If there’s one thing Apple Music has proved to us by now, it’s that it doesn’t need to continuously pump out new features to improve the user experience — but the large periods of silence make the anticipation even more exciting when the platform does roll out new tools and design upgrades.

Prior to the age of streaming, Apple users got a kick out of their music via iTunes and the revolutionary iPod, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary. I had the 5th gen iPod Nano, and it was one of the catalysts that fuelled my love for music.

But above all, it was the simplicity of the user experience and fun design elements that people remember the most — and one user might've uncovered the future of Apple Music's design approach.

The Cover Flow comeback?

Cover Flow really gave Apple’s early playback interface its wings, displaying all of your saved music into a fun carousel for you to spin through — like a selection of LPs. It was so loved by music fanatics, Apple carried it from iPod and iTunes into iOS before sunsetting it in the mid-lates 2010s.

We’ve been mourning it ever since, but a Redditor's post has recently sparked a widespread cry-out for its return, sharing a video showing a Cover Flow-like design tool with the caption 'excited for new features' (see below). The user says it’s ‘referenced from code’, but they don’t say if they're running a new iOS developer beta.

The post shared to Reddit shows the user navigating the ‘Albums’ carousel on an artist page in the Apple Music app, which launches a Cover Flow-esque interface when they tap on an album. It’s unclear whether the user simply taps or long-presses on an album cover, but I predict it’s the latter.

Admittedly, what we see in the Reddit post isn’t a carbon copy of Cover Flow. It doesn’t have the continuing stack of albums existing beyond the central cover, and makes up a small fraction of the interface. There's also no guarantee you'll be able to switch your phone to landscape orientation to see a 3D rendering of your album's artwork in a rolodex-style selection (this was our Audio Ed Becky's favorite pre-iOS7 UI design feature). But despite this, the potential revival of this design approach has revealed one thing; users are yearning for nostalgia.

Though it’s not set in stone, the idea of Cover Flow making a comeback is something users are finding quite exciting, and you can see it in the replies on Reddit. ‘The listeners yearn for Cover Flow’, one account posted, while another user went the extra mile and created a design concept of what Cover Flow could look like in today’s Apple Music app.

It’s even got to the stage where some users have sought after ways to resurrect the swivelling feel of Cover Flow, mainly through third-party apps. MD Vinyl is a popular music player and widget app, which syncs to audio streaming platforms to display your music in album stack for vinyl form. Soor is another alternative whose name I’ve seen crop up, but comes with a one-time $6.99 / £6.99 purchase.

No matter how hard they try, these third-party alternatives could never replace what Cover Flow was. Nonetheless, they’re still used, and they not only reveal a craving for nostalgia and simplicity, but these types of design features on streaming platforms serve as a reminder that music is so much more than flat files at your fingertips.

If you're a fan of the first-gen iPod, or if you're too young to have experienced Apple's OG music player and want to know what the fuss was all about, you're going to love what Apple's hidden on its Apple Music website: a fully working iPod.

The iPod lives on Apple Music's "page not found" page, and you can control it with your mouse, trackpad or touchscreen to recapture the magic of the music player that changed everything.

The library is absolutely massive so I haven't been able to test every tune, but every random selection played the appropriate song (albeit for just over a minute rather than the full track).

It's a great way to market Apple Music, but it's also a great reminder of how brilliant Apple's original portable player was.

The iPod changed everything

It's 25 years since the original iPod launched, and everything is different. We rarely rip, mix and burn, and the 1,000 song limit seems impossibly small compared to Apple Music's instant access to 100 million songs. But playing with the virtual iPod has made me smile, because it's reminding me of how excited I was by Apple's game-changing device and its successors.

I think it's really hard to overstate how much Apple changed the way we listen to music. I wrote about it earlier this year, saying I wish we'd stuck with iPods: "what Apple did was what Apple does so well. It learned from other people's mistakes and then marketed its own products perfectly. 1,000 songs in your pocket."

I've owned pretty much every iPod: 3G, 4G, Nano, Shuffle, Mini, Video, Classic… and I miss their style and simplicity. I've seen people make Walkman emulators for the iPhone Duo; I think that screen would be perfect for an iPod, so I'd love to Apple to make a secret option in the Music app to browse your library with this virtual iPod.

And standalone music players are on the rise in popularity — Apple might not bring the iPod back, but there are several new devices that feel inspired by the old Nano and Shuffle designs, and more recently one that looks like a cross between the Classic and a Zune. My colleague Matt Bolton, meanwhile, is convinced that it's time for Apple to bring the Shuffle back in a wireless form.

• Bluesound is adding fully integrated Apple Music support, on top of existing AirPlay support
• This is rare in streaming systems — Sonos has basically had a monopoly
• Available now via free software update

If you want to play Apple Music natively, in high resolution, on multi-room audio equipment the choice has largely been Sonos, Sonos or Sonos. That's now changed, and direct integration with the Apple Music service is coming to the Bluesound platform and BluOS software as a free upgrade.

That's a big deal because in addition to Bluesound's own products, the BluOS operating system also powers devices from big audio brands including NAD Electronics, PSB Speakers, DALI, Cyrus, and Monitor Audio.

It's a significant upgrade, because like Spotify and TIDAL, Apple Music is now fully integrated into the BluOS platform rather than supported indirectly via AirPlay 2. That means the audio is streaming directly to your player rather than via your phone, tablet or computer, so there's no compression, as there is over AirPlay or Bluetooth.

When is the Apple Music upgrade coming to BluOS?

The update is available from today, 20 October 2026, and you can get it by updating the BluOS software on your device. You'll then be able to use the BluOS Controller app to select your streaming, whether that's to a single device or a multi-room setup.

In the case of multi-room setups you'll be able to share Apple Music to specific rooms and audio zones, or have the same music playing everywhere.

Although the update itself is free, Apple Music is of course a subscription-based service, though you don't have to pay extra for higher quality or ad-free streaming.

It's a major win for Bluesound as the key Sonos alternative. There's obviously a lot of crossover between the the slickness the Sonos system has been known for and what people expect from Apple products.

When Sonos had its major software issues in 2024, Bluesound and WiiM emerged as the two multi-room systems hoping to benefit most from it, but WiiM has a strange relationship with Apple. None of its products support Apple Music natively, and many of its products don't even support AirPlay.

So this is a big win for Bluesound with Apple fans, especially since it's always been considered the more audiophile-led alternative to Sonos — now Apple Music can be a source for that.

• Spotify is rolling out a new verification process for Premium Family members
• Users must now scan the account manager's QR code to confirm they're part of the same household
• Spotify will boot you back to the free tier and give you a 12-month Premium Family ban if you fail to verify

Update 10/21: A Spotify spokesperson has provided us with the following comment on Premium Family plan sharing:

'Household plans are for people who live at the same address as the primary account holder, as set out in our terms and conditions. We continue to look at ways to make sure our plans are used as intended.'

Original story follows.

The Netflix password-sharing crackdown is rubbing off on one of the best music streaming services — now Spotify is taking its own approach to putting a stop to Premium Family plan sharing.

Spotify is enforcing this via a new QR code verification system, which has started rolling out to a number of users if they’re not at the same address as the account manager. The QR code appears on the account holder’s device, requiring those under the plan to scan it in order to verify that you’re living in the same household. This code updates every few seconds, making it harder for users to use screenshots to bypass the process.

The platform goes into the verification process in detail on its support page, clarifying that it doesn’t use location tracking but instead checks your address to verify it’s the same one as the account manager’s. Additionally, Spotify states that ‘both the manager and member need to be in the same place to complete the scan’.

If you receive a verification prompt, you’ll have a 7-day window to complete the scan, but failure to comply comes with consequences. Spotify will boot you back to ad-listening on the free tier as well as banning you from joining another Premium Family or Duo plan for 12 months. It really does feel like a prison sentence.

As you can imagine, users are beyond frustrated with Spotify’s latest move, and despite not being on the Premium Family plan myself, even I can’t fathom the ridiculousness of it all.

We don’t know if this is region-specific, but a number of users on Reddit have received verification prompts despite there being no formal announcement from the company. ‘Self sabotage by Spotify. If I have to do this more than once for my kids that live at home I'm shutting it down,’ an angry Redditor posted.

One of the many users' frustrations is with, of course, money. By limiting Premium Family as a solely household plan, Spotify will drive a huge number of users out of the grouped plan and leave them with no option but to sign up to Premium Individual.

This plan is priced at $12.99 / £12.99 / AU$15.99 a month, while Premium Family is $21.99 / £21.99 / AU$25.99 a month and includes up to six individual accounts — which is roughly $3.665 / £3.665 / AU$4.331 per individual account. The more users Spotify can force into Premium Individual accounts, the more subscription revenue it can generate, but it’s so much more than money.

For me, the most ridiculous part is Spotify’s narrow definition of what a ‘family’ is, as a large majority of Premium Family users are members who have moved out of their parents’ home but are still on the same plan — for example, students who move away from home to study. So, in Spotify’s eyes, these types of families are essentially considered lesser than a family whose members still live under the same roof.

Equally, Spotify’s Premium Family plan has been helpful for adults to guide their not-so-tech literate elderly parents through navigating digital streaming, as another Redditor highlights. Someone takes control of the account, sets up a profile for their parents, shows them the ropes, and lets them listen away. Not only does the verification remove this, it also gets rid of the novelty of families comparing their music tastes and reminiscing about their old favourites together.

It has to be said that until now, Spotify has been on its best behavior and even rolled out helpful tools to exclude your kids’ music from your recommendations, which has been welcomed by Premium Family members — but the new verification process just feels like one step forward, three steps back. In that case, Spotify should rebrand Premium Family to 'Premium Household' to avoid confusion.

• Audiophile.fm now has an app for Android and iOS 26 or later, in addition to its web version
• It's a free streaming radio service, and all music is CD quality or hi-res
• No subscription needed, no account, and no in-app ads

If you're looking for an audio alternative to ad-stuffed and/or expensive subscription music services, Audiophile.fm could be just what you're looking for. It's a free and ad-free player for internet radio stations that stream in CD quality or higher, and it just launched an app for iOS and Android, having already been available in your web browser.

While Macs aren't officially supported, you can grab the iPhone version from the Mac App Store. I've done that on my Mac, and can confirm it runs perfectly on macOS 27.

The app was created by Bojan Vidanovic, who explained on r/BudgetAudiophile that "I wanted an easier way to find and listen to lossless radio stations. It brings together handpicked stations streaming in FLAC, from CD-quality to Hi-Res options across jazz, classical, rock, electronic, and more."

The response has been really positive, and having tried it, I'd say that's because it's a really nice app.

Free hi-res audio streaming. What's the catch?

The catch is: there is no catch, as far as I can see. The app and website connects you to internet radio stations, who presumably have all the necessary permissions and licenses in place to ensure the artists they play get paid. The app itself is ad-free, but some of the stations play ads to pay the bills, naturally.

The joy here is serendipity: there's no algorithm serving you up endless variations of the songs you already like, so you can end up with truly random listening: for example I've just gone from Daft Punk to French jazz to Underworld deep cuts to the new Beck album to Culture Club to, er, Alien Ant Farm.

And the sound quality is consistently excellent because all of the stations are broadcasting in FLAC at CD quality or better. I've listened to a whole bunch on my favorite headphones and the only one that sounded horrible was playing Alien Ant Farm.

This is very much a work in progress — things like equalization, Google Cast and AirPlay are on the to-do list — but it's a very impressive starting point and Bojan is actively seeking feedback on Reddit. The plan is apparently to keep the core app free and monetize it with additional paid features at some point in the future.

Obviously, this is no replacement for the likes of Spotify, if you're an audiophile who gets frustrated with the discovery options of the big music services, this could give you a great alternative: a wide mix of music, all in quality to show off what the best wired headphones combined with a nice headphone DAC can do.

• Successful Kickstarter Trettitre Retro Ambient Audio System is now shipping
• Combines several retro physical media sources in a fun configuration
• Sits on your wall (components can be moved), with multiple extra novelties

You can rely on Kickstarter to surface some of the stranger audio products out there, and it's true to form today. A successful campaign from a company called Trettitre has brought us one such device, and it's shipping now.

This is called the Retro Ambient Audio System, a title that's both uncatchy but accurate. It made over $2 million on a goal of $3,000, in just 15 days of funding (this was back in March and April), but you can still make late pledges of $399 (or a conversion for the equivalent in your country; it's about £300 or AU$600) to receive the full bundle.

According to Trettitre, the full MSRP of the device is $899. Since you can order the bundle for $500 less post-campaign, though, it's not clear if it'll ever actually sell for this price.

So what is the RAAS? Well, as you can see in the images, it's an all-in-one physical media machine. It's a combined record player, CD player and cassette player, which is designed to let you listen to any kind of physical media at home.

You can buy the components separately if you like, but the fun is in the setup with the magnetic wall-rack. Trettitre's marketing videos show users removing the record player from the wall, carrying it via a handle, plugging in some IEMs and listening to vinyl on their kitchen table, because this turntable has an onboard battery that charges when you put it back on its wall-mount.

There's one thing missing though: a speaker. You can buy this separately, with Trettitre selling loads of extras including multiple speakers, but know it's not included in the box.

Lights, colors, buttons

Perhaps the first novelty of the Trettitre RAAS is that it's all wall-mounted. Following in the footsteps of Ultrasonic Audio's gorgeous wall-mounted speakers and Fuse Audio's vertical turntable, the company is embracing vertical audio, which is popular among fashionistas (and people with smaller apartments) but decried by audiophiles.

The gadgets all have built-in batteries too, so you can remove them from the wall and use them on the go. The battery capacity is unclear (although six hours for the turntable is listed, or three if you're using it solely as a light source), but you should get a few hours of listening before you need to clip them back onto the wall.

Another notch in the toolbelt? The record player, called the TTT-LP3, has a built-in lighting panel which you can change the color of, like a giant RGB record player. The purpose, I glean, is to make the whole system feel like a part of your home decor. It's not the first time we've seen light-up decks, of course — FiiO's done it, Audio-Technica's gone all glowy with a vinyl spinner and Brian Eno's neon version was so popular, it's had a second iteration.

The LP3 has an Audio-Technica AT-3600LA cartridge, and plays at 33.3 or 45rpm. The next device is the TTT-DP3, the CD player which supports CD, CD-R or CD-RW, and seems to have a neat sliding release system which lets you glide the cover off. Finally, there's the TTT-CP3, a cassette player with some nice chunky light-up buttons and a clean, modernist look.

The RAAS is funky to look at, and offers lots of flexibility for physical media users, but might not be best suited for die-hard audiophiles. While each gadget has a 3.5mm jack. it's clear that they're designed to be used by Bluetooth speakers (unless you're going to have a long 3.5mm wire trailing up to that wall rack).

It's also suspiciously cheap for such a complex system; the best turntables alone cost more than the cost, without other gadgets and a wall mount system. Admittedly you'll need to buy a speaker separately, and Trettitre is pushing its add-ons, but it still raises eyebrows. So it might be worth waiting until the units have shipped, to see what users say, before you get too excited.

• YouTube Music says it will start labeling AI-generated music tracks
• On Deezer, you’ll be able to exclude AI music from your feed entirely
• Both platforms say there is a clear user demand for transparency

AI-generated music is a controversial topic in the world of streaming platforms, with the likes of Apple Music saying that over a third of its uploads are “100% AI.” Now, both YouTube Music and Deezer are taking steps to make it easier to spot artificially created tunes — and purge them from your listening feeds altogether.

The Google-owned YouTube Music has just announced that both the YouTube Music and YouTube apps will actively flag tracks that have been “created primarily using generative AI,” the company said in a press release. These labels will be attached to the app’s player page and will include a pop-up window with more information on how AI might have been used.

Music streaming service Deezer has gone a step further and has told users it will introduce a new toggle before the end of 2026 that will let them “avoid AI-generated music completely.” Deezer says that this will “improve the user experience” and put “full focus on discovering human creators.”

Speaking of the move, Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier argued that “The explosion of AI-generated content continues to impact the whole music ecosystem, and we believe in shaping a future based on transparency and choice, with respect for artists, song writers and music fans. We remain committed to minimizing any negative effects, while empowering our users to control their music experience to the greatest extent.”

Mass AI detection

Deezer’s Lanternier explained that the company had experienced “clear user demand for the ability to filter out AI-generated music,” while YouTube similarly stated that “our listeners have told us they want transparency when they’re hearing an AI-generated track.”

That’s unsurprising given the polarizing nature of AI. Whether the topic is AI chatbots, artificially-generated visual art or music that has been created by a bot, people have strong opinions, with a large contingent evidently wanting to exclude this material altogether.

Deezer claims to have detected and removed over 42 million AI-generated tracks from its recommendation system and to have tagged more than 14 million albums as being machine-made. It describes the issue as a “colossal, even critical, challenge” for the industry, with human artists revenues being impacted by AI music and up to 85% of AI streams being fraudulent.

Deezer’s AI detector tool has just been named one of Time’s Best Inventions of 2026, with it being used to help the platform spot the 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks that are submitted to it every day. Yet Deezer has also admitted that its detection tool has its flaws and could be weak to audio manipulation and as-yet-unknown creation models, something it also admitted to us during an in-depth interview earlier this year.

Anyone strongly against AI music will take more solace from Deezer’s announcement than from YouTube’s, with the latter merely labeling AI tracks rather than actively removing them from the user experience. Whether YouTube Music will eventually introduce a feature like Deezer’s in the future remains to be seen.

• A man fraudulently boosted his music streams using an army of bots
• He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his actions
• He made over $8 million from the scheme across various platforms

A man has received an 18-month prison sentence after he used a horde of bots to help him rake in $8 million in royalties for his AI-generated music. He’ll have to forfeit all the money he made during his endeavor, which lasted from 2017 to 2024, but he managed to avoid a harsher punishment.

Michael Smith of Cornelius, North Carolina, uploaded hundreds of thousands of songs to streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, then used over 1,000 bots to artificially inflate the listening statistics for his tracks to billions of plays. This netted him millions of dollars based on the platforms’ per-stream payment plans.

According to TechSpot, Smith admitted to using 52 cloud service accounts that each had access to 20 bots, putting 1,040 AI agents at his disposal. Connected to VPNs, these bots could stream roughly 636 songs per day, meaning around 661,440 daily plays for Smith.

The US Justice Department (DoJ) put the estimate even higher, saying that Smith deployed up to 10,000 bots at a time. It added that in April 2023, Taylor Swift’s music received 9.3 million plays on YouTube Music. Smith’s music, in contrast, was played 80.9 million times on YouTube Music in the same period.

Smith was charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy in September 2024. He pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to commit wire fraud in March 2026. He faced a sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment, but in the end was sent down for 18 months and was ordered to forfeit $8,091,843.64. He will also face two years of supervised release at the end of his sentence.

The news comes as Google has announced that it has watermarked 240,000 years’ worth of AI-generated audio and 180 billion AI images and videos using its SynthID Detector tool. Initially available to pro users, SynthID Detector can now be used by anyone and will work with content made by Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao, with Apple soon following.

Large-scale engagement fraud

It’s important to note that Smith was not prosecuted for making AI-generated music — while many will wish they could banish all AI music from their Spotify feeds, creating tunes this way will not yet get the cops on your case.

Instead, Smith found himself on the wrong side of the law for the way in which he monetized his AI music. By flooding platforms with bot-led artificial engagement, Smith misrepresented the popularity of his tracks and reaped the financial rewards of doing so. As the DoJ put it, “streaming fraud diverts funds from musicians and songwriters whose songs were legitimately streamed by real consumers to those who use automation to falsely create the appearance of legitimate streaming.”

Smith is certainly not the only person artificially boosting their listener counts on music platforms. But when you’re making $8 million from doing so, it’s likely that the authorities will start to pay attention.

Unfortunately, AI has made it absolutely trivial for people to whip up a complete track in seconds, load it onto streaming platforms, then watch the earnings roll in. On the flip side, actually making cash from this kind of endeavor is far from straightforward.

As Vice President of Apple Music Oliver Schusser explained, more than a third of the tracks on the platform are “100% AI,” yet they get “below 0.5% of usage,” meaning barely anyone is listening to AI tunes. But perhaps that reflects a wider problem with streaming platforms: while they might have enormous libraries of music, the vast majority of artists — AI or otherwise — will not see any kind of significant engagement or return.

