trivia about the song being played.
When asked to comment, Spotify said the new lyrics feature was available as a test for some users in the United States on the same day.
“We admit that we’re currently testing the lyrics feature for some users in the United States,” a spokeswoman for the company told Globe Live Media. “Spotify does some regular testing to improve the user experience, and some of these tests pave the way for a broader user experience. Some serve only as important learning. ”
The company refused to disclose the details of the plan, but revealed that Musixmatch is the new lyrics feature partner in the United States. Musixmatch offers lyrics in markets other than the United States where this feature has already been introduced.
This isn’t the first time Spotify has introduced a lyrics display feature in the United States. Originally, Spotify had a partnership with Musixmatch between 2011 and 2016, but ended that relationship and decided to partner with Genius instead. Despite users’ continued demand for a resurgence of lyrics functionality, Spotify never revived this feature in the United States.
But in recent years, Spotify has once again revived its relationship with Musixmatch. In 2020, Spotify announced that it will introduce real-time lyrics capabilities in 26 markets worldwide, including Southeast Asia, India and Latin America. Of these, 22 markets were the first to offer lyrics, and only Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico already had some form of lyrics support via other providers.
Spotify’s lack of lyrics support in the United States has given its streaming music competitors an edge. For example, Amazon Music allows users to view lyrics as the song plays, and by linking that feature to the voice platform Alexa, let Alexa search for songs by lyrics. It is possible. Meanwhile, Apple Music, which was revamped in iOS 12 in 2018, has a function to search for songs by lyrics, not just artist names, albums, and song titles. Later, iOS 13 also added the ability to sync lyrics live. You can also search for songs by telling Siri some of the lyrics.
Musixmatch has also confirmed that it has partnered with Spotify in a new test in the United States.
“Musixmatch is growing at a fast pace thanks to our 10 years of continuous investment. We are now providing more data to continue to enrich the audio experience around the world. We’re focused on that, “Musixmatch CEO and founder Max Ciociola told TechCrunch.
Since this lyrics feature is just a test, the target audience is limited, and some people may not be able to actually see the lyrics on the Spotify app. Spotify hasn’t stated if this test could be expanded, and if so, when it will be available to more people.