Tag: liner notes

Why Following FC Barcelona Is a Game of Its Own

October 18, 2023

Since 2022, our partnership with FC Barcelona has spanned playlists and football pitches alike. And helping fans connect with their favorite artists and players has been at the heart of that. But Barça faithfuls are no ordinary supporters: They are authentic, emotional, and most of all, exceptionally committed to the club. 

This also means their expectations are very high, and they have a voracious appetite for club-related content that is distinctive and entertaining. So each and every day, FC Barcelona’s social media accounts set out to deliver photos, videos, memes, and team updates that keep hundreds of millions of fans around the world buzzing.

The club’s brand identity and engagement teams, headed up by Barça Identity Director Paloma Mikadze and Fan Engagement Director Eric Serra, are responsible for the playful social media strategies, posts, and videos that keep fans supporting the club through their likes, comments, and reposts. They are the storytellers of FC Barcelona, and working together with Spotify’s own storytellers, like Partner Marketing Lead George Mead, they find new and unique ways to bring Barça players together with music’s biggest stars. (Who can forget ROSALÍA’s epic shirt reveal?) 

 

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Over the years, FC Barcelona has cultivated a deeply loyal fan following through its social media accounts, and since partnering with Spotify, it only continues to grow stronger. For the Record sat down with Paloma, Eric, and George to talk about their approach to fan engagement, how they get players into the mix, and insights into some of their most memorable campaigns.

No one can forget the incredible artist reveal with ROSALÍA on team kits ahead of an El Clásico match. Can you tell us a little about the process behind that campaign, as well as the results?

Paloma Mikadze: When passion and ambition come together, incredible things happen. That’s a philosophy we truly believe in, and the MOTOMAMI campaign underscores that. Our team makes extraordinary ideas come to life. Bringing sports and music together is wonderful, and we wanted fans around the world to feel and experience that fusion of culture. 

We built a strong journey around the hype phase to capture all the attention we were looking for before the reveal moment—we wanted all eyes to be on us, and that’s what we did. The ROSALÍA shirt reveal was a trending topic all over the world. Our content was being consumed by millions of fans, which multiplied the exposure of our brands around the world.  

 

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George: That was truly unforgettable! It helps when it coincided with a last-minute match winner to essentially secure the La Liga title, but that really exemplified why this partnership is the first of its kind.

After she featured on the shirt, searches for ROSALÍA on Spotify spiked significantly across the world. Barcelona, meanwhile, got roughly half a billion impressions on content with the singer’s MOTOMAMI logo across all club media channels.

Plus, a TikTok video featuring ROSALÍA remixing the club’s anthem, which was posted on Barcelona’s account to promote the campaign, has now amassed more than 86 million views, further illustrating how Barça have been able to leverage Spotify’s relationship with its artists to better target Gen Z.

How about Anitta’s playlist challenge during this summer’s preseason tour? 

Eric Serra: Can you imagine Anitta playing football, or Gavi, Pedri, Raphinha, and Balde recreating one of Anitta’s trendy dances? Maybe not, but this is where the team comes in to create remarkable content for the fans while achieving commercial goals simultaneously. Connecting all the dots is not easy, but when you have the players and artists on the pitch with big smiles during production, you know that the idea is good, and the content will perform very well.

 

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George: Again, that was a perfect example of seeing football and music come together in a way that aligned across the markets for both the club and the artist. Barça has such a massive following in the Latin American markets, so to be able to work with some of the biggest artists and celebrate their talents with those of the club was something that we really wanted to do for the preseason tour. The players loved it because it intersects with the music that they like to listen to, and we saw really good engagement across our own channels as a result.

The players are super active on social media. What’s behind their social strategy? 

George Mead: This has been a really fun aspect of our work with the club from the beginning. Working with current players and legends like Ronaldinho to create and share their favorite tracks, which motivate them on match days, in special Spotify playlists—as well as the opportunity for fans to Blend with players—has provided another way for fans to connect with the players via music. 

Paloma: We never miss an opportunity to bring the players into our social media plans. They’re generally aware of how crucial content is in today’s landscape, and we always try to propose innovative and fresh content so they can make the most of it. Highlighting their personality and qualities is key when we draw up our content strategy.

They take part in different ways—whether it’s trends, challenges, choreographies, interviews, or amplification from their own channels. We’d like to send a huge thank you to them for their proactivity and willingness to expose the Barça brand to the fullest. 

Eric: The approach to player activations is a perfect fit for them. We are providing the kind of content that they consume on social media, and the result is more authentic and engaging for the fans.

Eric Serra and Paloma Mikadze

How does your social approach help supplement the established futbol fan community? 

Paloma: It’s about being authentic and engaging at the same time. Fans have a very strong appetite for content and entertainment, but it’s not only about building strategies. It’s also about analyzing insights to readjust the approach and constantly innovating to meet expectations. We try to be one step ahead. Understanding how and why fans react and behave is the first step to establishing a fan community.  

George: As a member of that community myself, I know that that is one of the most engaged demographics out there in terms of social media. We believe that this partnership adds far more than just the Spotify logo across the Barça shirt, and I think we’ve seen from the results so far that we’re speaking to an audience that loves the crossover—and we’re excited to offer more with our projects in the future.

Eric: We don’t have customers, we have fans . . . and we focus on putting the Barça fans at the center of everything we do.

Have your social engagement plans changed at all since partnering with Spotify?

Paloma: Our plans have adapted rather than changed. We know our audience; we understand our fans and we constantly analyze the market. Innovation, flexibility, and insight extraction is essential in our day-to-day work. 