That’s a broader problem than the one highlighted by Smith’s actions. But with AI making it faster and easier than ever to gain a presence in the world of music streaming, I’m sure we’ll be hearing about more cases like his in the not-so-distant future.

• Spotifast is a native Spotify desktop app that doesn't eat up all your RAM
• It stores all of your playlists, allowing you to browse, search, and play music
• You need Spotify Premium for it to work

I love using Spotify’s desktop app for a handful of reasons, but mainly because it’s a much easier way for me to create and manage my playlists — I’ve always preferred navigating larger screens for the best music streaming services.

Despite this, one of the biggest downsides to using Spotify in its desktop form as opposed to its mobile app is the substantial amount of RAM it eats up (it can use anything from 600MB to over 1GB). That’s where Spotifast comes to save the day.

Spotifast is a new lightweight native desktop app that connects to your Spotify account and imports all of your music. As its name suggests, it’s designed to decrease RAM consumption without compromising speedy performance, which its developer says loads "in well under a second and typically uses 100–250 MB of memory" on Spotifast’s information page.

To get started, you’ll need to be a Spotify Premium subscriber, and will need to grant two approvals; one for access to your Library, and the other to play music on your computer. Free accounts can only browse and search. The app is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, but how similar or different is it to the official Spotify app?

Layout-wise, it’s not far off what you already get with Spotify’s standard desktop app. Your main Home and Search page rests in the center, while your Library and playlists make up the left sidebar and your Queue sits on the right — both of which are collapsible. But there’s more emphasis on design.

The playback bar, which sits horizontally at the bottom of the page, features animated EQ visualizers as a song plays, which you can easily turn on and off. With Spotifast, you also have the freedom to customize how your app looks, giving you the choice between light and dark modes, as well as a selection of custom themes allowing you to make the app your own.

There’s also a strong nostalgia element to Spotifast thanks to its support for the Milkdrop visualizer which, if you grew up being mesmerized by Windows XP music animations, might be the reason you abandon the standard Spotify app. Additionally, the app supports classic Winamp Miniplayer 2 skins, giving the listening experience another nostalgic flair.

What's missing?

The developers of Spotifast pride themselves on having created a faster alternative to the standard Spotify app, and it already has the stamp of approval from users on Reddit, but there’s a reason why it's so much speedier — it’s sacrificed a lot of native Spotify tools.

For starters you won’t be getting support for lossless audio. Instead, Spotifast supports up to 320 kbps which, for some users, isn’t a dealbreaker (the difference between lossless and hi-res is minimal). The app is also completely stripped of social features.

While you can still create playlists within Spotifast, it takes them back to basics. There are no AI-powered playlist-making tools, so that means no Prompted Playlists, Mixed Playlists, Blends, or Collaborative Playlists. On the bright side, this encourages you to make playlists using your own initiative, rather than relying on an AI to do the work for you.

So far, those who’ve migrated to Spotifast for a smoother experience have been overwhelmingly positive about its speedy performance, but everything comes with a slight caveat, as the developers note on Spotifast’s information page:

"Spotify limits how often apps can ask for information. Spotifast normally shares this allowance with other listeners and several other music players. When that shared connection is busy, your library and search results can take longer to load. The top bar shows a spinner while you wait."

You should also note that Spotifast is an unofficial app, and any changes made in the standard Spotify app can temporarily break features until Spotifast is updated.

• Spotify is expanding audiobooks to over 180 markets and 120 languages
• It's also bringing Audiobooks+ to students in select regions
• A fab update for audiobook lovers, but I'm still gunning for a music-only experience

Spotify has gone from one of the best music streaming services, to one of the most-used platforms for audiobooks — and now it’s taking its literary offerings to the next level.

Exactly three years after Spotify launched audiobooks, the streamer is marking the anniversary by launching an audiobook rollout process including market expansion, new languages, and more. Earlier this week, I attended a press briefing where Spotify unveiled the changes coming to audiobooks, and today (October 7) the company took to the stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair to make the public announcement.

Since Spotify introduced audiobooks, availability has been limited to just 22 markets across the world. By the end of the year, however, Spotify says audiobooks will become available in over 180 markets, meaning that over 750 million users across Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, Chile, Norway, Peru, as well as regions in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia will be able to stream and purchase audiobooks right from Spotify — a massive jump to say the least, but it doesn’t stop there.

For upcoming audiobooks, Spotify will offer countdown pages similar to new album releases, allowing subscribers to pre-save an author’s work so that it appears in their Library on the publication day. ‘It’s incredibly effective at building anticipation and driving day-one listening,’ said Duncan Bruce, Director of Audiobook Partnerships and Licensing.

In addition to Spotify’s ambitious audiobook expansion, bookworms in the new regions will have direct access to over 350,000 titles, spanning new languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, and more. This will take Spotify’s audiobook catalog to over 120 languages.

Are Spotify’s monthly audiobook hours not enough for you? Users in the new regions will also have the option to purchase additional listening hours through Spotify’s Audiobooks+ add-on. If you have a Student plan, you’ll be able to take advantage of a discounted Audiobooks+ add-on, which is coming to Ireland, Belgium, Austria, and Finland in November.

Great for bookworms, less so for music fans

Spotify has truly achieved everything it can on the ubiquity front. Not only can you stream music easily through a variety of devices but the service has taken over the world of podcasts and audiobooks alike. As Owen Smith, VP of Audiobooks at Spotify, said during the press briefing; the company’s goal is to “build an experience that is intentional and meaningful”.

At its core, Spotify is a music-listening service — it’s how the platform built a reputation for itself during the crossover into the digital streaming era. It has pushed the boundaries by moving into other areas of audio streaming that users are growing increasingly drawn to, creating an experience that ‘no audiobook-only platform can match’, Smith added during the briefing.

Now, I do enjoy having these options, and I dabble in podcasts every now and then. But while I see how the audiobooks interface benefits keen readers, I’ve never got on board with it, and sometimes I just wish there was a tool that would allow me to disable this, allowing for a music listening-only experience. Unfortunately, Spotify isn’t doing this any time soon.

One of my dream features would be a customization setting that allows me to rid my Home page of all things audiobooks, keeping my in-app experience strictly music-only. I know deep down that other music enthusiasts would appreciate something like this, but it’s not on Spotify’s list — I should know, the platform told me straight-up.

‘We’re always exploring ways to give users the best possible Spotify experience and our focus is on personalization rather than creating separate experiences for each content format,’ a Spotify spokesperson shared with me. ‘Home is designed to understand each listener’s individual tastes, drawing on trillions of daily listening signals across music, podcasts and audiobooks to put the right content in front of the right person at the right time,’ they added.

I know what you're thinking, 'if you don't want audiobooks, just don't use them', which is true, but that's easier said than done — especially when there's audiobooks infiltrating every aspect of the app. They're inescapable.

Spotify has been working overtime these past few months, and when it comes to all the new features and upgrades the best music streaming service has rolled out, I've genuinely lost count.

This year has welcomed a slew of fresh changes, and Spotify has taken a leap of faith with many of them. Most notably, the platform's plan to tackle AI has gained even more wings, but smaller tools such as its 20-pin limit mean that you can be a lot more flexible with how you curate your Library of playlists, albums, podcasts, and more.

In the pool of Spotify's new additions, these are five stand-out changes, from tools that make your experience as a listener more engaging to industry-related upgrades.

1. Speak directly to your Taste Profile

For the longest time, your Taste Profile has been embedded within Spotify's algorithm, analyzing your streaming habits and sonic preferences to feed you recommendations across the app. Recently, Spotify has brought it out from under the covers and right to your sidebar.

Now, you can talk directly to your Taste Profile, feeding it prompts to shape the recommendations it gives. Don't want to hear a particular genre? Taste Profile will stop suggesting it. Want to find a new podcast show that explores one of your niche interests? Just let Taste Profile know, and new shows will appear in your Home feed.

Following a successful first run in New Zealand earlier this year, Taste Profile has now rolled out to Premium users in the US, but Spotify hasn't told us if and when it will come to other markets.

2. AI Persona tags are on the way

Users have long criticized Spotify's poor attempts at combating AI-generated music slop, calling on the platform to tighten the screws and be more upfront and transparent, just like Deezer. As well as Verified by Spotify badges, the streamer has rolled out AI Persona tags.

As expected, AI Persona tags differentiate human artists from those that are AI-generated. But aside from this, they're designed to give you added peace of mind that the artists and music you're listening to aren't a product of AI. Additionally, artists with AI Persona tags will be excluded from all personalized recommendations by default, ensuring that your music-discovery regime remains uninfected by slop

3. Spotify expands into fitness

Spotify's Fitness hub, which sits alongside its Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks hubs, started with a partnership with Peloton, bringing over 1,400 video workouts to the app spanning running, yoga, weight training, and more.

If you're unsure of where to start, a questionnaire pop-up will appear asking you what your fitness goals are in that moment, such as ‘what movement are you in the mood for?’ and ‘how do you want to push yourself?’. From there, Spotify will generate a workout pack for you to try out.

It didn't end there; Spotify also launched Running Mode, transforming personalized playlists across different musical genres into guided running experiences. Think of it as a Couch to 5k adjacent service. At the time of its launch, I spoke with one of the brains behind Spotify Fitness, Austin Lamon, who described the hub as 'a natural extension' of how people already use Spotify.

4. Learn more about the craft with SongDNA

Word that Spotify was getting a TIDAL-like song credits tool emerged in late 2025, but it wasn't until early this year that beta users started gaining access.

The best way I can describe SongDNA is that it's like Wikipedia on steroids. When you tap on the song playback bar and scroll down to where you can find lyrics, SongDNA sits alongside it, running like a mind map that spotlights all the creatives that worked on the song.

From producers to lyricists, and individual instrument players, SongDNA ensures that every piece of the puzzle is recognized. It goes a step further, allowing you to click through the different collaborators and see which artists they've worked with and the songs they've helped bring to fruition. If you love falling down Wikipedia black holes, this one's for you.

5. Secure concert tickets with Reserved

Whenever an artist announces a major tour, it no longer sparks feelings of excitement. Instead, fans everywhere see the ticket-buying process as a battlefield, because the demand for live music has surged exponentially in a post-pandemic time.

During Spotify's Investor Day in May, the company unveiled Reserved, which grants top fans first priority for purchasing tickets to their favorite artists with no additional fees. Spotify determines if you're a genuine fan by examining your overall Spotify activity, from your streams to your shares, and will also monitor the activity of Premium users. This will help show Spotify that you're not a bot account.

Once Spotify decides that you've listened to an artist enough to earn tickets to a live show, the platform will reserve two tickets for you, which you’ll then have the chance to buy within a dedicated window (Spotify says this will be around a day). That said, Spotify says that not every fan is guaranteed an offer for tickets, and ticket offers with Reserved will be based on the tour’s location, meaning that if a tour isn’t coming to your area, there’s a chance you may not receive priority access.

• French streaming service Qobuz is introducing tags to denote AI-slop music
• The firm also shared stats on how many people engage with this kind of audio
• Meanwhile, Spotify wants you to use its new AI agent to listen to music

When AI-made music is covered in the media, it's often painted to be an insidious success story; reports on artists including Velvet Sundown, Breaking Rust and Enlly Blue invariably mention high stream numbers, along with huge estimated revenues. If that rightly frustrates you, know that the problem is occasionally with the reporting, and not with AI music being popular.

French streaming service Qobuz has never been backwards about coming forwards when tackling what Managing Director Dan Mackta refused to call music at all, when we spoke to him earlier in the year. And now, Qobuz has unveiled a feature which adds tags to music it detects was generated with AI. This goes further than Spotify's opt-in AI persona label, by highlighting real artists' slop tracks. So expect to see it on Dr. Dre's new music, for example.

This continues a run of anti-AI moves from streaming services such as Qobuz, Deezer and Tidal, which have all identified sentiment to slop at being overwhelmingly negative. Highlights include Tidal giving no royalties to AI music, and Deezer adding a filter to remove AI tracks.

The major outlier is Spotify, which has made small steps to combat AI music, but some steps backwards too. Recently, it teamed up with Meta's AI agent Muse (no, not the Plug In Baby band, the chatbot that Meta kicked the band off its social handles for). This partnership lets you... queue up music, give voice commands to control your playlists, create playlists, and set up playing schedules. How did we cope before AI?

Time to decide whether you want Muse (band), or Muse (Meta)?

But perhaps the war against AI is all for naught? Because when unveiling its new AI tag system, Qobuz also shared some statistics on this kind of 'music' (word used lightly), which recontextualize the whole thing.

Case in point: apparently only 0.38% of streams on Qobuz are from AI-generated tracks. Yes, less than half a percent. For every 263 streams, only one comes from an AI track. If all the streams were represented by the population of the US, team AI would just about fill up Dallas.

There's more: over a third of all AI albums receive not a single listen. Not even from their creator. That's about four million songs, apparently, all of which are created just to take up space (and have been removed from Qobuz's library, so if you missed them, it's too late).

And if that wasn't enough, apparently 60% of all AI-music is demonetized by Qobuz's anti-fraud systems. This is based on the brand's AI Charter, unveiled in February, which detects AI music created solely for financial gain.

Qobuz is the original hi-res music service and as the connoisseurs' choice (devoid of many extra AI add-ons), one could argue that very few users are hitting up Qobuz for AI tracks, but still, the figures are telling. According to these Qobuz stats, you're largely all avoiding AI slop — well done you, take a pat on the back — and sticking to real music made by real people. Well, mostly. Looking at you, 0.38%...

• Taste Profile is expanding to US listeners following a test trial
• It's essentially Spotify's interpretation of your listening habits
• You can interact with Taste Profile directly, telling it what you want and don't want to hear

Spotify’s dedication to creating a complete personalized listening experience is still one of its biggest priorities, and the best music streaming is bringing one of its smartest tools to even more listeners.

After its successful test run in New Zealand, Spotify is taking the next steps by expanding Taste Profile, a feature that allows you to see exactly what Spotify thinks about your music taste and streaming habits. The tool is rolling out today (September 23) in beta for Premium users in the US over the age of 18.

If you’re a Spotify user with beta access, you can find the new Taste Profile tab in the sidebar by tapping on your profile image.

Essentially, Spotify is bringing Taste Profile out of the shadows of the algorithm and into the forefront of the mobile experience, but Spotify’s growing music tool is designed to give you a more robust way of controlling your recommendations.

Not only can you read Spotify’s interpretation of your music taste, you can communicate directly with the algorithm and fine-tune the recommendations that appear on the Home page — so you don’t have to rely solely on your in-app activity to shape music discovery if you don’t want to.

Interested in branching out to a genre you’ve always wanted to explore, but never found the time to? With the Taste Profile prompt box, try typing specific requests like ‘show me more experimental pop’, and your Home feed will adjust accordingly. It also works for finding new artists to add to your radar — I’d suggest using the tool to find emerging artists and give them the streaming boosts they deserve.

Secondly, you can tell Taste Profile what you want to see more of, and what you want to see less of. While you can already remove individual songs from your Taste Profile, this could allow you to remove entire genres from your recommendations. Additionally, you can use Taste Profile to quickly summon tunes that fit your current mood, a handy workaround to finding music that complements a social gathering or personal listening session — but it doesn’t have to be all about the music.

Unlike music discovery, getting started with podcasts can be a bit tricky; at least that’s how I find it anyway. The in-app Podcasts hub is a rich epicenter of shows, but sometimes I feel Spotify bumps the most popular ones in favor of those that explore more niche topics. Podcasts about classic cinema are my thing, and it’s taken me a long time to find shows I feel give me what I’m looking for.

If you feel you’re in a similar boat, Taste Profile could help you. Similar to music prompts, you can tell Taste Profile what topics interest you most, triggering your Home page to feed you suggestions to match. You might already be a huge fan of true crime podcasts, but want to find shows or episodes that explore individual criminals, specific crimes, or the most famous cases from certain historical periods.

For seasoned users, most of the hard work and fine-tuning of the algorithm has already been done. Thanks to years' worth of non-stop listening, creating playlists, and using existing tools such as 'Don't play this artist' to help Spotify understand me, I'm confident that I don't need to do any further tweaking. That being said, if you've just made the switch to Spotify or AI-generated music is infiltrating your recommendations, it could be a game-changer.

Spotify Wrapped is roughly two to three months away (I know, I almost threw up in my mouth just at the thought of it), but not only does it show how fast the year flies by, but it also keeps you guessing which artists and songs will come out on top.

While pretty much all the best music streaming services have their own iterations of Wrapped — there’s Apple Music Replay and YouTube Music Recap — Spotify Wrapped is by far the one with the firmest cultural grip

It’s the surprise element that keeps us on our toes at the dawn of every year, but what if I told you there was a way for you to get a peek at your top songs early right within the Spotify app? Well, one user tried it, and the results are interesting.

A '3D chess move'

At the end of 2025 Spotify launched one of its most powerful playlist-making tools, Prompted Playlists, a feature that allows you to enter prompts to generate a hyper-specific playlist. You can also amend the settings so that the playlist updates daily, or on certain days of the week, sort of like Discover Weekly.

One of Prompted Playlists’ smarts is that it can compile a playlist of your most-streamed songs of all time, and you can even ask it to create playlists that reflect your Wrapped summaries from the past. Clever right? Well, one user has used the tool to get ahead of the upcoming Wrapped 2026 launch.

Redditor u/thosememes took to the platform to share images of a Prompted Playlist they created (see below), where they asked the tool to compile a list of their most-streamed songs between January 1 and September 17. One of the replies called it a '3D chess move' while others denied its performance, so I tested it out for myself — and I can confirm that it works.

My prompt was simple: "Create a playlist of my most-streamed songs between January 1 and September 21 this year, and present them in a Wrapped-style summary". It didn’t take long for it to birth a fresh list of tracks, and it even provided in-playlist notes telling me exactly how many times I’ve streamed my top songs this year so far.

It was almost too good to be true, but after refreshing the playlist and amending the prompt, the order of the songs in the playlist stayed the same, with each update showing that it does have some credibility. Though I respect the tool for its intelligence, I can’t say I’ll be using it much from now on.

Does no one enjoy surprises any more?

Now, this isn’t the only way for you to extract your music streaming data. Sites such as last.fm and stats.fm are leading third-party platforms for reviewing your most-streamed songs, artists, and albums, but having data features within the Spotify app is oh so convenient.

As well as Prompted Playlists, Spotify’s ‘Listening stats’ tab gives you a comprehensive overview of your most listened-to songs and artists over the last four weeks. It’s a fun way to see how your taste changes and listening behaviors shift, but it doesn’t give away who will be featured in your Wrapped results.

This is where my biggest concern with using Prompted Playlists like this lies: the surprise element is completely removed, which is the very backbone of these types of end-of-year recaps. If you remove the thrill of the unexpected, do you really have Spotify Wrapped? And yes, Wrapped is so much more than the artists and songs you stream, but at the end of the day, this is what the average user is most excited for.

Not only this, but there’s the risk of tarnishing how you stream music. What I mean by this is that having Prompted Playlists give you this information essentially ignites that urge to ‘fine-tune’ your Wrapped, which sits in your subconscious as you listen to music and brings out that inner saboteur that tells you, "your Wrapped must be perfect or else!"

It invites a listening regime that’s far more focused on aesthetics and creating false appearances rather than one that’s purely centered around enjoyment and discovery. The best Wrapped summaries are the ones that are varied and unhinged, because that’s when you know music fans are truly listening with the intent of being themselves.

• Apple changes playlists to give you more control over your library
• Spotify bans free listeners from hearing new music, for three days
• One's good, one's bad. Guess which!

September 22: this article has been amended to include comment from Spotify, towards the end of this first section. The rest of the piece remains as written.

A few years ago, a word was coined to refer to companies' attempts to make their products worse to increase profit margins — it's a profanity so I can't use it here, but some call it platform delay — and two fresh pieces of music streaming service news reinforce, and subvert, it.

Spotify and Apple Music are both making some moves, it seems. One is making a slight improvement, and the other is doing something that, depending on where you live, is plain annoying. You've read the headline, and even if you hadn't, you probably know it'd be Spotify making the contentious decision.

