Spotify's big app revamp is... a lot

The multimedia tech giant just redesigned its app to increase discovery, deepen creators' connections with fans, and try to balance all the stuff you can stream in it.

I’m old enough to remember the days of when Spotify was nothing more than a music library. You would add songs to your library (not a playlist called “Liked Songs”), create playlists, sort through the top songs in the world, check out which albums and singles came out each Tuesday (before New Music Friday was standardized), and visit other apps like Pocket Casts, YouTube, and Audible for podcasts and audiobooks.

Nowadays, Spotify is stuffed with a lot of content, from every new song that drops to Spotify-exclusive podcasts and audiobooks. There are videos, too, and ways to buy merchandise and concert tickets if you want. Thousands of curated playlists can be found scattered across each genre, and personalized playlists generated by your listening habits are refreshed every day.

It’s no understatement to say Spotify is simply jam-packed with content, yet it’s somehow been able to handle it all with a relatively simple interface, easy navigation, and subdued advertisements for new projects and episodes from your favorite creators (y’know, besides the full-screen “Marquee” ads that pop up from time to time).

But Spotify wants more. It wants to encourage users to explore more of the content on its platform, and it’s taking perhaps the most aggressive approach it can to achieve that without trying to overwhelm the experience. At its Stream On event, the company announced that it’s redesigning the Home page to make discovery easier, adding an AI disc jockey, and tacking on a bunch of new features for creators to promote their content and connect with their fans on a deeper level.

It’s… a lot. It’s all gonna roll out over time, with some features arriving before others. But it seems like it has the potential to dictate where music streaming apps go next, at least from a content discovery perspective.

The Home screen in Spotify looks identical to the way it does now, at least at the top. You’ll still see shortcuts to your favorite albums, artists, and playlists, as well as tabs to jump into Music, Podcasts & Shows, or Audiobooks. It’s below all of that where Spotify is shaking things up: it’s introducing a auto-playing feed of audio previews for playlists, albums, podcast episodes, audiobooks, and more, all personalized to your tastes and interests.

The feed, similar in format to that of TikTok or Instagram, uses Canvas videos from songs and albums, clips from video podcasts, and auto-generated captions for non-visual content to populate. It’s meant to serve as a central place where you’ll discover new content, so if there’s something you like, you can tap a “save” button that’ll store it in your library. You’ll also be able to follow artists from these previews or share them with your friends. Spotify is even adding the discovery feed to playlists, genres, and hashtags to increase a creator’s chance of getting in front of new audiences.

At first glance, this seems like a somewhat off-putting idea, given how autoplaying video feeds have basically taken over the entire social experience of the internet. But Spotify is different: it said during its event that it thinks of these previews as trailers for whatever project they’re promoting, and that the feed isn’t designed to keep you engaged as long as possible, but to send you off in varying directions to dive into a creator’s content.

It’s a very unique way of thinking about it, and it seems like an obvious progression Spotify would make in the evolution of music discovery. People are scrolling through visual feeds all day on social media, so why not use that format to promote new music and podcasts?

Discovery is also the idea behind two other new features in the app: an AI DJ and Smart Shuffle. The former, which is already available as a beta for a lot of Premium users in the U.S. and Canada (myself excluded, for whatever reason), uses an AI chatbot-like system to host a personalized radio show featuring music curated to your tastes. Meanwhile, the latter will mix up the music in your library or playlist, as well as blend in songs that you might not have heard but could wind up liking.

Spotify is also adding autoplay for podcasts. Once you’re finished listening to an episode of a particular show, it’ll automatically start playing “another relevant episode that fits your taste.” I imagine there will be some way to turn this off since sometimes, the podcast you want to play next is the second part of the episode you just finished, but it’s a nice touch nonetheless.

These features are reshaping how you find new music and podcasts on Spotify, and it could set an industry standard moving forward. Compared to other streaming services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, Spotify seems much more alive and personal. If this grab bag of new additions to the app are a success, I wouldn’t be surprised to see competitors adopt similar practices in their own apps. Not only will it help users learn about new audio content, but it’ll help deepen their connection with creators.

Speaking of which, Spotify is also adding new tools for creators to connect with their fans in new ways. It’s launching Clips, which let artists upload 30-second videos and attach them to their profiles and albums to give fans a deeper understanding of where they’re coming from musically. Countdown Pages are also launching, letting artists create dedicated pages for upcoming projects and let fans count down to their release with track previews, exclusive videos, merch, and more.

Podcasters are also getting a more connected experience with their listeners, with new tools like interactive episodes with Q&As and polls, subscriptions (with Patreon integration), podcast previews and chapters, and more robust analytics to understand where their fans are from. The company is also diving much deeper into the world of video podcasts, encouraging its podcasting partners to start filming themselves and adding a visual component to their shows.

This is a major expansion by Spotify by every definition. It’s a massive reshaping of the idea of downloading and subscribing to Spotify. Gone are the days of just using it to stream a few songs and create a handful of playlists for every mood. Now, your entire audible content library lives in this one app, and Spotify wants to make sure it nails every aspect of that.

It’s already the biggest music streaming platform in the world, with over 489 million active users as of Q1 2023 (205 million of which are paid, dwarfing Apple Music’s 95 million). It may as well try to make the app as useful and versatile as possible.