Let's start there, then. Listeners on Spotify's free, ad-supported tier have posted to Reddit with a new problem: they can't listen to new music.

Not all new music, mind you: a pop-up appears when you try to listen to a new release saying that only Premium listeners can hear a track in its first three days of upload. This is only being tested in India now, but obviously it is not impossible to think it may roll out to other places at some point in the future.

TechRadar reached out to Spotify for word on this and, although the company declined to comment on whether a more global rollout is planned, received this comment:

"Premium Early Access is a label pilot in India. Premium subscribers hear select new releases on release day. All other listeners get them within three days. No music is held back permanently.” — Spotify spokesperson

A representative speaking on behalf of Spotify also told us that the move is an industry-wide initiative (ie. not something only Spotify is doing), citing Universal Music Group's statement on a "72-hour premium window" for major new music releases in India.

Redditors commenting on the news — Premium and free subscribers alike — were critical, though none seemed very surprised. It further emphasises Spotify's desire to push its free subscribers to start paying, if they want to listen to new music.

You can read more about the rollout in Spotify's help center.

Apple Music making changes too

At the other end of the spectrum is Apple Music. iOS27 has an added an option which would be nondescript most days of the week, but which helps as a useful juxtaposition to Spotify's downgrade (and which, Redditors claim, fixes "one of Apple Music's biggest issues since forever").

Now, in the Settings menu, two new sliders exist, and are turned off by default. One is for playlist songs, and the other is for favorite songs, and toggling these means that you can add tunes to a playlist or your favorite songs, without it being added to your library.

The Apple Music library could sometimes feel like a dumping ground for just about every kind of music you'd heard or listened to even once. It's full of your owned songs, tunes from playlists you listen to, anything from a Smart Playlist, and so on.

This could be a problem if, say, you make a playlist for a Christmas party, because all these festive tracks would show up in your library when you were doing a general shuffle. Inappropriate, for July. If you deleted the tracks from your library, the playlist would become eerily empty next time December rolled around, because they'd be deleted from both spots.

Now, your library and playlists can function independently. If I'm being honest, I'm surprised this wasn't a feature before. It's not a huge change, but on Reddit, various commenters are describing use cases in which they'll appreciate it, so it's clearly gone down well.

And Apple could have simply added the ability to change the Apple Music logo color; if it was an improvement, it'd have gone down well. Yes, you always pay for Apple Music while Spotify does at least offer something for free. But don't forget, Apple casually upgraded all of its Music catalog to CD quality in 2021 without charging users more than they were already paying. So Apple Music fans might say that Spotify is continuing to show music streaming subscribers how not to do it, and its near rivals will benefit.

• New Spotify billboards hint at an upcoming collaboration with GTA 6
• Some believe the streamer is teasing new playlists inspired by new GTA 6 radio stations
• There's also the theory that Spotify integration is coming to the game, allowing you to stream your playlists in-game

There’s something cooking in the Spotify kitchen, and the music-streaming service is teasing some sort of involvement with GTA 6 and Rockstar Games — but it’s keeping its card very close to its chest.

Earlier this week, Spotify billboards started appearing across major US cities including New York, LA, and Miami featuring GTA 6 artwork and the Spotify logo (see below). The billboards follow Rockstar’s recent announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6: The Album, a limited-edition vinyl that has already sold out.

What this could mean still remains unclear, and Spotify has yet to tell us what it and Rockstar have in store — but there’s a handful of theories floating around.

Firstly, some users on Reddit believe the billboards are just an extension of Rockstar’s marketing push for the GTA 6 soundtrack.

Before the tracklist was unveiled, artists including Travis Scott, Pinkpantheress, Future, Morgan Wallen, and more teased their musical contributions by sharing GTA 6 artwork to social media, so some think Spotify’s cryptic billboards are simply a sign that the original songs will soon be able to stream on the platform.

The billboards have also fueled speculation that curated Spotify playlists based on GTA 6 radio stations are part of the soundtrack rollout, which seems like a natural way for Spotify to contribute to the launch of the game. But others are convinced the streamer’s involvement is much more than this.

For years, players have requested direct Spotify integration with GTA, which would allow users to link their accounts and stream their own playlists in-game instead of the radio stations. On paper it sounds like a desirable option, however there’s a lot of skepticism surrounding this.

GTA has gained notoriety for its curated radio stations. If anything, they’ve emerged as somewhat of a pop culture phenomenon outside the world of gaming — as one Redditor puts it, ‘the radio stations make the game’.

Not only this, but given the time, creativity, and money that Rockstar puts into developing GTA’s radio stations (because getting artists on board costs), I can see how music streaming integration could be placed on the back burner for now.

That said, I wouldn’t totally rule out the possibility of Spotify integration coming to future GTA gameplays. For now, however, the billboards remain ambiguous, so it’s pretty much a waiting game.

• Spotify's new setting lets you exclude kids and family music from your taste profile
• It's designed for parents who use their Spotify account to stream their kids' favorite songs
• Once enabled, your Discover Weekly and Wrapped will reflect your taste more accurately

Being a parent has its rewards, but your kids taking over your Spotify account certainly isn't one of them — thankfully, Spotify is rolling out a solution that lets you reclaim your musical personality.

Marking the next step in Spotify’s goal to give parents more control, the best music streaming service is introducing a new toggle that, when enabled, allows you to exclude kids and family music from your recommendations. It can be found in Settings under the ‘Content and display’ tab, and is rolling out to Free and Premium users globally today (September 15), so it’s not annoyingly locked behind a paywall.

If you decide to enable the feature, songs such as TV themes, nursery rhymes, and chart-toppers from animated movies will no longer contribute to the recommendations you’re fed. This means your Discover Weekly, Daily Mix, and yes, even your end-of-year Wrapped summaries will reflect your taste more accurately.

While your personal recommendations will be untouched, it doesn’t mean that kids music is a complete write-off. Even with the toggle switched on, you can still search and stream your kids’ favorite songs and even make playlists with family music at the center — they just won’t affect your taste profile.

But Spotify’s new toggle is smarter than you think. Once you exclude kids and family music from your taste profile, the tool acts retrospectively, removing the music your kids have already streamed, meaning they won’t be counted in your top songs for this year’s Wrapped. That said, Spotify says that it could take up to 48 hours for these changes to be reflected in your personalized recommendations.

It’s all fun and games giving your kids the freedom to stream songs from their favorite movies and shows, but there comes a time where your taste profile doesn’t become yours anymore. Spotify’s new toggle gives you a more robust way of reclaiming control over your profile while improving your music discovery experiences, so that not every other suggestion is from KPop Demon Hunters or Spotify’s The Bluey Time Playlist.

The lack of separation between family music streams and regular music streams has been criticized by parents for some time. In response to this, Spotify has doubled down on its taste-adjusting settings.

In October 2025, the platform introduced a feature allowing you to remove individual songs from your taste profile, which I thought was a great way to purge my Wrapped of guilty pleasures. Shortly after, Spotify rolled out Managed Accounts to its Premium Family Plan, giving each account under one plan its own experience, separating adult and kids taste profiles from each other.

Spotify isn’t the only streaming service that’s been hit with this issue — rival platforms like YouTube still face similar criticism. Just like Spotify’s Premium Family Plan, YouTube Premium Family gives households a cost-effective way for all members to make the most of ad-free viewing and other benefits, but it’s still possible for young kids to infiltrate their parents’ profiles.

As it stands, there’s still no option to filter out kids and family content from your video recommendations like you can with Spotify, which leaves a gap for YouTube to fill.

Spotify, I owe you a huge apology.

For the past decade you’ve been my loyal music companion, but despite my tumultuous relationships with some of your features, your unmatched ubiquity means I can freely use you across my devices — with the exception, until recently, of my TV.

My Hisense 43A6NTUK smart TV is one of my favorite pieces of tech, despite it not being in the same caliber as the best TVs we test here at TechRadar, but it had been letting me down because of one thing: VIDAA OS didn't support the Spotify app.

Until now that is. Spotify launched on VIDAA TVs at the beginning of June, but I wouldn't have known this if I hadn’t been casually flicking through my TV’s app carousel. After waiting for the best part of two years for it to arrive, you can imagine how excited I was.

Since the best music streaming service landed on my TV not a day has gone by where I haven’t used it, and it’s filled a huge void. And something miraculous happened in the process: I now enjoy viewing music videos on Spotify.

I've experienced a revelation

Prior to buying a smart TV, the Amazon Fire TV Stick was my streaming device of choice, and it has always supported the Spotify app. While I enjoy my playlists on mobile, streaming Spotify on the big screen offers an entirely different experience.

It’s not news that Spotify’s music video interface and I haven’t got along — its mobile experience is too clunky and disorganized for me — and I’ve always used YouTube to stream music videos as well as my favorite web shows. Even if it meant enduring a painful amount of ads, I’ve always stuck by YouTube’s side.

I’d gotten used to YouTube’s way of doing things in the absence of Spotify’s TV app, but as soon as that app arrived I fancied trying something different. The result? Goodbye YouTube.

Before now, I’ve never understood why I could never get along with the Spotify music video interface, but I could with YouTube; then it clicked. It wasn’t Spotify’s cluttered organization that was putting me off, it was far simpler than that: music video viewing isn’t necessarily designed for the mobile experience.

Though I only stream audio when listening through headphones, every song I play through my TV on Spotify is now more or less in video form, and I’ve been busy making the playlists to go with it.

Long live the music video

Music video viewing is a big part of my life, whether that’s for background listening, nostalgia indulgence, or for blasting on the big screen when I have friends around, and YouTube has always been my go-to.

What separates Spotify from the likes of YouTube is that, with the former, the focus isn’t on the music video itself. There’s the option to switch between audio and video of course, but YouTube put the music video on the map during the transitional period into digital streaming. This is what tempted me to sign up to a YouTube Premium free trial.

I began by making playlists to mimic the nostalgia of music channels, but creating playlists on YouTube is a little fiddly, and there are all kinds of issues with the queuing system. And though you can make playlists without a Premium account, the ad interruptions ruin the viewing experience. So when Spotify launched on my smart TV, I put the pedal to the metal.

Before I knew it I had made five monster MTV-themed playlists spanning from the 1980s all the way to the 2020s, each packed to the brim with songs and their accompanying videos. That was my one rule: if it doesn’t have a music video, it doesn't go in the playlist. I haven’t used YouTube to watch music videos since, and the ad-free experience still feels too good to be true, but the joy I get from it goes beyond simply watching the visual accompaniments to my favorite songs past and present.

I consider myself a pop culture historian, and evoking the nostalgia of music channels is one of the defining elements of my music video obsession. For me, there’s no other feeling quite like bingeing music videos from MTV’s VMA peak era — think Bad Romance, Hot N Cold, Maneater. If you were there at the time, you get it.

But the music video is so much more than that. There’s a huge educational aspect for me, allowing me to step into the past to learn more about pioneering artists who paved the way for bigger and more successful acts. Using Spotify to house my video-centric playlists has been perfect for enriching my knowledge, and it also means I get to visit my parents’ youth, all while streaming old favorites I never knew had music videos.

On reflection, I guess there was never really a reason for me to dismiss Spotify’s music video integration — I just didn’t know how to use it to its full potential. I’m still not a fan of the viewing experience for mobile, but now that I know how to optimize my music video viewing, there’s no going back.

• Apple Music will soon force artists to label their AI-generated tunes
• It follows moves from rival streaming services to limit AI music
• Some users want Apple to outright ban AI tracks from its platform

The subject of music generated by artificial intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic over the last couple of years, with the matter proving to be deeply polarizing among music lovers. Now, Apple is stepping in to enforce AI tags in Apple Music — but some users don’t think it’s going far enough.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apple sent out emails to “industry partners” earlier this week outlining its position. Those messages made it clear that AI labels will start appearing “later this year” and won't be optional.

“Content providers will be required to include AI Transparency Tags in any instance where AI was used to create a material portion of the content, including tracks that are AI platform generated,” Apple said. “We define AI-platform-generated content as anything that is primarily derived from a generative AI service.”

This comes a few months after Apple started allowing record labels and artists to voluntarily signal that tracks were made with AI assistance through so-called ‘Transparency Tags.’ The latest update goes further, though, requiring music distributors to flag AI content so consumers know exactly what they’re getting.

AI fraud and streaming manipulation

Apple didn’t outline how exactly it would enforce its new policy. It follows a similar move from Spotify, which revealed earlier this month that it would start labeling AI artists and would exclude them from curated and algorithmic recommendations. Rival service Tidal no longer pays uploaders if it detects that their submissions were made with AI.

Apple Music's new course of action comes amid growing disquiet over the use of AI in music creation. Popular concern over AI tracks has grown so much that tools like Detect Music have emerged to help people identify whether AI was used in the music they listen to.

Surveying social media, it’s clear that plenty of people support Apple’s move. “Good, but that took way too long,” lamented one person on Reddit. Another user wondered, “I might switch over to Apple Music once this is implemented, if there’s also an option to block AI content.”

Yet for others, Apple isn’t going far enough. “As a paying customer, you should be able to block it as a setting,” said one, while another contended that AI-generated music “shouldn’t be on the platform at all.” One Redditor was blunt, arguing that a “Better move would be to outright ban it.”

For many, the problem with AI music is a double one: feeling duped by the lack of artistry when a machine created the tracks you listen to, and concern that genuine musicians are being squeezed out as a result. Add to that the known cases of fraud and streaming manipulation that are often tied to the use of AI in music, and it’s clear that Apple felt that something had to be done.

With the proliferation of AI music-generation services like Suno and Beatoven, this is not a problem that will disappear overnight. But with AI tunes appearing to be highly unpopular — at least once they’re identified as such — Apple’s latest move could help to make a dent in their spread.

• Spotify's Playlist Notes tool allows you to add background to the songs in your personal playlists
• It's also coming to editorial playlist, allowing Spotify's editors to give context behind their recommendations
• The best part is that it's not powered by AI

Spotify is enriching its personalization features once again, and this time, the best music streaming service is allowing you to add your thoughts in note-form to the playlists you make.

Playlist Notes lets you add short 250-character entries to the songs, podcast episodes, and audiobooks you add to your playlists, giving you a way to add context and background to your choices — because the personal stories behind your favorite songs deserve to be heard.

The tool builds on Spotify’s User Notes feature, which rolled out a short while ago, but only allowed you to add notes to songs and not other audio formats. Now, if for example a song or podcast episode reminds you of a specific date, a fun trip, or evokes a sense of nostalgia, you can keep a record of that memory and display it front and center in your playlists, kind of like a diary entry.

It’s also very easy to add notes. All you need to do is go to a playlist you’ve created or collaborated on, and tap the three-dot icon next to a track and select ‘Add note’. From there you can type your short entry, hit ‘Save’, and your note will appear under the track in a similar way to Prompted Playlists — except you’re the author, not AI.

It’s not just users who’ll be able to use Playlist Notes; Spotify is also encouraging its editorial curators to use it, giving you a glimpse into the context behind the team’s recommendations. This started with New Music Friday’s recent upgrade, and now Playlist Notes are being expanded to a roster of other editorial playlists.

From today, Free and Premium users aged 16 and over in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand will be able to read Playlist Notes in Spotify-curated playlists. This includes the following: Today’s Top Hits, RapCaviar, Hot Country, All New Pop, mint, and Fresh Finds Hip-Hop.

Savor and relive the good times

Listening to music is so much more than a leisurely activity — it connects us to our good memories, bad moments, and everything in between. Regardless of how much or how little you engage with music, everyone has auditory connections to specific moments in their lives, and Playlist Notes reinforces this.

Granted, Spotify’s existing roster of playlist tools and options is quite dense, and there’s also a focus on AI-powered ones, but Playlist Notes might be one of the platform’s most valuable additions yet — especially for those who like to get personal when making playlists.

For the past four years, I’ve been rounding up my favorite songs into annual playlists, starting a new one at the beginning of each year. It’s been my go-to way of keeping track of my favorite releases each year, but having a tool like Playlist Notes back then would have been even more helpful for keeping tabs on where I was when I first heard a particular song, or if a friend recommended it to me.

But it’s not just that. What appeals to me the most about Playlist Notes is that, for once, it’s not an AI tool. Every note you enter is written by you. There are no text prompts or suggestions getting in the way, it’s 100% your thoughts. It’s also a useful addition to Spotify’s editorial playlists.

I’m always on the hunt for new music recommendations, and navigating Spotify’s own playlists is just one part of my discovery regime. But I also have a thirst for knowledge, and reading the background of editors’ recommendations is oh so quenching. Luckily, not every song in these playlists have notes so it’s not overpowered with text, and you can easily toggle them off so they disappear.

Out of all the personalization features for playlists, Playlist Notes is one I think I could integrate into my listening habits. Perhaps not as much for my own, but there’s a whole world full of music out there that I’m dying to learn more about.

• Car Thing display dongles are currently e-waste...
• ... but this new software online lets you revive them
• Created by fan engineers to bring back old tech

It's been several years since Spotify killed off its Car Thing auto dongle, bricking devices which customers owned, and some users have never forgiven the brand for that 'Car Thing is being discontinued' pop-up on their displays. But, even though it's been four years since the brand announced the end of the road for Car Thing, fans have finally found a way to bring it back.

Over the last few months, an engineer has been working on a revival project, and they finally have it — in the form of Mira. This is a software you can download onto your old Car Thing, to bring back its functionality in your vehicle.

You can download the software via Github, and get it working on your Car Thing by connecting it to your phone or computer, but you don't need a permanent install of anything onto your device (other than Spotify, obviously).

Then, you'll be able to keep using your Car Thing to add Spotify playback to your smart system-less car, just as the streaming giant intended when it unveiled the thing.

It's not quite Car Thing...

... but it's close. The designer has shared a list of features available in Mira, and it's pretty extensive. You can use voice commands, see album artwork and lyrics, use gesture controls to navigate, use Car Thing's physical dial and see the transcripts of podcasts.

Apparently there are a few Bluetooth connection bugs in the current version of the software, and Reddit commenters on the announcement post are clearly waiting for Apple Music and YouTube Music support. But Mira's mere existence is great news in making up for Spotify's failings.

Perhaps best of all in this 'pay-for-everything' existence is that Mira is free to download and use, with no rolling subscription fee (so, just whatever you pay for Spotify and your device, obviously).

I didn't have 'Car Thing coming back to life' on my 2026 bingo card, but now that it has, I'm not surprised Spotify had nothing to do with it. The brand has been too busy essentially swerving the AI slop problem (then belatedly backpedaling and trying to contain the issue) to work on any hardware projects. So it makes sense that buyers would have to step in if they wanted to get their Car Things back on the road.

Spotify has always found ways to branch out beyond music, now the platform is a hub for all-things audiobooks and podcasts. So what do you do when you’ve got every audio format under your belt? You venture into fitness, of course.

The best music streaming service kick-started its new Fitness hub in April by announcing a partnership with Peloton, bringing a slew of video workouts from Peloton trainers right to the Spotify app. Just a few weeks ago, the platform launched Running Mode, a collection of customizable playlists across different genres to make soundtracking your workouts easier.

But Spotify’s new Fitness ecosystem wouldn’t be what it is without the watchful eye of Austin Lamon, Senior Director of Product, who helped build the hub from the ground up — and knows exactly where he wants to take it.

A 'natural extension'

Spotify’s Fitness hub didn’t just appear overnight, and the product team had to ask themselves one question: how can we integrate it into Spotify’s existing products?

“Our strategy has been to expand into formats that deepen engagement and increase the value of Premium,” Lamon tells me. “Music, podcasts, audiobooks, video, and now fitness all serve the same goal: helping users get more out of their time on Spotify and leave feeling better than when they opened the app”.

One of the best things about Spotify’s Fitness hub is that it’s not overly complicated and intimidating for beginners. Instead, it caters to budding and established fitness enthusiasts equally. Lamon tells me “Spotify Fitness is built for anyone who wants movement to be part of their day without adding complexity to it.

“That could be a dedicated athlete following a structured training plan, someone fitting in a walk between meetings, or a first-timer looking for a guided stretch or yoga session. Many of the most popular fitness experiences — like walking, running, yoga, strength and mobility — require little or no equipment, making them accessible to almost everyone”.

It’s clear that the Spotify team is full of ideas, and it’s always thinking about new ways to take the platform to the next level. However, not every idea makes the cut, but for Lamon, fitness was a no-brainer.

“Fitness is a natural extension of how people already use Spotify today — to get motivated, recover, and reset — and allows us to support more moments throughout the day,” he shares, but the fitness hub needed a bit of a boost to get the ball rolling. How do you do that? You enlist the help of a fitness behemoth.

Thank you, Peloton

Spotify’s partnership with Peloton gave the fitness hub the kick-starter it needed, turning it into a one-stop shop for guided workout videos for all fitness abilities.

“Peloton was a natural launch partner because it brought world-class instructors, high production quality, and a deep catalog of programming that allowed us to deliver a great experience from day one,” Lamon details. “Our ambition is to build an open fitness ecosystem where users can discover the content that's right for them, while making Spotify an even more useful part of their daily routines through experiences like Running Mode”.

Shortly after Peloton came to the Spotify app, Running Mode was born, enhancing the Fitness hub by transforming personalized playlists into guided running experiences. Lamon is confident this is the key to success and expansion, telling me “The early signals are very encouraging, and usage has grown every week since launch.

“We aren't trying to create a new behavior; millions of people were already incorporating Spotify into their fitness routines. We’re simply making those experiences more seamless and personalized. Running Mode is the next step in meeting that demand”.

After playing around with Running Mode, I get where Lamon is coming from — there’s a playlist for everyone depending on how long you want to run for and the genre you want to listen to, and comes with a voiceover that interjects every now and then like Couch to 5K.

It can be a bit intimidating for those who don’t know where to start, but Lamon offers his advice. “Running is how I reset, and Running Mode has fully become part of my routine,” he starts, but there’s one thing in particular he wants you to remember.

“One thing people don't always realize is that the presets are completely customizable. You can adjust the workout type—whether it's intervals, a steady run, or something more structured—the duration, your target BPM, and even the kind of music you're in the mood for,” he says. Despite being pre-curated, there’s still an element of control.

He continues: “The real power-user trick is hidden one level deeper: swipe across the playlist controls to "Edit prompt" and you can describe your exact session in plain words — your intervals, your warm-up length, whatever you want — and Spotify builds the run around it. I also recommend trying the optional audio coaching. It feels less like a coach barking instructions and more like a supportive friend helping you pace the run. And if you prefer to run without it, you can turn it off with a tap”.

A fitness future awaits

If there’s one thing Spotify has always invested in, it’s access. You can use Search to find an abundance of its own editorial playlists, as well as the Made For You hub. But I couldn’t help but wonder: does convenience eradicate the desire to curate your own playlists? Lamon doesn’t think so.

“Spotify has always been about giving people more choices, not fewer,” he says. “If you love building your own workout playlists, that experience isn't going anywhere. Running Mode is simply another option for the moments when you'd rather spend less time curating and more time moving”.

Lamon also believes that Running Mode’s personalization is the other redeeming factor, sharing with me that “Every session starts with the listener's own preferences — from the type and length of their run to the music they want to hear and the tempo that matches their pace. The result isn't a one-size-fits-all soundtrack; it's an experience tailored to that specific person based on their goals, music taste, and workout preferences”.

As someone who makes their own playlists, I’m quite satisfied with the soundtracks I’ve created for my different workout regimes. However, that’s not to say I don’t appreciate having access to playlists that are not only concise tempo-wise, but are the right running lengths. Running Mode is already a solid expansion of Spotify’s Fitness hub, but it’s only the start for Lamon.

It’s only been two weeks since Fitness launched on Spotify, and he’s already looking ahead, who shares with me “We see Fitness as a long-term investment and another way to make Spotify more valuable throughout the day”.

He goes on: “Just as we've expanded from music into podcasts, audiobooks, and video, we'll continue evolving Fitness based on how people naturally want to move, listen, and engage. In the near term, our focus is on expanding access.

In the short time Spotify’s Fitness hub has been live, the editorial brains behind it have noticed an encouraging shift in user engagement. And from here on out, Fitness is only going to get bigger, as Lamon leaves me with this: “Looking ahead, we're exploring additional workout types, deeper personalization, and ways to make the experience even more seamless across devices”.

• Spotify is introducing AI Persona tags in mid-September
• The platform aims to improve user transparency by differentiating real artists from AI-generated ones
• Spotify only reviews an artist's profile and images, and not the music itself

Spotify has fallen short on the AI transparency front compared to some of the other best music streaming services, with users pining for a fix — and now the platform is taking its biggest step yet towards combatting AI slop.

The streaming giant announced today (August 11) the arrival of new AI Persona tags, which are designed to differentiate human artists from ones that are AI-generated. Spotify says these tags will roll out to mobile in mid-September, and will appear in an artist’s profile banner, ‘About’ section, in Search, and in song rows in playlists.

Once they become available, users can be safe in the knowledge that the artists they’re listening to haven’t been generated by AI. Spotify added that artists with AI Persona tags will be excluded from all personalized recommendations by default, ensuring that your music-discovery regime remains uninfected by slop.

Though AI Persona tags won’t roll out for another month or so, Spotify says artists can already disclose if their profile is AI-generated. If an artist declares this, a tag reading ‘AI Persona’ will appear next to their name. ‘We hope artists will be transparent, so we are giving them the opportunity to disclose,’ the service shared in its announcement — but it’s not putting all its trust into self-disclosure.

Instead, Spotify says it will take matters into its own hands if need be, and will conduct reviews of profiles where it thinks an artist’s images have been created using generative AI to imitate a lifelike persona. If Spotify detects that an artist profile might be AI-generated, it will display a tag that reads ‘Likely AI Persona’, and the artist will be notified and given the option to self-disclose or appeal.

It’s taken Spotify a long time to catch up to the likes of Deezer when it comes to improving its transparency on AI-generated music. Deezer was the first major audio streaming service to roll out tags that explicitly say if a track has been AI-generated, and recently its Head of Research told us why we need AI filters more than ever.

Spotify’s own AI Persona tags mark a big shift for the platform, and will certainly improve the user experience by giving listeners more peace of mind. However, Spotify’s feature comes with an important caveat.

It reviews the profile only, not the music

AI Persona tags are just one of the ways Spotify has been working towards improving transparency for users. Verified by Spotify was launched a few months back — this is a certification feature that shows if an artist is legitimate, but it’s not as watertight as we’d hoped it would be.

Additionally, Spotify’s SongDNA gives listeners a comprehensive overview of the creatives behind their favorite songs, while AI Credits give artists the opportunity to share where and how they’ve used AI in their music production. It’s not as upfront as Deezer’s methods, but the measures are in place nonetheless, and AI Persona tags are the cherry on top.

That said, AI Persona tags target an artist’s public image, not how the music was made, which could present some issues, as it still leaves room for AI-generated music to slip its way onto the platform.

If Spotify detects that an artist is human-presenting, how are we to know that artist won’t upload AI-generated music to their profile? There’s nothing stopping that artist from publishing slop, because Spotify reviews their name, imagery, and public identity, not the music they upload.

It’s a tricky one, because while Spotify has measures in place that evaluate music and artist image respectively, it doesn’t have a comprehensive tool that reviews both components simultaneously, which again isn’t as upfront as Deezer.

As far as AI-generated content in Spotify goes, I’ve been one of the lucky ones who hasn’t encountered this issue. Because my love for physical media and radio impacts what I listen to on Spotify, I suspect that my algorithm has been trained enough to push AI slop out of my recommendations.

I do think that on top of my streaming habits, Spotify’s anti-AI music measures have helped to keep the fence up and block out unwanted songs to a certain extent — I just wish its approach to tagging was a bit more robust.

• Spotify has added a new 'skip ahead' button for all podcasts on the platform, except for Spotify Originals
• It allows you to skip over built-in ads and other promotional content, but does not apply to ads sold by Spotify
• Ad-funded shows could be significantly impacted, now there's concern for the future of podcasts

One of the best parts of having a Spotify Premium membership is the ad-free music streaming experience, however some podcasts still come with ad interruptions — but the platform has quietly rolled out a solution users have been pining for.

Last week users spotted a new ‘Skip ahead’ button that allows listeners to skip through certain parts of a podcast episode more efficiently, including sponsorships, introductions, and any kind of promotional content. This doesn’t apply to ads sold by Spotify, however.

Though Spotify hasn’t formally announced the new tool, it’s been cropping up for more users (including myself) since it was first spotted. We reached out to Spotify, who shared the following statement with us:

“We regularly conduct tests at Spotify — some tests become permanent features, while others help inform future product development. We're exploring ways to make podcast listening and viewing more intuitive for Premium subscribers based on how people use the platform, with the goal of helping listeners spend more time enjoying podcasts. We'll continue to evolve the experience as we learn.”

If you thought that all podcasts in Spotify were ad-free like music playback, you’re mistaken. Basically, when creators record podcast shows they often receive sponsorship from brands which are mentioned throughout an episode, so these podcasts are delivered to Spotify with ads already baked in.

Prior to the rollout of the ‘Skip ahead’ button you could skip through ads by tapping the 15-second skip icon, but this required a lot of guesswork and you're more prone to accidentally skipping further than needed. With Spotify’s new skip function, it skips through promotional messages straight through to the beginning of the next section doing the work for you.

It’s safe to say that many subscribers will be thrilled about the addition of the ‘Skip ahead’ button, because skipping through ads is one of the most-shared pet peeves among podcast listeners. Besides, it’s frustrating to be paying for a ‘Premium’ experience and still having to sit through these segments. It also puts a lot of the control back into the hands of subscribers, but what looks like a mere skip button to users is industry-changing for creators and businesses.

For a large number of ad-funded podcasts, creators and hosts rely on users to listen to promotional messages in episodes in order to generate revenue. Not only is it one of the primary ways for podcasters to make money, it's a tactical way to sneak ads into the Premium experience.

While the tool is a big win for listeners on the one hand, others argue that it opens the door for a huge loss on the other — the more users skip through an episode’s ads, the less money hosts make. And because the ‘Skip ahead’ button appears when a creator promotes premium subscriptions for brands that sponsor them, they miss out on other opportunities for monetization.

In addition to the losses it could pose for podcasters, the hypocrisy of Spotify exempting its own shows and ads from the ‘Skip ahead’ tool has sparked criticism as it could have a serious impact on its competitors and their ad-funded shows.

Max Tani from Semafor dissects in his own coverage, sharing the following: “The new skip button underscores Spotify’s push toward premium subscriptions. It’s prioritizing steady, recurring revenue and cementing a two-tiered advertising system, in which marketing bought directly through Spotify can’t be skipped — while publishers’ own ads can be, devaluing them”.

With these concerns circulating, Spotify clarified to us that its new 'Skip ahead' button won't cause any long-term changes to podcasts and creators alike. The platform told us that its new skip button "has been designed to improve the Premium listener experience while maintaining the integrity of ad delivery".

The platform added that it's been "seeing audiences reinvest the time saved by listening to more content and spending more time with podcasts overall, so [we] don't expect these changes to impact monetization for creators negatively".

Spotify’s new skipping function is still very fresh, but one that's already proven to be quite divisive. It's unclear whether or not the company will device to build on this, but as far as the user experience goes, the tool seems to have improved it slightly.

The 2020s has seen a huge shift in music, and the thirst for new releases has never been this parched — we have the pandemic to blame for that. Now, artists are pumping out albums like never before, and it’s become quite the challenge to keep up with this sonic saturation.

Back in 2023, I decided to take action. I started recording my favorite songs released throughout the year by adding them all into one big playlist on Spotify, starting afresh and creating a new playlist at the turn of the new year. Three years later, I’ve kept up the momentum, and now I’ve got four stacked playlists (one each for 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026).

But as the years have gone by, my playlists have done more than simply record the songs that defined every 365 days. Not only can I immediately refer to them whenever someone asks me ‘what were your favorite songs of 2025?’ for example, but they give me a comprehensive overview of how my music taste has evolved.

It’s become integral to my music streaming regime, and Spotify folders have helped boost my playlist organization further — but I’m waiting for an easier way to group my favorite albums of the year.

Spotify locked playlist folders behind the desktop experience for 15 years, but since it rolled the feature out for mobile back in April, it’s been a huge help in grouping my playlists, especially for my ‘Year in Music’ series.

Following the launch of folders, Spotify increased its Library pins limit from 4 to 20, so now I can finally pin my ‘Year in Music’ folder to my library without having to scroll through the cluttered mess to reach it. It’s a win-win situation, but I still think there’s room for improvement.

While I love a hit single, albums are my favorite way to enjoy music, and New Music Friday has brought back the album release as an event (thank you, Beyoncé). Though you can now freely group playlists in folders in Spotify, I’m still waiting for the platform to roll out the option to do this with albums.

That said, there’s currently a small workaround. You can create album folders by adding all the songs from one album to a playlist, then adding that playlist to a folder to keep track of your favorite releases, repeating the process with each album.

It’s handy, but it adds more steps to the process and doesn’t look as neat or refined. Additionally, I’ve also tried adding several albums to make one monster playlist of my favorite yearly releases, but this ends up looking even more ridiculous.

For a music platform that prides itself on being the first one with social media-like features, Spotify sure needs to improve the organization of these tools. As a result of the messiness of my Library, I’ve resorted to using third-party services to group my favorite albums into chronological and concise lists.

Musicboard is one of my favorites because you can review music, curate your own lists, and interact with other music fans more smoothly. It’s essentially Letterboxd for music, and just like Letterboxd Pro, you can have access to additional features and customize your profile to reflect your musical identity. That said, it would be even better if I could do this from one place in the streaming platform that gives me my music fix.

It’s refreshing to know that there are platforms out there that understand what tools music enthusiasts want alongside access to the music itself. For me personally, my listening experience isn’t over as soon as a song or album comes to a close — I need to actively log what I’m listening to, and having a cluttered abundance of albums saved into one massive list in Spotify just wrecks my nerves.

Spotify wants to introduce new ways for listeners to engage with the artists they love the most, all while expressing their own creativity.

The streamer’s audio mixing feature for playlists has sky-rocketed in popularity, introducing a new way for listeners to modify their playlists. Now Spotify is working on a new AI-powered fan-made covers and remix tool — and it’s seeking the help of Merlin.

Spotify’s upcoming remix tool will come as a subscription add-on, though we don’t know when it’s due to drop or how much it will be on top of the current $12.99/ £12.99/ AU$15.99 monthly Spotify Premium plan.

Despite knowing very little about it, we do know that the remix feature will garner significant attention across the board of users, artists, organizations, and analysts alike. So what’s the end-goal for Spotify, and what are people saying about its potential knock-on effects for musicians and listeners?

What is the agreement?

On August 4, Spotify and digital licensing partner Merlin announced a new agreement that would give artists on labels under the Merlin name the option to lend their music to Spotify’s remix feature. Merlin is the second organization to sign on to the deal, following Universal Music Group in May.

For Spotify, the goal is simple: to ‘give listeners a new way to engage with the music they love from participating artists and songwriters,’ as stated in the announcement. Spotify also says the tool ‘will create an additional revenue stream for participating artists’.

However, despite knowing the tool will be AI-powered, Spotify hasn’t gone into detail as to exactly how it will allow listeners to create their own remixes of their favorite songs. The discourse around AI-generated slop is still a hot topic, and Spotify is still bearing the brunt of harsh criticism, so its venture into launching AI-powered music add-ons has left everyone scratching their heads.

What are Spotify’s competitors saying?

As far as rival music streamers go, it’s safe to say the top dogs aren’t too interested in integrating AI throughout their respective UXs. While the likes of Apple Music and Tidal use algorithmic recommendations to fuel discovery, the number of generative AI tools is nowhere near as saturated as Spotify.

Listening to an artist’s music in the way it was released is the only concern for most companies, particularly for Dan Mackta, Managing Director at Qobuz, who gave us the following statement: “Qobuz isn’t looking at anything like this. The finished music that great artists release is good enough for us and our community”.

The desire to keep the traditional listening experience in place is quite prevalent on the one hand. Some users just want to kick back with an album or playlist, hit the play button, and let the music do its thing. But as music analyst and founder of MIDiA Research Mark Mulligan points out, the yearning for active participation is growing.

Mulligan detailed this in a comment shared with us: “A growing share of consumers want to do more than just listen. Audio modification is an opportunity both to tap into consumer creativity and fandom. Playing around with your favourite artist’s song is an ultimate expression of fandom”.

Additionally, he backed this up with his own findings from the recent MIDiA Q1 2026 consumer survey: “The potential of audio modification is significant. Consumer demand is clear, with 54% of consumers interested in some form of audio modification, from changing speed to swapping vocals, rising to 80% for 16–19-year-olds”.

Participatory music is a rising phenomenon, and software labels like A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya want to create experiences that go beyond just listening to a song. However, AI is out of the question, and the creativity is placed in the hands of the user, not generated by a machine.

What are artists/ organizations saying?

In light of Spotify’s announcement, it’s not just competitors that are having their say on the AI-powered remix tool. Additionally, artists and music organizations are questioning the long-term financial effects the feature could have.

Musician’s Union is a UK-based organization that represents artists in all areas of the music industry, and its General Secretary Naomi Pohl views Spotify’s partnership with two minds.

“The Merlin and Spotify announcement sounds positive as it suggests artists will have the choice to participate in licensing deals or not and, crucially, that they will share in any revenue generated by the use of their works. This is better than the blanket approach taken by some major labels,” she tells us, but she also raises concerns about how artists will be paid, adding the following:

“However, as with music streaming royalties, there is a question over how artists signed to independent labels will be paid by their label. Artists should in theory get 50% of any revenue their label receives, but in practice this may not happen in all cases as it will depend on the label’s interpretation of the artist’s contract. Many artists signed before AI deals were even conceived of. And, as with music streaming, session or backing musicians on tracks currently stand to receive no share of revenue”.

When it comes to royalties, Spotify has faced severe criticism due to its payment model. Because Spotify pools money generated from subscriptions, it means the most streamed artists over the year will receive a higher percentage of the profits made. So, even if you spend an entire year supporting and streaming an up-and-coming indie band, your subscription money is still going to artists like Taylor Swift.

Royalties aside, the other concern lies within the protection of music in its original form. PRS for Music, who handle the rights and royalties behind music, feel this strongly. “More generally, streaming services are embracing new technologies, including AI, to give fans new ways to engage with the music they love,” a PRS spokesperson told us.

But despite these emerging consumer tools, what could easily get lost is the care for the music itself. PRS fears this will become less of a priority, adding “Creators, and their work, must be central to the development of these new tools. They must be designed specifically to protect the integrity of the work above all else, and to ensure creators are fairly paid for the value they bring to each and every platform”.

At the end of the day, these platforms are there not only for fans to listen and engage with music, but they're there for artists to allow fans to hear music the way they intended. Though Spotify's AI-powered remix tool would be a creative addition to the service, how long will it be before everyone reverts to streaming AI-generated mashups instead of the real thing?

Suno, the most popular AI music creation tool, spent years making it incredibly easy to generate music. Now it's introducing download limits, watermarking and fingerprinting to stop people flooding streaming services with AI slop.

That suggests something important to me: even the companies building generative AI are starting to realize unlimited AI creation comes with unintended consequences.

Suno CEO, Mikey Shulman, shared a blog post about the company's principles for building the future of music responsibly. He says “AI should help people create something new, not imitate someone else’s work. This philosophy has guided how we’ve built our models and platform from the start.”

Great music is made by people

In a section titled “Our Principles”, Shulman says that “great music is made by people”.

The principles themselves aren't new. What's new is that Suno is now dedicating significant engineering effort to limiting abuse rather than simply enabling creation.

In his blog post Shulman writes “We will soon introduce a new downloads policy designed to limit the ability to mass distribute songs on streaming platforms, while preserving the professional, creative, and personal ways people use Suno. These changes won’t affect the vast majority of our users, but they will make large-scale abuse much harder.”

Schulman continues: “In the coming weeks, we will also be adopting new audio watermarking and fingerprinting technology so we can partner even more closely with distribution platforms on combatting fraud and misuse.”

That evolution fits the broader trend we’ve been covering from the music streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, and Qobuz, who have started to fight back against AI-generated music flooding their platforms.

Managing the consequences

Streaming giant Tidal has published a comprehensive AI policy with the strapline "Promoting Fairness and Economic Empowerment in the Era of AI-Generated Music". Tidal will identify it, tag it and crucially, not pay any streaming royalties for it.

Spotfiy has introduced measures to prevent fraudulent streams and AI impersonation . Deezer announced that over half of all new daily uploads to its site are AI — up from 44% in April and just over 30% at the end of last year. It launched a free site to scan your playlists for AI in June. Qobuz has announced that it is taking a human-first approach to its recommendations and “developing detection and monitoring systems to identify AI-generated content and fraudulent streaming patterns.”

This announcement from Suno feels more significant than another AI company publishing a set of principles. It marks a shift in priorities. For the first few years of generative AI, success was measured by how much content these systems could produce. Now it looks like success is being measured by how effectively companies can prevent that content from overwhelming everything else.

The AI music industry is moving from maximizing generation to managing the consequences of generation, and it's about time.

The current state of music streaming is interesting, yet unpredictable. The shift from the CD era into the streaming era has made access to music more ubiquitous, but it’s also thrown up problems: some users aren’t interacting with music like they did before, and the explosive spread of AI is threatening the entire streaming model. Enter Mauhan M. Zonoozy, former Head of Innovation at Spotify, who has plans to tackle both these problems.

Zonoozy left Spotify in 2023, and since then has set up his own music software label, A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya, a record label-meets-production studio that releases playful music apps the way labels drop records, including Drops and Stacks. Essentially, it’s creating digital music playgrounds.

While Shibuya’s products don’t have extensive libraries of music like typical streaming platforms, they offer users different ways to create new sounds, even if you only use them for a couple of minutes. But despite the label still being in its infancy, Zonoozy knows exactly where he wants to take it.

I chatted with Zonoozy about where his post-Spotify career is heading, and his ambitious plans to insert his music services into a streaming world in which AI is becoming a growing presence.

Music is participatory

In a short period of time, Mauhan and his “small team of creative technologists” have released a slew of casual, interactive music platforms across web and mobile — but this is only the beginning.

“I spent years at Spotify and I loved it,” Mauhan tells me. “Incredible company, incredible team. But I think I spent most of my time effectively thinking about what comes next. I started A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya around a simple belief that music is a verb, that the next major music platform should give people something to do with the music. It should be more participatory, more engaging”.

Streaming has certainly made music a lot more accessible, but there was always one thing missing for Mauhan: interaction. “With streaming, you can hear almost anything, anywhere instantly, but the dominant interaction is still effectively sorting through folders and pressing play,” he continues. “There's an entire generation that was growing up playing with music through different mediums and different devices. I think their relationship with everything felt a lot more interactive.”

This sparked a lightbulb moment for Mauhan, and his mission statement is simple: “to empower more people to express themselves with music, or feel self-expressive with music”. This is where his latest project, Bop, comes into play.

Bop is a pocket DJ app, currently in beta, that lets you mix, mash, and mess with music. Its interface is like an MPC workstation, allowing you to create remixes of popular songs by dragging and dropping effects and sounds onto its grid. “We're not all about replacing the creative process,” Mauhan adds. “We're more about building instruments and new ways to express yourself.”

When it comes to the best music streaming services, tools like this aren’t a new concept — Spotify has its own DJ-style mixing feature — but Mauhan believes there’s still more room for music services whose focus is user expression.

“I think there's a yearning for creative expression (in music platforms),” he says. “I think listening to music the way artists created and intended is absolutely a big part of it, but I also think having Legos that you play and interact with, engage with is also very important.

“The next step in our journey is packaging that up into something that is platform scale, and we can actually deploy it and build a larger community of users and fans around it.”

Next stop: a larger music platform

It’s clear that Zonoozy has had a blast developing Shibuya’s array of sonic playground tools, but what I want to know is if there’s a larger music platform on the horizon — and turns out, there is.

“I think there's a bigger platform at the end of the tunnel for sure,” he tells me. “A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is working actively on building it. I don't think it's gonna look or feel like any streaming platform you've seen before.” Now I’m intrigued — how will this platform compete with the likes of the music streaming big dogs? Turns out Zonoozy has thought about that too.

“We believe it's going to be more participatory,” he shares. “We're not building something that puts the music in the background, we want to put it in the foreground”. And it's as simple as that. “The hints are in the products, and we want things that feel more playful and approachable. I don't think anyone's going to accuse us of building a DSP,” he adds.

Despite it still being in early stages of development, Zonoozy has a lot of faith in Shibuya’s bigger project; but music streaming tools are evolving rapidly as is tech in general, so he’s had to do a lot of thinking ahead.

“My personal belief was that a lot of the cues around where media is going were in the gaming space,” he continues. “And I think interactive media was always a little bit ahead of the rest of the world in terms of film and music. I think because it was closer to technology, it was exploring the more creative technological boundaries of what you could do with media.

“I think now with what's going on and how powerful these computers in our pockets are becoming, there's so much new, cool stuff you can do. It's a responsibility for all of us working in music and tech to figure out ways to do it that supports the industry, the community, and more than anything, the art form.” It occurs to me that Zonoozy is as interested in conserving as he is in innovating.

Will music streaming survive without AI?

It wouldn’t be a discussion about where the music-streaming industry is going without me bringing up AI, and Zonoozy sounds dismissive about AI at first, telling me: “You know what I like about AI? It's easy to spell”.

AI is having a big influence on music platforms in many ways, with algorithmic recommendations and tools such as AI playlist generators now pretty much part of the package. Because these features are right at users’ fingertips, I ask, will there come a time where listeners won’t be able to use services without the help of AI?

Zonoozy has hope, saying, “It's hard for me to imagine a world where people are building things completely void of touching some semblance of AI, but I do believe that there will be products that are not purely driven by generative media.” While he doesn’t necessarily favor the reliance on AI tools to enhance the UX, Zonoozy isn’t against AI altogether. If anything, he acknowledges its benefits, and how it’s helped provide the foundations to his services.

“It's enabling technology for us, it's just not the consumer proposition,” he adds. “Shibuya doesn't build LLMs or ask anyone to prompt music and wait for a finished song, but we do use it as a co-pilot for coding and development. I'd be naïve to say that there's no AI somewhere in the stack there. But on the music side, all the stems are all hand produced”.

He continues, “I'm not anti-AI. I think AI is an incredible, powerful future-facing infrastructure. I think it can build so many cool things and empower so many cool things. I’m a traditionally strong techno optimist in that sense, I think it will lead to incredible discoveries and advancements — it makes coding infinitely easier. But AI is not our product thesis on our side.”

When it comes to streaming services, there’s a huge focus on churning out tools designed to make the listening experience more personalized, more convenient, and more interactive. Given the pace of this evolution, I find it difficult to envisage where streaming culture is headed — Zonoozy shared my uncertainty.

“In terms of streaming specifically, I don't know what's going to happen,” he admits. “The extreme levels of personalization to custom content made for you — I don't know where that line ends. Is it being personalised, or is it being generated for you?”

Growing up music-obsessed, my household CD collection was substantial. Along with my own music, it was largely made up of albums my parents had accumulated separately. Like a library filled with books, it unlocked an educational portal on all things music and ignited my respect for the album.

And yes, I use the best music streaming services to satisfy my daily music needs, but I’m still an album-listener, and I haven’t left physical music out of my consumption habits. That said, I’ve always imagined what it would be like to bring the nostalgia of CD-browsing into the digital era. Thankfully, Ricardo Amorim is doing just that with his start-up company Spine Music.

Launching on Kickstarter this fall, Amorim’s inaugural product is the Spine display, a digital music display you can connect to your Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal account. But what’s impressive about Spine is that it displays all of your saved albums as if they were a CD collection, which you can browse and play through headphones and speakers.

For a company that’s so new, Amorim’s mission is tunnel vision: to reconnect people with music. As he awaits the launch of Spine, Amorim sat down with me to talk about his product in detail and why he thinks it will never replace physical music.

A display that's been years in the making

Spine was unveiled to the world just this year, but for Amorim, it’s something he’s been thinking about for a lot longer. “The idea itself is something I've been kicking about in my head for years," he tells me. "It started off with me wanting to buy something like it, so it wasn’t like ‘this is a company I should start’; it was more ‘this is a product I need because I love streaming’."

Just two minutes into our conversation, I realized Amorim and I are quite similar. We both appreciate the accessibility and convenience of music streaming, but our attachment to physical music is in our DNA. It’s what keeps us grounded. “I love everything that (streaming) brings me. I love having access to every album under the sun, but I grew up with physical music, and I missed that,” he says, and I get it.

With this in the back of his mind, it all became clear to him, as he tells me, “Surely there's something out there that can bridge that gap.

"I left my job and said ‘you know what, if nobody's making it, then I'll go ahead and make it’. I went on a sabbatical starting last year and took time off to recharge and rethink what I want to do. Then Spine came up again as an idea, and I thought it was the perfect time”.

While Spine is a handy digital music shelf that gives you immediate access to your streaming library, it’s so much more than that for Amorim. “The emotional reconnection with music is what I would like Spine to be able to achieve, but not leaving behind all the benefits that streaming and technology have brought us," he adds.

"I love streaming, but I do feel like if you truly love music and you talk about music and want to move your relationship with it beyond your phone, there are few ways of doing so."

Album-centric with minimal features

Unlike streaming platforms where the user interface is central to the experience, this isn’t a priority for Spine. Instead, Amorim argues that the device’s minimal display encourages higher levels of browsing.

“One core concept of the product is to have no UI. So we designed the whole experience to be about swiping to browse, tap to open, and tap to play," Amorim details, adding "and there are no buttons once you've loaded your library in, it’s just gestures to protect the music”.

The other core concept is to spotlight albums in all their glory, which I raise my glass to. “You can import your playlists, but Spine will behave like a music shelf that displays albums. So, say you import your late-night jazz playlist, it'll pull up all the relevant tracks that are part of that playlist and display that," he tells me.

"There's something different about listening to an album end-to-end that an artist puts so much effort into thinking about. That’s what I wanted to project, hence why there's a deliberate decision in trying to maintain that conceptual connection with a music shelf”. It’s music to my ears.

But there’s one thing Amorim wants to be clear about: Spine is a display, not a player. When you select an album from your collection on Spine, the rest is done through your streaming service of choice, meaning it doesn’t render audio files.

“Spine will trigger the beginning of an album or play something through your streaming service, and then the streaming service will own the relationship with where it goes to play and so on. Once you have that concept in mind, then it's not about queuing, it's about browsing and starting the listening journey,” Amorim tells me, and there’s one particular reason for this.

“People have invested a reasonable amount of money in their own audio gear and hi-fi gear, so it doesn't make sense to me to try to replace that. I feel like we have a different job to do”.

Physical music is never out of the question

Just looking at the images of Spine brings back so many memories of seeing my home CD collection lined up in the cabinet — not to mention it looks great in a home audio setup. There’s just one question going through my head, however: will the convenience of Spine prompt users to stop collecting physical music? Amorim doesn’t think so.

“I don't think it tries to compete with physical media in that sense. What I notice is every time someone connects their library to Spine, there's an emotional wave that hits you when you see your music back on the wall again. You can't explain it; you just feel it,” he elaborates, recalling one of his favorite parts about CD collecting.

He goes on. “My nostalgia comes from browsing the liners of the albums. I remember to this day there's a Pearl Jam album that came with a bunch of little Polaroids, I think it was No Code, and I still love that. I miss it. Spine is not going to go there, and I would love for people to still go and buy those albums and experience that themselves”. At the same time, he reemphasizes Spine’s singular goal.

“It's really about reconnecting people with music. I truly believe that the feeling of connection we have with music goes beyond just the pure sound coming off of it. It's the relationships it can start, it’s the conversations it sparks."

Casual discovery and conversations around music have dipped in the streaming era. For most people, listening to an album is enough, but for those who really appreciate music, discourse is vital. This is something Amorim wants to revive.

“I've recently written about bringing back serendipity and casual discovery. You know, it's having friends over, and they start browsing through your collection and saying ‘oh, I remember this album’, or ‘oh I never heard of this one’," he shares.

But as it stands, Amorim’s focus is introducing Spine to the world and developing a new kind of music player, but he believes there’s already room for growth.

“Right now the core focus is music doing one job really well, but I can see potential in browsing books in a similar manner, and potentially even films and TV to an extent," he believes. "It's that sense of curation that comes with a limited amount of space, even though of course you can swipe and keep going.

"But if you're going to put something up on your wall in your home, you're probably going to have a different level of curation than you would if it's something hidden in your phone that nobody can see. So, I feel like that can apply to other types of media at some point,” he says.

There's still a bit of time before users can get their hands on the Spine display. While pre-orders open on Kickstarter this fall, shipping doesn't start until early 2027, so there's still a bit of a wait. So far, Spine looks like a promising device, and I'm fascinated to see how music lovers take to it.

I've had a Spotify premium account long enough to be hit with multiple price hikes from my original, stable subscription plan.

Throughout those years, the streaming platform has defined how and what music I listened to, mostly for the better, though in some ways for the worse; it could be my stage of life, but I don't feel music like I used to.

So when I recently rediscovered my iPod nano in a drawer during a clear out, it was the shot in the arm that this tired music lover needed.

The model in question was the iPod nano (2006) in black, and I couldn't for the life of me remember when I had last used it.

I peeled my old portable media player free from its disintegrating soft case and drank in that slice of nostalgia, running my fingers over its aluminum casing and wheel.

I just had to know what music I had painstakingly added to the 8GB of flash memory, however long ago that was.

After persistent rummaging, I found the 30-pin to USB charging cable I needed and, after a moment, sure enough my nano sprang back into life...

The time capsule I needed

2015. That was the most recent period of the music and playlists on my iPod nano. Had it really been over a decade since I had last used a portable media player and moved exclusively to Spotify streaming?

My albums, and more specifically my playlists, spanned 2011 to 2015, with the majority being pre 2013 — the year my first child was born. Back then (pre kids), I was clearly into three genres; electronica, alternative and Christian gospel.

I span the click wheel with my thumb to scroll through the lists, neatly categorized into Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers and Search options.

God, I had forgotten that tactile feeling of the click wheel and the outright simplicity of the distraction-free interface. And with my Bluetooth-faff-free wired headphones attached, I started exploring this little audio time capsule.

Reader, I used to painstakingly curate Final Mix playlists of my favorite tunes each year, and 2012 was so prolific I had also split it into two parts. Three, year-long alternative and electronica playlists! Heck, I even made my own Desert Island Discs list (dated 2013) packed with my eclectic all-time faves, which spanned everything from the hymn Amazing Grace sung by Aretha Franklin to dance house classics like Rez by Underworld and my wedding first dance, Your Love Gets Sweeter by Finley Quaye.

I cued up my 2012 playlist, which opened with This Year by The Mountain Goats, a defiant narrative of endurance in tough times and a simple chorus that resounded "I’m gonna make it through this year, if it kills me".

Eyes closed, I was already finding myself getting emotional.

These were house party days, pub hang-outs and those conversations that went, ‘Hey have you heard this?’. Songs recommended by friends. Songs shared by friends.

I locked in on that playlist, clicking the wheel to crank up the volume to levels probably unsafe for my ears, with no on-screen warning micromanaging my experience.

A timely reminder to simplify

Immersing myself in that old iPod nano reminded me why I love music. It took me back to the times when listening to an album might be the only thing I was doing in that moment.

Today, music is far more likely to be an accompaniment to the multiple activities I simultaneously have on the go, interrupted by the notification alerts and social apps on my phone.

For me, Spotify streaming had turned music into fast food. The iPod Nano was like a sit down meal.

And although my Nano’s battery is effectively dead — it needed constant power to operate — it has called me back to enjoy music in a deeper way once more. That fast food had grown dry, and I was appreciating deeper flavors again.

Things music-lovers enjoy about Qobuz: it was the original hi-res music streaming service and it also offers 24-bit hi-res downloads on demand (ie., no need to subscribe to buy) alongside a regular streaming model. Then, there's the digital Qobuz Magazine, human-first playlists over algorithms, a more ethical payment at significantly higher average per-stream royalties than mainstream competitors, the fact that it refuses to run a free ad-supported tier that devalues music, it continues to transparently publish its financial payout data, it recently added in-track lyrics… I could go on.

But I'm not here to talk to Managing Director Dan Mackta about any of those aspects of Qobuz today, admirable though they are. No, I want to talk to him about generative AI, and Qobuz's strong stance on it, as set out in its February-release AI charter.

If you haven't read the document, the following quote may be enough for now. It reads as follows.

Dan Mackta has made time to speak to me from a hotel room in Connecticut, at 9:30am local time, before setting off on the 100-or-so miles to Rhode Island and the Newport Folk Festival.

Anyone who speaks to Mackta will find a music lover from the Big Apple first and foremost — a businessman not afraid to talk openly and honestly about an industry he knows and loves deeply.

Right now, Mackta is hoping the rumors are true and that Lauryn Hill will indeed make a rare appearance to play a set (she did), adding with no small amount of excitement, "I've wanted to go my whole life, and this is the year it's finally happening".

Ready or Not

Yes, all of these sub-heads are now going to be Lauryn Hill tracks, because I'm jealous of Mackta's upcoming weekend of live music. I ask Mackta how long Qobuz has been concerned with AI-generated audio infiltrating the platform's otherwise notably human-centric offering. It's clear he's not a fan.

"It was a couple of years ago that we noticed the volume of AI content, fake music, whatever you want to call it. It was a problem from the beginning because of the volume of stuff that was being delivered.

"There was already a fraud problem in music streaming — basically content uploaded just for the purposes of fraudulent streaming, money laundering, organized crime and all of that crazy stuff — but generative AI allowed scammers to create this stuff at crazy scale. They do it to hide their tracks; create so much stuff that nobody can even really tell what the heck is going on. So we knew it was a problem.

"We also knew that this content did not fit into our vision for what our music service should be focusing on. So early on, the guys in France — because all of our tech is in France — looked at a few detection solutions that were on the market at the time, about two years ago, and decided to create their own detection methodology.

"So, we started analyzing. The thing is that the analysis takes a long time, so it's being rolled out in stages. All new releases are now analyzed."

Mackta is also refreshingly open about where the company's at with the rollout. "The actual tagging piece of it, which is where we notify the user if something has been detected as AI, hasn't rolled out yet, although it's planned for September. We shall sell no wine before its time!"

DDEX (That Thing)

I ask Mackta about the relevance (or effectiveness) of voluntary AI self-identification as a solution to the problem of 100% AI tracks — the 'Hey, here's an AI content badge; we've created it and given it to labels and distributors, so they'll use it' approach, because it's one we've seen in the form of 'Transparency Tags' on rival sites. Mackta is quick to clarify that actually, it is a new development and does have some value.

"I mean, the DDEX, (Digital Data Exchange, which is the metadata standards-setting organization upon which the music industry is run) recently added some fields to its structure. But it's basically voluntary for the person setting up the music for release.

"They fill in these fields in the DDEX. So it's 'you' and 'title' and the ISRC (International Standard Recording Code — a 12-character unique digital fingerprint that identifies a specific sound recording or music video) and UPC (Universal Product Code, which is similar but for the whole product) and other areas for credits. It's a whole elaborate standard.

"So, they added fields for AI where you're supposed to say if something is 100% generated by AI or if the lyrics were AI-generated.

"Now, some of the DSPs (Digital Service Providers, ie., rival sites) said, ‘All right, we’re starting to get this information from our suppliers, so we're going to surface it in a way that the users can see’ — and we'll have that too; we get the same information. But obviously, big problem: why would a scammer admit? If it's voluntary, it's a partial solution."

The Miseducation

Mackta is keen to impress upon me that while detection is a big part of the issue, it's not just about AI detection when it comes to Qobuz — or for the wider music industry. The company has thought deeply about what it's going to do with this content. "That's why the AI charter was a very comprehensive doc; it wasn't just about AI content", Mackta confirms.

What is the bigger picture? "It was about our philosophy as a company about AI and as a tool in our business — our everything. When we're going to use it and when we're not, and transparency around that. So that was about more than just the AI content."

Mackta sighs. He's ready to pin his colors to the mast. "You'll notice I do not call it 'AI music' because I don't think it's music. I think it's a simulacrum of music to get, you know, critical theory. But it's… it ain't music."

Everything is Everything

I want to know more about the different types of machine learning in music we accept, versus generative AI audio for fraudulent use.

Mackta is incredibly open about the versions of machine learning Qobuz does use. "Listen: there are a lot of tools in music creation workflow that have been around for a long time that are essentially versions of AI. But it's very different when you're using creative tools as a musician versus a scammer saying, 'Give me 10,000 things that sound like music that I can upload, for fraud.'

"Our number one most requested feature was autoplay. Right? When your cue ends, the Qobuz user wants the music to keep playing. So, that's machine learning! That's AI that looks at what you were listening to, and runs an algorithm to figure out what it should play next.

"So, we have that. Users wanted that. We have a few playlists now that are algorithmically generated based on your listening and your favorites. But that's like two clearly marked playlists, and if you don't want that, you never have to look at it.

"The thing is that some people — especially as Qobuz has been getting thankfully bigger and starting to poke into the mainstream — those people are used to those kinds of features and they don't realize it’s AI. We'll always make it clear what's been selected by humans versus what hasn't."

Lost Ones

I posit the idea that some have suggested — that AI is here, it's not going away, and there's an argument for not even trying to stem the slop. Mackta laughs, but he gets it. "I mean, let's be real. We're doomed! But let’s also try to hold it at bay, however we can.

"To me, the whole thing is just a really, really big bummer. You know, it just is so different from ‘why am I in the music business’? Why, really though, do I do this? Having to deal with this issue on top of all the other issues that were already there in music just makes me really sad, and so much time and energy and resources wasted.

"It’s largely an unintended consequence of the streaming business model, with the way revenues are shared; it's always been a target for fraudsters. It's like if every man, woman, child, and dog released three albums last year on the planet, it still wouldn't be as much music as the fake music that’s being shoved down our pipes."

Ex-Factor

I muse that perhaps as long as it's human beings making content for the emotional appreciation of other human beings (which is what Deezer's head of research recently offered, when I interviewed him), perhaps we'll be OK? Mackta is quick to jump in. "Well, and that's what music is! It's the whole thing that makes it all go!

"It's unique. It's a form of communication that taps directly into emotions of humans. So we can take humans out on either side of that equation — it ain't music anymore. What makes music music? You know, if you ask those questions, I think it all becomes pretty clear that this AI stuff may sound like music, but…"

Quite right. So what's the future for Qobuz? And can he speak to the music industry at large? Mackta is less certain, but he definitely isn't keen on one possible development.

"It's not really clear what's going to happen with this generative AI stuff. I thought the music industry would do its usual thing and try to stamp it out. But instead, now these companies are basically licensed by the major labels; if everybody's getting rich off of it, they're not going to try to stamp it out.

"But I do think, in terms of the fraud piece (of the puzzle) and the massive amounts of content that's just being generated purely for the purposes of fraud, the industry is going to come to some kind of resolution about it, because it's just not kosher.

"I don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but Qobuz is part of a trade group, the Music Fights Fraud Alliance (along with other DSPs and distributors and aggregators), and we're all trying to come together — the way the banking industry has come together to share certain information to be able to stop fraud. It's kind of like herding cats."

All Falls Down

And there's another 'what if?' Mackta wants to share. "At Qobuz, we sometimes talk about, like, what if AI fake music becomes something that most people want to listen to, you know? What if that's what's considered music in 10 years? Are we still going to have our philosophy? I would say I hope so. I hope that we stick to our guns and the stuff that makes music special is not going to change.

"And I do think that 90-whatever-percent of people probably could be played AI content and be told it's music, and they wouldn't know. They wouldn't care! And that's a shame. But that's reality.

"However, for people who are just even a little bit into music, I don't think we're going in that direction. I think, if anything, there'll be a backlash coming soon that really values human curation, human creation, and actual artistry and emotion and communication. You know, you just can't fake it."

I tell Mackta that I agree, and that as an occasional performer myself I really hope he keeps up the good fight. He laughs. "Yeah, I mean, if anything, it's gonna force us to dig in even more on these principles. And from a business standpoint, I think that's just fine. I think that success for us is going to be in how we differentiate and stay focused on what we think is important. And so far, so good!"

Agreed. As a loyal Qobuz fan myself, I'd go so far as to say it's a case of so far, so very good.

Deezer has never been backwards about coming forwards regarding the scourge of AI slop infecting our music streaming platforms. Just days ago, the French streaming site announced that over half of all new daily uploads to its site are AI — up from 44% in April and just over 30% at the end of last year. So, things are only getting worse.

Luckily, the platform not only implements its own proprietary filter to find, label and in some cases purge AI tracks from its site; it also recently made the tech available to everyone, irrespective of your chosen streaming platform.

But how was Deezer's own in-house AI filter developed, why is Deezer so keen on tackling AI tracks, and what does the company think the future of music streaming will look like — you know, for actual humans still trying to make it their career?

I spoke with Manuel Moussallam, Deezer's Head of Research, to get his take on all this and more.

Moussallam agreed to speak with me on the morning after the company's summer party, held at a music venue in Paris. I couldn't help but think it's good to know that proper live gigs and parties still matter to a firm whose success hangs on our love of music.

Identifying an issue (back in 2021)

How long has Deezer's research arm been thinking 'Okay, this AI thing is an issue, and we have to do something about it'? Moussallam explains that the site's comprehensive AI filter, now available to anyone who wants it, has been almost five years in the making.

"It all started in scientific conferences back in later 2021 or early 2022, because the generative models that were already working for images and videos were starting to make real progress — like real scientific progress — for music," he says. "That was probably a couple of years before the first commercial services were appearing.

"So, since we participate a lot in these scientific conferences, we saw people from Google and from Meta sharing these foundation models that were starting to work quite well for creating whole pieces of music. Not just snippets of 10 seconds like before, but really whole songs. So I guessed that eventually, if you're able to generate a lot of music, you can also distribute it quite easily — and down the road, it would end up in our catalogs."

"I would say we started working on the project in 2022, first with some complicated methods, because that's unfortunately a reflex for people like me — to try to do AI to capture AI — but then eventually we simplified a lot because we made some mathematical discoveries on how those models work.

"We realized that we didn't actually need a big AI to understand and to detect these pieces. Just by relying on some plain signal processing and mathematical tools, we were able to actually detect these artifacts for most of the models out there.

"Yeah, I think we deployed the first version of the detector in September 2023 — and we communicated the first numbers when we were able to scale it up to the catalog a few months later."

A big problem — and it's only getting worse

I wonder why, given that various rival music streaming sites have implemented 'Transparency Tags' (read: optional AI badges that place the onus on distributors and labels to tell listeners that what they're listening to was not written or performed by a human), Deezer chose to create a comprehensive filter — and then to release it to all? While admirable and commendable, that's a lot of R&D budget on AI, no?

Moussallam laughs. "There are many aspects, but I guess firstly, we did it just because we wanted to see if we were able to do it. On my team, we do a lot of audio analysis. So, knowing was the first motivation."

"But then, I think since Suno, Udio, and all these tools are trained on unlicensed catalogs, I was pretty convinced that eventually we would have to take down all this music, because it would be considered as plagiarism or copyright infringement in some sense — which may be the case if the legal battles end up that way.

"So at some point we thought that, okay, if people agree with us that it's kind of unlawful to train this model with all this music and they ask us to remove all the content from Suno in the catalog, we need to be prepared. We need to be able to do it. So, that was another big motivation.

"It didn't turn out like that — for now — but it may be that one day people tell us, 'OK, everything that was generated with that AI model prior to this date in the future, when people actually have agreements and compensate musicians for their work, all of this needs to be removed'. And we would have to be prepared for that."

Putting information into the hands of people who need to make decisions

I mention that across all of my audio streaming subscriptions (not a flex, I simply review audio kit for a living), I tried the Deezer AI filter, and none of my playlists contained AI, bar one: my Tidal catalog listed 1% AI content — and to know what the pesky tracks are I'd need to switch to Deezer. I ask what the reception has been since the release of the software for all.

"Mostly people are happy with the tool, I think everyone just wants to know," replied Moussallam.

"Ever since we started deploying this detector, we've been talking to major labels, obviously, but also indie labels, sometimes small publishers. All of them just wanted to know. Some of them made some pretty interesting discoveries on how their members were using — or actually not using — these technologies; so overall it's really about putting this information into the hands of people who need to have it to make some decisions.

"Implementing some transparency for our users was also a main motivation for us to flag the content on the website. And then we realized that people had to come to Deezer to check an album, say, to see if it had the label. And we said, 'Okay, we can also create a tool just for you to check — you will see for yourself how contaminated your whole library is on other platforms".

To purge or not to purge, based on AI markers?

Speaking to Moussallam even briefly, it become clear that he's a scientist as well as a musician (among his many accolades is a Master's Degree in Acoustics, Signal processing and Computer science applied to Music, from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie).

So when I ask how this proprietary new filter works to pick out 100% AI-generated content — which I assume is fully text-prompted music — and whether Moussallam and his team are looking to take it further, to stuff that's only 50% AI generated, say, things get more serious.

"It's a very complicated question," Moussallam concedes. "Right now, we can't really say that we only detect fully AI-generated songs, because what we detect is the presence of markers of AI generation in a song, and we detect the strength of these markers in the song.

"When we flag an album, it's because these markers are strong enough for us to be confident that it's been AI generated at some point.

"But we don't know if you wrote the lyrics for yourself, for instance. We also don't know if the song contains very few elements of human creation; that's not something that our detector is able to do right now — but that's the focus of our current research.

"So we really want to be able to boil down to the stem level and be able to make a decision based on a stem by stem case, because obviously we're seeing a lot of hybrid cases, and a lot of artists are also integrating AI tools into their creative process.

"So, these very strong markers of AI, we're starting to see them spread in human creations, and we need to be able to disentangle that from what you mentioned, like purely text-prompted music curation".

Can the markers the filter picks up recognize whether it has flagged an AI vocal, say, or artificially generated instruments — and how about stolen melodies?

"No, no, we can't go that far," admits Moussallam. "I mean, we are working on the stem by stem detection, but right now we detect markers — and we are not so sure where they come from."

He smiles. "I mean, we have ongoing research, but not something that I can publicly share. When it comes to detecting chord progressions or melodic impressions or plagiarism metrics, we are not so interested in that, because it would lead us too far. And I mean, there are so many songs that share only four chords! I think that debate is way, way out of our hands in any case."

What's next at Deezer — and can AI and humans coexist happily in music?

Perhaps surprizingly for someone who's spent nearly five years building the tech to flag and potentially quash AI music tracks, when I ask Moussallam where he thinks Deezer and online music will be in 10 years time — and whether he'd like to see all flagged AI tracks gone from the site — he instead builds a quite compelling case for computation in music.

"Well, the very first piece of music that was written by a computer dates back to 1953 I think, back in the days where computers were actually whole buildings built around them.

"Ever since people built computers, they tried to make music with computers. I think that's the story of the 20th century. I'm confident people are going to make great things with these new creative tools. It enables some stuff, and I guess as long as it's being used by humans to create cool music for other humans to listen to, we are very fine with that.

"What we're really fighting at Deezer is automated music generation, people who script computers to generate songs — I mean thousands of songs — and uploading them in batches to streaming platform to try to overwhelm and flood and basically really replace human creation with automated creation.

"So, I guess I hope music will stay artisan, as we say in French, so something that humans do to have the attention of other humans. That's really what I guess drives our motivation. If the music includes computers, that won't be a such a revolution — computers are fine, numerical instruments are fine — it's just who is using them to create that matters, in the end."

He's also keen to hone in on the fraudulent aspect of AI slop and the payment dilution for for artists, because that's also one of the motivations for stifling the recent development of the AI-in-music game.

"Fraud has always been there, it's just easier now with AI music," he says. "And if you upload thousands of tracks, then you can sort of spread that fraud across more and more tracks — and that's something that we want to get rid of as much as possible".

I mention that from the perspective of the consumer (i.e., me), the key annoyance is tracks making it into our recommended playlists and ultimately usurping streaming royalties — small amounts maybe, but still — which we'd prefer would go to a band that we actually like.

Moussallam emphatically agrees. "That’s really something we wanted to avoid. Anyone listening to AI music without knowing that it's AI music, like just feeding it to people in a recommendation? That's something that was very clear for us from the beginning we wanted to avoid. Because that's an awful feeling, I think for everyone".

Given that Tidal only recently drew its anti-AI line in the sand, Bandcamp's strong and concise stance was set out in January of this year, and Spotify's Verified by Spotify badge certifies that an artist is human but doesn't help filter out the slop from any generated playlists, I think it's safe to say that Deezer is leading the charge here.

Based on Reddit threads I see every day, I think I speak on behalf of thousands of music lovers when I say we're grateful for everything the Deezer team is doing to combat the AI infestation trying to take hold on our streaming sites. Where do we go from here? For now, trust in Moussallam's work.

• Spotify is rumored to launch its own song ID tool
• Changes in the Android app were spotted, with references to 'Identify a song’, ‘listening’, and ‘analyzing’
• It could add a level of convenience when adding identified songs to a playlist, just like Apple Music's Shazam shortcut

There’s one thing that Spotify has over Apple Music, and that’s music discovery features, though the latter service has the edge when it comes to music recognition — but that could all change soon.

In a recent investigation from Android Authority, the outlet found lines of code in the latest version of the Spotify app which suggest the platform is working on its own song identification feature. Though this has only been found in Spotify’s Android app, we wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it launching on iOS.

As it is with every rumor, we’re taking this with a pinch of salt until more information surfaces, but Android Authority’s findings present some pretty convincing evidence, showing text that reads ‘Identify a song’, ‘listening’, and ‘analyzing’. It seems the feature will need access to your device’s microphone, and will display pop-ups when a song can’t be identified.

Essentially, it sounds like Spotify is developing its own in-house version of Shazam, which could act as a band-aid for many music fans out there who, like myself, rely on third-party music-recognition software to put titles to songs.

When Apple bought Shazam in 2018, it thrust the music-recognition platform right into the iOS experience. Instead of needing to use the standalone Shazam app, you can add the ‘Recognize Music’ tab to your iOS Control Center for easier access, and Shazam will be right there at your fingertips.

It also works wonders for quickly adding songs to your Apple Music library. When you Shazam a song, a pop-up reading ‘Add to Apple Music?’ appears and all of your tracks will be sent to your library. Until now, this level of convenience wasn't available for Spotify users.

Since Apple took ownership of Shazam, Apple Music and its users have greatly benefited, but listeners who use Spotify, Tidal, and the rest of the best music streaming services have been missing out. Not all was lost however; last year Shazam rolled out a feature where each song you identified using the app would be automatically added to a special playlist in your Spotify account titled ‘My Shazam Tracks’.

I have to say, this small but effective feature has become one of my most-used tools for keeping tabs on new music, but if you Shazam quite a lot of songs from different genres, it creates a very messy-looking playlist.

Even after my Shazamed songs have been added to ‘My Shazam Tracks’, I still go back into the playlist to individually move songs into my other playlists — which is why a native Spotify song ID tool would go a long way, and would be even better if you can add it to your iOS Control Center.

Just think about it: you’re out and about and a song starts playing which you know you’ve definitely heard before, but can’t remember for the life of you what it’s called or who sings it. A simple swipe down to the Control Center and a tap of a button gives you the song title in seconds, and then it directs you to your Spotify Library where you can add your recently-discovered song to a specific playlist.

We’ve reached out to Spotify for a comment, who replied with the following:

"We're always exploring ways to improve our product and deliver more value to users, but we don't comment on speculation around possible new features and don't have anything new to share at this time".

Listen up, music fans: the best streaming service in the world* just got even better.

I'm talking, of course, about Qobuz — the French streamer that we consider to be the best music streaming service for high-res audio and which has just rolled out a bunch of updates that fix some of its biggest problems.

And, to be clear, it did have a few. While Qobuz is without question the best music streamer if you care more about audio quality than anything else (and are you really a music lover if you don't?), it has traditionally lagged behind the likes of Spotify when it comes to user experience and features.

This update brings a bunch of nice quality-of-life changes that make it a slicker, easier platform to use, as well as adding some sorely missed features that most of us have come to expect these days — for instance, lyrics.

Let's dig in.

* According to me, not TechRadar as a whole

Fixing a hole

There were two big things that jumped out to me when I switched from Spotify to Qobuz in late 2025.

One was the incredible leap in audio quality; oh my word, you have not lived until you've heard Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in glorious 24-bit / 192kHz quality on a decent hi-fi.

The second was how bare bones the app experience was. Spotify is many things, and not all of them good, but its app is generally a joy to use. In contrast, the Qobuz interface felt distinctly lacking, as if so much effort had gone into making the music sound good that they hadn't spent much time making it look good too.

This new update changes that as follows:

1. The Qobuz player has a fresh new look

The first change is on the face of it a relatively superficial one: the player that displays when you're listening to music has been redesigned. However, I'd actually rate this as pretty consequential.

For instance, the player now changes color to match the artwork of whatever you're listening to. Who cares? Well, me. Immersion is a massive part of the music-listening experience, and opening the app to see that its background is of a similar hue to the album art helps to keep you in the mood. After all, if you're listening to Joy Division or The Cure, you don't want a bright yellow sunny screen to snap you out of your intentional gloom.

There's more to the overhaul than just the colors, though. The fact that the player stays visible during navigation is appreciated, while the split-screen tablet mode — which I haven't tried yet — promises to make multi-tasking easier still.

2. You now get lyrics!

This is a big one. I've been on the Qobuz Beta for several months and so have had access to lyrics on the app for a while — and frankly, I can't imagine (musical) life without them. After all, there's only so many times you can listen to Total Football by Parquet Courts before you really, really need to know whether he's genuinely saying something rude about Tom Brady at the end. (He is.)

It is fairly astonishing that it's taken this long for Qobuz to add lyrics to the service, admittedly, but better late than never eh?

The lyrics also scroll as the song is playing, with the current line highlighted, and there's even translation of foreign-language lyrics via single button press.

One caveat: your experience may differ depending on what you listen to. My tastes are geared more towards the relatively obscure alternative rock side of things, and some of my favorite tunes either don't have lyrics at all or don't have the fancy scrolling-and-highlighting-and-translating options. But hopefully the catalogue will expand over time.

3. There's a new Explore section

One of the big differences between Spotify and Qobuz is in how rarely the latter service tries to persuade you what to listen to. In many ways this is a plus point; for all of its supposed algorithmic expertise, Spotify never really knew me too well. And I definitely didn't need to be told that I should be listening to some high-energy party playlist just because it was a Friday, thank you very much.

Qobuz's new Explore section shows how it should be done. Simply click the icon when listening to any song and you'll be shown an excellent overview of related content: albums by the artist, playlists that feature them, magazine articles about them (yes, Qobuz has a built-in magazine), more from the same label, similar artists, similar releases, and genre classics.

It's a one-stop-shop for music you might well want to listen to next, and its contextual nature really lifts it above the competition and makes it far more useful than most.

4. You can easily go deeper

Want more than what the Explore section offers? You can go deeper still by clicking the Info icon. This already existed on Qobuz, serving up credits for the musicians on the track and the label behind it. But it's now been expanded to give easy access to an artist bio, label bio, info about the audio quality and the ability to follow artist and label.

5. The queue finally makes (some) sense

Qobuz's queue feature was definitely not its strongest point in the past, although many of the criticisms I've seen aimed at it are based entirely on the fact that it doesn't work exactly like Spotify's; not worse, it's just slightly different.

Anyway, it's another area that's received a freshening up here: it's easier to see what's coming up next, you can easily add or remove tracks from the queue with a swipe, you can reorder by dragging and dropping. Simple things, but things that make it slicker to use and so are welcome all the same.

What's next?

Qobuz probably still has some work to do on the user-experience front if it wants to convert more people from Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal. The desktop apps lack some of the enhanced features now found in the mobile versions, for instance, and I still have some major frustrations around playlists in particular — not least the 2,000 track limit that has broken some of my favorite collections.

But that's for the future. For now, I can rejoice in the fact that the gap between Qobuz's audio chops and its user experience has been sharply narrowed. If you love music I recommend you give your ears a gift and try it out.

The new Qobuz features are available now on the service's iOS and Android apps for mobile and tablet.

• Spotify has rolled out its first music video charts playlist
• It's part of the platform's steady expansion of its music video ecosystem
• Spotify is once again battling YouTube, but it's not close competition

Music videos in Spotify are becoming one of the most popular ways to engage in digital music streaming — now the service is expanding its video ecosystem in another attempt to one-up YouTube.

For the first time, Spotify is bringing music videos to its Charts hub with the launch of Music Video Charts Global, a new top 50 playlist of the most streamed videos. Additionally, the platform has also rolled out a new Videos for You editorial playlist, which offers personalized music video recommendations based on your streaming habits.

Music Video Charts Global rolled out on July 21, and is already playing a big role in Spotify’s gradual expansion of its video content. Recently, Spotify altered the video uploading process for musicians, allowing them to upload their own videos directly through Spotify for Artists instead of going through their label and distributor to do so.

Artists can also pitch videos to Spotify’s editorial team to give them a better chance to feature in playlists such as Best New Videos, Live Performances, and Today's Top Videos.

If you were like me and spent most of your youth scouring through music TV channels before they were sadly phased out, Spotify’s new music video charts might evoke a sense of nostalgia — but the platform is doing it in a way that’s designed for the streaming era.

Music Video Charts Global ranks the top 50 videos around the world based on daily music video streams, refreshing daily at 6pm ET / 11pm GMT / 8am AEST (the next day). Spotify also shared that it will spotlight the top 10 music videos across its social media channels every Tuesday — but there’s another reason why the best music streaming service is doubling down on its commitment to music videos.

Even though Spotify is trying to emulate these channels, a form of music consumption that once shaped listening habits, the platform is backing its music video expansion with data linked directly to streaming.

In an email sent to us, Spotify shared “After streaming a video on Spotify, listeners stream that song 64% more over the next three weeks, are 1.4x more likely to save it, share it, or add it to a playlist, and go on to stream the rest of that artist's catalog 57% more”.

For Spotify, its new ecosystem does more than lead to higher fan engagement and video views — it also gives artists an opportunity to boost audio streams. This is beneficial for both fans and artists, but as someone who doesn’t use Spotify for music videos I see this as just another way for it to compete with YouTube.

The Spotify-YouTube battle continues

Spotify has been playing catch up to YouTube ever since it rolled out music videos in 2024. Although there are users out there who do use Spotify for videos, and the platform has the numbers to support it, I’m just not one of those people. As soon as the music TV channels went bust, it was YouTube that filled the void for me, and it’s been that way ever since.

However, Spotify knows it can’t just build a music video ecosystem and hope that YouTube users will flock to it, it has to offer something extra — which is why it’s taken advantage of early releases. For example, artists like Taylor Swift and BTS have each released music videos to Spotify as exclusive content before uploading the videos to YouTube in the days after. This is where Spotify has the upper-hand.

Because Spotify is centered around music and audio streaming, it’s more likely that artists will gravitate towards the company when it comes to exclusive partnerships. Though YouTube has its own music platform, its standard video player houses content across countless genres from web series, interviews, how-tos, vlogs, and so much more — so music isn't the only place it makes its money. Besides, YouTube Music isn’t as influential as Spotify.

Do I think that Spotify is going good by bringing classic music video charts into the streaming era? I guess so — but I still don’t think it’s enough to entice loyal YouTube-first music video viewers to make the switch.

• Singer Lorde called out Spotify's AI 'About the Song' feature
• She says it featured incorrect details and limits free interpretation for listeners
• Users are starting to catch onto its flaws

Spotify is always dropping new tools to enhance your listening experience, but one of its newest features has been called out by one of the most influential pop artists of this generation.

New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde slammed the best music streaming service’s ‘About the Song’ feature which launched back in February. The tool is currently in beta, and pulls information from third-party sources to create AI-generated summaries of individual songs offering context and background.

According to the pop star, one of the summaries for her song ‘Current Affairs’ mentioned incorrect details which were sourced from themusic.com.au, stating the following:

“On her Ultrasound World Tour, Lorde turns Current Affairs into a full-on performance piece, stripping down to underwear while a dancer pours water over her stomach so the song plays out like the shower scene she talks about on stage”.

The singer didn’t hold back, taking to Instagram Stories to call out the platform while highlighting the dangers features like this pose on listeners:

“Hey @spotify I’m gonna go out on a limb and say we don't want this. Not only is this inaccurate (not the song I did that in) but reducing a song to an AI-generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation IMO. At least make it possible for artists to opt out please,” she wrote.

It didn’t take long for Lorde’s comments to spark reactions from all corners of the internet, and Spotify has come forward to offer clarity from its side. We reached out to the platform for further comment, and a Spotify spokesperson replied with the following:

“We built ‘About the Song’ because fans want to dig into the stories behind the music. It’s still in beta. The info comes from articles across the internet, and when something’s off, we move fast to fix it, like we did here. Getting it right matters to us”. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the song summary has been removed.

‘Half the fun is figuring out your own meaning’

At the time of the feature’s launch, many Spotify subscribers welcomed ‘About the Song’ with open arms — I even went into detail about how much I couldn’t get over it and how it taught me things I never knew before. But despite the positive reception from subscribers, Lorde’s observation of the AI feature has sounded the alarm for music lovers.

Aside from its inaccuracies, Lorde’s comments highlight another big issue with AI features like ‘About the Song’; they remove the listener’s opportunity to interpret the music for themselves. This has been the topic of many online discussions since Lorde aired her comments, especially on Reddit — ‘half the fun is figuring out your own meaning instead of getting AI Cliff Notes right away,’ one user says.

But according to others in the same Reddit thread, it speaks volumes about how art consumption is evolving. Whether you’re reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to an album, everyone looks at things differently which is what allows conversations and debates to flow. Another user went the extra mile, saying “If you need AI to tell you what it thinks the song means, you've stopped thinking”.

That said, Spotify isn’t the only music platform that dives into the background of music — Apple Music includes detailed summaries of albums located under the Play button — but these pockets of context are all written and developed by Apple Music’s editorial team, who don’t rely on AI for third-party sourcing.

But the album summaries is where Apple Music draws the line. As soon as you hit Play the platform leaves you to get lost in the music — which subscribers would rather have over what Spotify is trying to sell them.

• Prices are going up across almost all the Apple Music tiers
• There are some bumps in Apple Music prices too
• These are the first price hikes we've seen since October 2022

Apple Music is the latest subscription package to get a bump in price, leaving users with the choice between paying more or losing access to the streaming part of their library. The bundled Apple One package that includes Apple Music now costs more as well.

As reported by Music Business Worldwide (via Engadget), the reason cited by Apple is "rising licensing costs". It's the first price hike for this particular subscription we've seen since October 2022. The new monthly prices are below:

The Apple One price increases are less clear, as they're not as easily available on the Apple website. It appears the Apple One Family plan is now $27.95 (up $2) / AU$24.95 (unchanged) per month and the Apple One Premier plan is now $39.95 (also up $2) / AU$52.95 (up AU$3), though the Apple One Individual plan has stayed at $19.95 / AU$24.95. Internationally, similar price rises are likely.

This comes at a time when everything tech-related is getting more expensive, from laptops to streaming services. Exploding AI resource demand has sent the price of memory and storage rocketing, and that continues to have a knock-on effect everywhere.

Loss of control

Apple is of course by no means the first company to put up its subscription prices, but it's a reminder of the pitfalls of the digital rental model. As soon as you stop paying, you lose access — so if you need a service, you have no choice but to accept the higher price.

The online reaction has mostly focused on this too: "It's not even about the cost sometimes," writes one Redditor. "It's about loss of control over your finances. Companies can jack up their prices whenever they want." Few commenters seem ready to quit Apple Music, though many are pointing out the billions that Apple has in the bank.

Apple Music doesn't have a free tier like Spotify does, but it beats every other music streaming service in the support it gives you for local files. If you have enough MP3s and ripped CDs, you can use it perfectly well without a subscription.

As we've written about recently, Apple is selling more and more of its software products through recurring payments rather than a flat one-off fee, and one of the reasons is that it's more profitable — and makes it more likely that users will continue to pay up.

• Spotify has quietly updated its Mixed Playlists tools
• You can now fine-tune transitions smoother by amending effect curves
• It's starting to crop up for more users, and it's a smash hit so far

There’s one thing that Spotify does really well, and that’s offering a roster of different playlist-making tools for you to really get creative with. Though some are AI-powered, Spotify’s Mixed Playlists encourages you to use your originality when compiling songs, all while putting you in the DJ booth.

Just as you’d get with music-mixing software, Spotify’s Mixed Playlists allow you to create smooth transitions between songs to ensure your playlist flows like a classic DJ set. Its mixing interface presents you with preset effects, and even tells you the key and BPM of each track — and now users have noticed a new upgrade that gives you even more freedom on the customization front.

A recent post on the r/truespotify Reddit page shows the latest update, revealing that you can now amend the Volume, EQ, and Filter settings even more by simply dragging each effect curve to control how the transition runs. According to a small number of users, this feature has been live for a few months, but the majority of listeners in the replies are only now running into it — myself included.

Spotify first launched Mixed Playlists in August 2025, hot on the heels of Apple’s own AutoMix function. But instead of relying on AI to mix songs, Spotify’s version puts the control right into your hands, and it quickly became one of my favorite new tools.

Prior to the update, you could create song transitions by selecting a preset which would automatically amend the Volume, EQ, and Filter settings, or you could go into each of the three and select your own preset to curate a custom transition. While these are still available, you can fine-tune your song-mixing even more, and after testing things out for myself I can see why listeners have taken to it so well.

For starters, it allows you to clean up the small but noticeable imperfections in your transitions that you can’t achieve by presetting the three audio categories individually. For example, if you go into the Filter category and select the ‘High-pass filter out option’, it’s stuck in one place on the audio track. When you tap the ‘Customize’ button, three points appear on the effect curve which you can move around the audio track display so that your chosen effect comes in at a specific time.

However, there are a few small blips (not so much setbacks) with the feature that users have picked up on. When you start off with customizing your transitions, it can feel a little fiddly when trying to find the exact placement for each of the effect curve points but this you’ll get used to.

Additionally, other users have also pointed out that the effect curve points sometimes move back to their original spots after you’ve shifted them. I’ve only run into this a few times, so it’s not a major issue that’s going to put you off for good.

For once, it’s refreshing to see Spotify give one of its existing tools some TLC instead of pumping out new features without a lot of thought behind them. If this is the approach Spotify is taking from here on, just think of what it could do to improve features like this in the future.

• Dire Straits' keyboardist/producer Guy Fletcher post about mixing their albums in Dolby Atmos
• He says immersive mixing of the original recording sessions is "quite addictive" and often very emotional
• 3D audio can reveal details that were previously buried when engineering for stereo

One of the things I love most about audio technology is how it can reveal things you've never heard before either because they were buried in the mix or because your setup, speakers or headphones weren't delivering all the detail.

And according to Dire Straits' keyboardist and producer Guy Fletcher, Dolby Atmos is delivering revelation after revelation not just to music fans, but to the musicians and producers who made the records in the first place.

The majority of records are made with stereo in mind, and according to Fletcher "stereo remains an extraordinary format". But as he explains on LinkedIn, redoing a stereo record for Atmos enables you to rediscover "the little things that get sacrificed along the way when you're making a stereo record. The tiny details. The decisions nobody notices because they're buried beneath more important decisions."

Fletcher makes an intriguing claim. Taking a stereo record and making it three-dimensional isn't about making it sound the same; "it's more to do with matching the emotional impact" as he says. It's not what you hear. It's what you feel.

What immersive audio delivers – and doesn't quite deliver

I think Fletcher is correct, and I'm going to compare audio to another art form: video games. I've been replaying some very old favorites recently and I'm amused by how terrible the graphics are; in my memories, those games were photorealistic as well as utterly compelling. When those games are remastered to higher visual quality they're effectively enabling me to play what I remember, not what I actually saw.

As Fletcher describes it, taking recordings into spatial audio does much the same. "The moment you begin placing objects or building beds around the listener, the music seems to breathe and expand. Mix or bus compression suddenly seems rather pointless. Sounds are no longer confined to a flat line between two speakers. Instead, they occupy a living, sculptural environment with depth, height and dimension."

It's not perfect by any means, because people listen to Atmos and other spatial audio on all kinds of different hardware that may be suboptimal: headphones, soundbars, and a range of speaker systems that don't deliver the full experience.

"Creating extraordinary Atmos mixes is no longer the obstacle," Fletcher says. "The real challenge is ensuring that the sense of space, scale and emotional impact that makes immersive mixing so exhilarating, can be faithfully experienced by the vast majority of listeners who do not own a dedicated Atmos speaker system.

Fletcher describes spatializing Dire Straits' biggest hit album, Brothers in Arms, whose original multi-tracks took him straight back to the recording studio in 1984. Although the album had previously been remastered for 5.1 audio, the Atmos edition still required extensive detective work as well as painstaking restoration.

"The real challenge lay in respecting an album that has become woven into the lives of millions of listeners," Fletcher recalls. "While 5.1 and Atmos share some similarities, Atmos offers a very different creative canvas. The challenge was never technical — the challenge was emotional."

For Fletcher, "Atmos has a curious ability to reveal not just the details within a recording, but also the memories embedded within it. In that respect, at its best, the spatial audio experience is as much about rediscovery as it is about technology."

Of course Atmos doesn't guarantee a mix is good: the record industry is very good at remastering records as a quick cash grab, and there are plenty of famous records by big artists whose remasters caused howls of outrage. But when an album is approached with care, patience and above all else, a love of the original material, the move to 3D can make songs sing even more beautifully.

One of my favorite things about the best music streaming services is that they’ve evolved into more than just audio platforms — they give you the freedom to create your own digital music space.

Take Spotify for example, the platform I’ve been using for over a decade. Not only does its algorithm learn to understand your tastes (though it takes quite a bit of time and effort to train it), creating playlists and folders gives you another way to make your Spotify space your own.

One of Spotify’s most handy features is pins, which places select playlists, albums, and artists, as well as audiobooks and podcasts to the top of your Library for quick and easy access, but the four-pin limit is a pain point that pretty much every subscriber has been asking Spotify to upgrade since the pins feature was rolled out some five years ago.

In the case of Apple Music, you can pin up to six different items which, while it’s still a small number, is better than four. Users have been begging Spotify to increase this number for years — and you’ll be relieved to learn that change is finally coming.

From 4 to 20

I first spotted signs of a possible update after coming across a Reddit post (see below) in which a user shared that they had somehow found a way to pin more than four items in their Library. Apparently all they did was update their Spotify app, but other users responding in the comments saw no such change — myself included.

After coming across the post, I reached out to Spotify, which confirmed that it’s increasing the four-pin limit, which was one of the improvements I wanted the most in 2026. A spokesperson shared the following comment:

“Spotify is updating the number of items listeners can pin at the top of Your Library from 4 to 20. This gives our users more flexibility to keep the music, playlists, podcasts, audiobooks, and creators they care about most within easy reach. It's still rolling out and will be available for Free and Premium listeners around the world in the next month”.

Why pine for more pins?

I can imagine many people will read this and question the fuss over such a small feature, but there’s a lot more to it. For those who are seasoned Spotify users, the platform is much more than a music haven — it’s their source for podcasts and audiobooks.

When you factor this in, having only four pins across music, podcasts, and audiobooks is rather stingy — "Does Spotify think we only listen to 1 of each at a time?", someone commented on the post shared to the Spotify Community page. But it’s not just about being able to pin music, podcasts, and audiobooks simultaneously; it’s about enhancing the user experience.

Whenever you follow a new artist, pre-save an upcoming album, or save a new playlist, it all appears as one messy collection in Your Library. This forces you to scroll through a hoarding eyesore to find what it is you’re looking for, so pinning items bumps your most-used content to the top saving you bags of scrolling time.

Though you can simply search for the playlist you want to listen to, regular listeners have tons of them (I know I do), so it’s much easier having all of your music there at the tap of a button in Your Library. For others, it’s about more than making your playlists easier to navigate; it's about having more say in how you choose to curate your digital music collection — “we should get full control”, another user puts it plainly.

All things considered, then, avid Spotify users everywhere will welcome this update with open arms.

Spotify has the upper hand out of all the best music streaming services because of its hyper-personalized feed and social features, but its app design isn’t the greatest.

I’m not the first power user to call out the platform for its stuffy and, at times, unorganized layout. The ‘Your Library’ section, for example, is a cluster of your recent activity, which you can only rearrange using the filters at the top of the screen — full customization is out of the question.

After using Spotify alongside Apple Music, there’s no comparison — the latter packs a simple and concise interface, with a bright and sleek finish, and there’s Spotify could certainly take a page out of Apple Music’s book on the organization front. However, one user has, at least, found a hidden setting that allows you to switch from Spotify’s dark color scheme to a brighter one similar to Apple Music's.

A Reddit post shared by u/Hot_Perspective (see below) shows two images of the Spotify mobile app with inverted colors enabled, which essentially replaces Spotify’s dark appearance with a ‘light mode’ one consisting of an all-white background reminiscent of Apple Music’s interface.

The thing to note here is that it’s not actually controlled via the Spotify app; it’s all done through iOS or Android settings — and it’s simple to enable.

If you’re using an iPhone, open Settings and head to Accessibility, then tap Per-App Settings. From there, you’ll need to tap Add App and search for Spotify. Once you’ve added Spotify select Smart Invert and enable the toggle. Android users can enable this feature also by heading to Settings and tapping Accessibility, then Text and Display. Find Color Inversion and toggle it on.

What an eyesore

If you haven’t yet come across this tool, it’s a stark difference from Spotify’s traditional dark-theme interface to say the least.

While it flips the dark in-app color scheme on its head, it’s smart enough to know not to invert album and playlist covers, so not every part of the Spotify app is inverted — which I think is quite clever. But despite its accessibility benefits, it hasn’t been a huge hit with music fans, myself included.

For one, it doesn’t solve the issue of the cluttered and unorganized interface, it just adds funky colors to the app. That aside, it’s frighteningly bright, I’d say even brighter than the average smartphone display setting — the meme replies in the Reddit thread have cracked me up (see the countless reaction images).

I can’t exactly explain it, but there’s something very 'uncanny valley' about Spotify with inverted colors. It sort of looks like Apple Music, but I know it’s not. I even lost my muscle memory while trying to navigate it — it threw me off that much.

As we all know, Spotify loves a good visual, and most songs on the platform display a short looping video in the playback section of the app, but inverted colors interfere with this, making visuals look like X-rays. But even if you like how it looks, it has a knock-on effect for both iOS and Android smartphones.

Because Android doesn’t allow this tool to be enabled for individual apps, you’ll have to put up with inverted colors across your entire system, which is quite a strain on the eyes. While iOS allows you to enable inverted colors for separate apps, you need to have the system-wide Light Mode setting turned on for it to work. This means that if you’re like me and prefer to use Dark Mode in apps like Instagram and iMessages, you’ll have to sacrifice this — it’s an all-or-nothing situation.

I think it’s appropriate to say that, overall, it doesn’t sit well with a lot of subscribers. It does, however, remind us that while Spotify has yet to fix a few layout issues, at least the platform has a solid brand identity.

• Tidal has published a new policy on AI-generated music content
• Along with labelling 100% AI tracks, it targets "substantially generated" stuff too
• Tidal "will not tolerate AI-generated music that impersonates an artist or group"

Tired of the AI slop in your music — or tracks your delicate ear perceives to be AI-generated — in recommended playlists? You're not alone.

In a welcome move for recording artists, their parents, their loved ones, and just lovers of original musical works with human vocals, hi-res music streaming giant Tidal has published a comprehensive AI policy with the strapline "Promoting Fairness and Economic Empowerment in the Era of AI-Generated Music".

The publication of the policy follows extensive progress in this area from Deezer, with its free AI-detection tool that works on any streaming platform, Bandcamp's strong and concise anti-AI stance set out in January of this year, Apple's March-issue (but somewhat shaky) 'Transparency Tags' which rely on record labels and distributors to tag AI content in Apple Music, and Spotify's… er, Verified by Spotify badge, which certifies that an artist is human, but doesn't help filter out the slop from any generated playlists.

Tidal's stance, while not before time, is particularly firm. The company's extensive six-point document was published today (Monday, June 29) and opens with the statement:

"Tidal defines AI-generated music as music that is wholly or substantially generated by generative artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are not new to music creation, they have just become more commonplace and advanced. Our policy as it relates to AI-generated music is intended to capture recent developments in — and the rapid proliferation of — text-prompted AI music generation."

The missive adds that while the streaming platform will accept AI-generated music ("Artists should have the freedom to create with AI tools, and listeners should have the autonomy to choose the type of content they consume"), it will "hold AI-generated content to a higher standard of content integrity". How? By identifying it, tagging it (by mid-July of this year) and crucially, not paying any streaming royalties for it.

The tide is turning on text-prompted AI music creation

Interestingly, Tidal is seemingly looking to go even further than Deezer here. While the rival platform's anti-AI filter currently works only on 100% AI tracks, Tidal's policy states: "As AI-detection methods become more reliable, we will expand this tag to content that is substantially AI-generated". Bold.

The Tidal document adds, "But the responsibility to identify and tag AI-generated content should not rest with Tidal alone. We expect — and will begin to enforce — that content distributors identify AI-generated content before it reaches our platform."

So, a two-pronged attack on AI? It's a move that can only be seen as a win for musicians and bands. That said, it remains to be seen how effective Tidal's specific anti-AI software will be — and also, who exactly is helping the company achieve its admirable aims.

I asked Tidal whether it had perhaps implemented Deezer's anti-AI tool (which the company made available to rivals back in January and subsequently offered to anyone who wanted to check their playlists for AI tracks regardless of the streaming service) and was told "We're currently working with an external partner to manage detection."

So it seems Tidal is keeping its cards very close to its chest regarding how it's going to make good on the policy. Either way, it's a positive step in the fight to keep music and musicians (a)live.

It's Amazon Prime Day, and one of my favorite deals of day isn't actually a huge discount, but I think it's a really worthwhile buy at the lower price. It's the WiiM Amp Ultra, which is available for $449 at Amazon US (down from $529), or you can get it for £425 at Amazon UK (down from $499).

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

I have the WiiM Amp Ultra at home, and it's an amazing streaming amp for this price. It's really well-built and looks at home among nice furniture, with a solid metal finish — and it's shockingly compact, considering that it provides up to 100W per channel, so it can work with some really hefty speakers,

Most importantly, it sounds excellent, and there's support for nearly every music service you could want (but I'll come back to that "nearly), plus useful inputs for a turntable and so on.

I use it with a pair of Dali Oberon 5 bookshelf speakers, and the combination is off the charts for a hi-fi system that barely takes up any space. Obviously, floorstanding speakers are tall, but the Oberon 5 only have the same footprint as bookshelf speakers, so these three boxes overall can be used even in space-starved homes, but sound like you've got a much bigger, beefier setup.

When I started this configuration, I auditioned it against using the Amp Ultra with a pair of Dali Oberon 1 bookshelf speakers, and against a pair of Sonos Era 300 speakers (a pair of which costs about the same as getting the Amp Ultra and Oberon 5 speakers).

The Oberon 1 bookshelf speakers crushed the Sonos Era 300 when it came to detail and dynamic response in music, but they were equally crushed by the Sonos for bass depth and dispersion of sound in the room.

However, the Oberon 5 are the best of all worlds with the WiiM powering them — big and controlled bass, fantastic detail in the mids and treble, superb dynamic attack, and great dispersion in the room.

So I'd recommend the WiiM Amp Ultra generally, but if you're thinking that you'd like a whole magnificent hi-fi setup for under £1,000 in the UK, here's my recommendation today — if you're in the US, scroll down, because I've got a recommendation for you right after.

Today's best UK WiiM Amp Ultra and speaker deal combination

Today's best UK WiiM Amp Ultra and speaker deal combination

Some speakers are quite a lot more expensive in the US than in Europe, and Dali speakers are chief among this category. So when looking for an equivalent system to suggest with the WiiM Amp Ultra in the US, I wanted to find something that was also a huge bargain, and that's just as good, and the ELAC Debut 2.0 F6.2 is the perfect option, because their bookshelf version also got five stars from What Hi-Fi? in their review.

The downside to the WiiM Amp Ultra

There is one thing I want to note about the Amp Ultra: it's not 100% ideal for Apple Music households, despite its aluminum look and slick design. It lacks any kind of Apple support outside of Bluetooth — not just Apple Music (which is normal for streaming amps, only Sonos has this natively), but even AirPlay 2, which nearly every other music streaming device on the planet supports.

It doesn't have a USB audio input either, which seems like an odd omission for an 'Ultra' device — and it's annoying that it rules out using your Apple device's USB port to send Hi-Res Audio to it.

Now, Spotify is the most popular service, and that's supported. I have a Tidal subscription, so I'm all good. This is far from affecting everyone, but there are plenty of people who are deep in the Apple system, who use Apple Music only, and the Amp Ultra is oddly hostile to those people.

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34

More Prime Day deals in the UK

• Amazon Prime: get a 30-day free trial
• Amazon Devices: Fire, Ring & Blink from £13.99
• Amazon Haul: up to 30% off
• Apple: up to 33% off AirPods & Apple Watch
• Appliances: up to 45% off Ninja & Tefal
• Beauty: up to 60% off Philips & Oral-B
• Essentials: household goods from £5
• Fans: from £20
• Fashion: up to 50% off
• Gaming: £90 off PlayStation 5
• Headphones: up to 50% off Beats & Sony
• Laptops: from £149
• Tablets: Samsung & Lenovo from £79.99
• Toys: up to 25% off Lego and Tonies
• TVs: from £129.99
• Vacuums: up to 40% off Shark & Roborock
• Wearables: up to 30% off Garmin & Oura

• Deezer unveils Remix Lab in-app tool in France; should launch elsewhere soon
• Lets you augment a song or combine two
• Doesn't use AI; artists are paid

AI slop peddlers may try to make you believe that artificial music is absolutely fine and dandy music, and that it's impossible (or at any rate, quite unimportant) for original artists to get paid, in order for it to work. Well, Deezer has just proven that as totally wrong.

The music streaming service has just launched Remix Lab, a tool which lets you combine or remix songs and then add them to your library. It's available in the app right now, but only in France; the platform says it could come to more regions later in the year, but for now, it's largely French musicians included.

I know what you're wondering, and I asked: Deezer confirmed to TechRadar that there's no AI used in the process. Happy days! The brand has been refreshingly anti-AI, but given how many companies have forgotten their anti-AI stances when a checkbook comes out, it never hurts to check.

Instead, the tool uses audio stems provided by the artist, and applies edits to these to create an effect. So it's less slop generation, more a lightweight version of Adobe Audition without the dials and sliders.

AI? Not on this platform

Music remixing is nothing new, but usually it needs one of two things: either some level of technical know-how, or the ability to quell your ethical qualms and use AI to do it. Since AI is often sold as as a field-leveler — now a lack of talent is no hindrance! — many assume it has to be used for those without training.

Not according to Deezer, though, proving that you don't need to feed water-gobbling, planet-heating data centers to riff on existing songs. Deezer also says it's the first ever streaming platform to offer a song remixing service with full rights compliance and in agreement with the artists, and I'd be inclined to believe 'em.

Another pervasive AI myth, perpetuated by world governments as much as unscrupulous rights holders, is that it's impossible to compensate artists for their works being used, and that permission is optional. These bots may have been trained in your back-catalog without your consent, but it'd be impossible for you to be compensated for this, apparently.

To Deezer, this doesn't fly. The platform has confirmed that artists have agreed for their songs to be used in Remix Lab, and get compensated for remixes and listens through the tool. Let the dollars Euros roll!

Every day, AI sounds more and more redundant; you can't help but hear about businesses firing staff to save money, then spending more on AI credits, or filmmakers tanking their careers by making slop history shows and aligning themselves with AI brands. And so Deezer is doing the good work, by continuing to show us that there is a better way — and that this 'panacea' should actually just be panned.

• Atonemo has launched the new NTS Radio Player box
• It connects to your speakers and to online radio
• You can also stream to the box from your phone

If you find the abundance of choice on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music a little overwhelming, consider this new gizmo from Swedish electronics firm Atonemo: its minimal design features just two buttons and one dial, to connect you to curated online radio stations run by NTS.

It's called the Atonemo NTS Radio Player (via Deezen), and it hooks up to your speaker system of choice via a 3.5mm analog line-out port (and there's an AUX to RCA adapter in the box if you need it).

Once connected, you can press one of the buttons to tune into either NTS Channel 1 or NTS Channel 2. The dial, meanwhile, gives you access to 16 'infinite mixtape' feeds from NTS, with icons matching the mood of each one: these mixtapes include Sheet Music (the violin icon), Sweat (the water drops icon), and Island Time (the sunshine icon).

There's a mixtape for most types of mood and most types of music, pulled directly from the NTS site. The device offers 24-bit / 192 kHz lossless audio quality, gapless playback, and a 10-band graphic equalizer that can be accessed through the app.

Bring your own tunes, too

According to Atonemo co-founder and radio player designer Noah Constantinou, the gadget follows the Japanese concept of 'omakase' — that's where in a restaurant you let the expert chef choose the dishes, rather than selecting them yourself.

If you don't want the NTS DJs to pick your music, you can also stream your choice of tunes to the radio player from your phone using Google Cast, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, or Tidal Connect. In that regard it doubles up as an easy way of connecting your phone to a set of speakers (which Atonemo's standard Streamplayer also does).

"I think people miss tactile objects," Constantinou told Dezeen. "We have become so used to putting screens on everything when it is in many cases not necessary, and even sometimes counterproductive."

Judging by the Reddit reactions, Constantinou is right: "such a cool idea" and "I gotta have it" are just two of the many positive takes on this new gadget. The device will set you back $179 / £129 / AU$250 and can be ordered online now.

• Spotify is rolling out its Reserved concert priority scheme in the US
• ROLE MODEL is the first partner artist, with more to follow
• 'Top fans' are determined based on overall engagement in Spotify, which poses questions about who the true fans really are

A few weeks ago Spotify unveiled Reserved, its new priority scheme that gives top fans first pick of tickets to see their favorite touring artists — and it’s finally going live in the US today (June 18).

Premium subscribers over the age of 18 will be eligible for Reserved access, which has come out of Spotify’s partnership with Live Nation, powered by Ticketmaster. To kick off the new scheme, singer ROLE MODEL will be the first official artist partner, who just announced his US tour.

Starting today, listeners will receive notifications informing them if they meet Spotify’s criteria and qualify as a ‘top fan’ of ROLE MODEL. From there, Spotify will reserve two tour tickets for eligible fans, which they can purchase within a 24-hour window before tickets go on sale to the general public.

In addition to push notifications, Spotify says it will notify you if you’re a top fan via email and pop-ups in the ‘Your Updates’ section of the Spotify app. The platform recommends having your notifications for live events turned on, and ensuring your app is updated.

If you wish to claim your Reserved tickets, tap the ‘Buy now’ button when your purchase window opens. Once you’ve selected your tickets, you’ll be taken to Ticketmaster where you can complete your purchase.

As per Spotify’s announcement the platform says that, if prompted, you’ll have to connect your Spotify account to your Ticketmaster account in order to verify your Reserved access. As far as availability goes, Spotify notes that “Reserved allocations include a range of seating and prices, and specific availability varies by show,” adding the following:

“For some high-demand shows, you may enter a queue before reaching the ticket selection page. No matter what, two tickets on the tour will be held for you throughout your entire on-sale window. Each show has its own availability, so if you reach the end of a queue and your preferred seats are sold out, you'll still have the opportunity to purchase other tickets”.

Once the purchase window closes, unclaimed Reserved tickets will be released to the next most dedicated fans, and Spotify will notify them in the same way.

How do I know if I’m on the list?

This is the burning question we all want the answer to, and in short, there’s no way of knowing if you’ve met Spotify’s criteria prior to receiving a Reserved notification.

In deciding who qualifies as a ‘top fan’, Spotify doesn’t just take the number of times someone has streamed an artist into account. For the platform, it’s all based on engagement, meaning it considers shares, saves, and your overall streaming history with the artist. “There’s nothing random about who gets chosen!” Spotify claims, but the company is holding its cards very close to its chest.

While the company says it uses the above to measure engagement, it’s refraining from revealing every detail regarding how it decides who the top fans are. This is because Spotify wants to avoid strategic engagement, and prioritize authentic fandom (it also clarifies that relying on background listening to bump up streams won’t get you on the list).

Though you can purchase tickets to any date on an artist’s tour regardless of where you’re located, Spotify does take your location into consideration when it’s deciding who top fans are — which is a huge pain point. So, if an artist is touring a city that isn’t far from you, you’ll be more likely to receive a Reserved notification, which is a punch to the gut for mega fans who live in the sticks. Then there’s the case of fandom itself.

While I do think Reserved could be a good preventative measure for stopping ticket scalpers, there’s always the chance it could make fan culture even more of a battlefield for people to prove themselves as 'genuine' fans and gain bragging rights, when fandom has always been a place of community and not competition.

Does this mean that those who stream an artist to the ends of the earth are ‘bigger fans’ than those who engage in other means outside of Spotify, for example by investing in physical music which goes directly into the artist’s pocket? Will Reserved solve a legitimate issue that’s plaguing fans, or is it simply a badge of honor?

Convenience has become a much more acceptable concept in hi-fi these days. No longer shorthand for compromise, its importance for modern listeners has instead inspired whole lines of products — and the impressive Cambridge Audio Evo range is one of the most impressive among them.

Initially made up of a couple of just-add-speakers streaming amplifiers and an all-in-one player, the line up has offered a great solution for anyone looking to simplify their setup since its launch five years ago.

Last year, Cambridge retired the lesser powered of the two streaming amps — the Evo 75 — leaving the reconfigured Evo 150 SE and the also-includes-speaker Cambridge Evo One holding the fort on their own… until now.

Cambridge recently unveiled the Evo 300, a brand new range-topping stereo streaming amp, promising to be twice as powerful and, the brand says, a “real step up” from last year’s Evo 150 SE in “pretty much every way”. I got to hear it at this year's High End Vienna hi-fi show, and we deemed it good enough to win one of TechRadar's High End Vienna Best in Show awards.

As much as I love the fun of system matching with hi-fi separates, it can be expensive and time consuming, so there’s a lot to be said for a the simplicity of a streaming amp — particularly one that is claiming a hefty output of 300 watts per channel of Class D amplification, all wrapped up in a seriously stylish design.

You even get to choose from interchangeable side panels for the Evo 300’s black aluminum body, with the option of a traditional real-wood finish or a more modern black slatted look. I’m partial to the wood look myself.

The Evo 300 is like a slightly stretched out version of the Evo 150 SE, measuring just a couple of inches wider. This means it also features the brand’s largest screen at 7.8 inches, which is an OLED that looks as bright and crisp as ever. This shows any changes to volume and input as they happen, but also displays album artwork or a choice of digital VU meters, if you prefer.

The same incredibly tactile dual-concentric control dial from the 150 SE sits along the front panel, for adjusting volume and choosing input, plus there’s a front-mounted 6.35mm headphone output and a handful of playback controls just to the right of the display.

While Cambridge told me that it’s managed to squeeze even more power from the same Hypex NCOREx amplification modules as the 150 SE, the company’s flagship streaming amp has had a DAC upgrade, with the improved 32-bit ESS Sabre ES9038Q2M now on board to support playback of just about any Hi-Res Audio you can throw at it.

It also now features a dual-mono layout under the hood, for maximum channel separation, and improved stereo imaging, alongside a balanced pre-amplifier stage. Plus there’s now the addition of HDMI eARC for the most up-to-date connection for your TV, and flexibility with independent volume and subwoofer controls.

These join the things we loved from the 150 SE, such as dual speaker outputs, optical, RCA and balanced XLR inputs, and a moving magnet phono stage for hooking up a turntable.

Comprehensive streaming support is of course offered via Cambridge Audio’s excellent StreamMagic platform, which includes Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Qobuz Connect, plus you can use AirPlay 2, Google Cast, and Bluetooth 5.4. It’s also Roon Ready for multiroom support with other Roon-compatible devices.

All of this points to a seriously capable centrepiece in a serious hi-fi system — particularly considering the much more powerful speakers it can now be paired with.

I got to listen to the Evo 300 hooked up to a pair of Dynaudio Contour Legacy floorstanders — which really aren’t messing around at $14,000 / £10,000 / AU$20,000 per pair. But the Evo 300 takes them in its stride, with a confident, full-bodied presentation, and volume to spare.

From a brief first listen, it’s easy for the power and scale that this relatively compact single box is capable of to be the main takeaway. Streaming from Spotify Lossless, the Evo 300 delivers an incredibly expansive and spacious sound, with a solid stereo image and good separation.

But the level of insight, clarity and detail retrieval also feels notable here. Combined with Cambridge’s reputation for musicality and what appears to be a more refined tonal balance — even at high volume levels — it all means that, on first impressions, the Evo 300 certainly sounds to be the substantial step up it is promising to be.

Of course, trade show demos offer far from perfect conditions for a truly critical appraisal of sound, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it performs in the real world.

The Cambridge Evo 300 is very much priced for its capabilities though, so at $3,999 / £3,499 / AU$6,399, you’re going to want to make sure your space or gear can really make use of these beefier specs before you invest.

If not, the Cambridge 150 SE remains a great option for just-add-speakers convenience, and at almost half the price in the UK and Australia (£1,999 / $3,299 / AU$3,849). In the US, the price is bizarrely close between the two models, though the Evo 150 SE often falls to $2,699.

• Spotify is rolling out Track Reactions for Collaborative Playlists
• This lets you react to songs added by other members from a choice of six emojis
• It's rolling out in select markets now, but Spotify hasn't said which ones

One of Spotify’s most handy tools are Collaborative Playlists, which allow you and your friends to work together to pool songs into one monster playlist — now they’re getting a new upgrade that makes them even more interactive.

The best music streaming service shared on a community page that it’s in the process of rolling out Track Reactions, which is essentially a feature that lets you use emojis to react to songs added to your Collaborative Playlists.

Spotify says the tool is rolling out over the coming weeks in select markets to Free and Premium users aged 16 and older, though we don’t know which markets will be first.

Just like emoji reactions on platforms like Facebook Messenger, it works similarly, giving you a choice of six; a standard red heart, a laughing face, a thumbs-up, headphones, fire, and an emotional face. When you send a reaction, it appears next to the track name, and you can view the reactions added by other collaborators in the playlist.

The addition of Track Reactions means that Collaborative Playlists will now look slightly different than before. The profile image of playlist collaborators now appears on the song thumbnail indicating which member added which song, and now the Track Reaction icon has taken the spot to the right of a song title next to the three-dot button.

Track Reactions are automatically enabled in Collaborative Playlists that have 10 or less members, and only the people within the playlist can view them, meaning outside viewers won’t be able to see which songs have which reactions. You also don’t have to stick with them if you don’t want to — the playlist creator can disable Track Reactions in the playlist’s Name and Details settings.

We’re going through a time where most of Spotify’s new tools are reliant on the powers of AI, most recently its two new AI features for podcasts, so Track Reactions feels like a reminder that Spotify does have human elements to its user experience.

When it comes to Collaborative Playlists, I use them mainly for creating playlists with friends for gatherings and other social events (we have an annual summer meet-up, so the tool really comes in handy there). Now that Spotify has thrown Track Reactions into the mix, I can’t see it being used for anything other than judging each other’s song choices — and I’m actually okay with that.

Emoji reactions are a commonly-used feature among my friends across our slew of group chats, whether that’s for reacting to silly texts on Facebook Messenger or responding to unhinged videos we send to each other on TikTok. It won’t be any different in the case of Spotify, and hopefully it will encourage more conversations about the music we’re currently listening to.

For now, the emoji options are very limited and don’t quite represent a wide scope of emotions — they all seem to be pretty positive-leaning, with the exception of the emotional face emoji, which is often used to represent sadness or that feeling of ‘smiling through the pain’. To really take it to the next level, the choice to use custom emojis would open the floodgates for users to be even more expressive, or in my case, severely more judgemental.

Track Reactions are locked into the Collaborative Playlist experience for the time being, and Spotify hasn’t announced any plans to expand it to other playlist-making tools yet. We’ve contacted Spotify for more details about this, as well as which markets will have access first, so we’ll update this story when we know more.