Our teams are persistently seeking new opportunities to elevate our partnership through content. We must be relevant in a landscape that offers infinite options, and joining forces with Spotify has been key. Creating strategies to leverage campaigns from a 360-degree point of view is crucial. Now, more than ever, we believe in reaching fans beyond football. 

Eric: I agree with Paloma; it’s not a redefinition, but rather a way to take advantage of the partnership. Thanks to them, we’re working on big campaigns with great artists like ROSALÍA, Drake, Anitta, Daddy Yankee, Ovy On The Drums, Piso 21, and more. However, without a previous entertainment and lifestyle brand mindset, it would be impossible to fully integrate the partnership into our day-to-day operations.

George: We’re always interested in the engagement and impressions that we’re getting from our campaigns, and what’s really been great is that these are major music marketing campaigns, but they’re still done with amazing value in terms of output. This club has a massive following around the globe, so we’ve definitely looked at that in markets that we’ve previously not reached to a greater extent.

 

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What are some fan engagement opportunities you see for this partnership going forward? 

George: I think there’s still so much we can do together with the club. Everyone at Spotify is really excited about the prospect of the Nou Camp being revamped into an entertainment hub as part of the club’s Espai Barça project. We see that as a really exciting opportunity for us.

What is the value of bringing artists and other creators into the Barça brand? 

George: I really think the value is felt through the global reach that this football club has. We’ve seen artists featured on our billboards around the Spotify Camp Nou and obviously our special-edition jersey takeover campaigns. That means they’re reaching new audiences that have previously been untapped for them.

Eric: Music and football, artists and players. If you blend all of these elements to create content and experiences, the primary beneficiary will be the fan. When you bring artists and creators together with players or the Barça brand, you’re merging different fan bases and organically amplifying the impact. Who wouldn’t wonder what happens when an amazing football player interacts with an incredible artist in the same room?

Paloma: Barça is more than a club. That’s the story we want to share globally, and it’s our inspiration. FC Barcelona is a local brand that’s eager to expand its values all over the world. There’s no better way to do that than with credible voices telling our story to specific niches. Our goal is to attract new audiences by amplifying our fan base and creating a solid, loyal relationship with future supporters. 

Check out the other stories in our “Playful” edition of Liner Notes to discover more ways we infuse energy, creativity, and delight into our products.

Gamers in Saudi Arabia Press Play on Bringing Esports and Music Together

October 18, 2023

an illustration of a gaming console controller against an orange background

The thrill of victory. Anticipating the unexpected. Mastering a new skill. These are just some of the things that make gaming a thrilling hobby for people around the world. Saudi Arabia, in particular, is a country filled with young gamers who love to hop into online lobbies, gather at esports venues for tournaments, and—most notably for Spotify—stream music while playing.

“Gaming in Saudi Arabia is experiencing an unprecedented surge,” shares Nicole Aoun, Spotify Marketing Manager for the Middle East and North Africa. “The country currently boasts the highest gamer-per-capita ratio in the world, with almost 89% of the population identifying as gamers. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s indicative of a cultural movement.”

Data from January 1 to September 29, 2023, shows that Saudi Arabia is also the country with the greatest proportion of music streams when it comes to gamers’ streaming from their consoles. “Spotify offers the convenience of streaming music anywhere, including directly from gaming consoles,” explains Nicole. “This creates a seamless experience that resonates with the lifestyle of the modern Saudi gamer, who seeks versatility and convenience.”

There’s a natural synergy between music and gaming. Music plays a crucial role in elevating a gaming session; it helps set the mood, increases focus, and creates memorable moments for players. But for gamers looking for that multisensory experience for the eyes, ears, and brain, podcasts are also serving as a key way to build adrenaline and stay captivated. That means while some Saudi listeners prefer to listen to The Weeknd while gaming, others turn to shows like The POWR Podcast. 

Meshael MR, a Saudi content creator, avid gamer, and esports enthusiast who uses her platform to engage with people from all around the world, notes that listening to music really amplifies her focus and concentration. “When I do not have music while gaming, it often affects my gameplay.”

One of her favorite artists to listen to while playing is Amr Diab. “His tracks give me an exhilarating energy boost, motivating me to outplay my opponents,” says Meshael.

And just as music may enhance moments of intense, in-game action, gaming-focused podcasts can also help to enrich the experience. “The gaming community is a powerful one and one that likes to stay in touch and talk about gameplay,” Rhea Chedid, Spotify Senior Podcast Manager in MENA, shares. Podcasting allows gamers to be in constant conversation with the gaming community. “Gamers are looking for spaces where they can express themselves and find like-minded people; podcasts are giving them the opportunity to do so,” Rhea continues.

No matter the medium, our team in Saudi Arabia looks for opportunities to connect these moments of play on our platform and on the ground. 

An IRL anthem for the ages

This summer, we logged on for our second year as the official audio partner for Gamers8, the biggest gaming and esports festival in the world. The eight-week event took place at Boulevard City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and featured elite gaming titles alongside live concerts from the biggest global, regional, and local artists. 

During the opening ceremony of the games, we were proud to premiere the official Gamers8 Festival anthem, “GG Geena.” In collaboration with Spotify, the track was a partnership between Saudi Arabian artist and gaming enthusiast Mishaal Tamer and Palestinian Jordanian national Llunr, whose music has found its way to multiple Spotify Viral 50 charts. 

“The song was conceived as a tribute to the vibrant Saudi gaming community and local creators, but we always had our eyes set on resonating globally,” says Nicole. “We wanted to leverage our global reach to celebrate not just the Saudi gaming community, but also to show how gaming as a whole is this amazing, universal language that brings people together.”

To push the event’s reach around the world, “GG Geena” was promoted and showcased through our Times Square billboard in NYC, and we worked with Gamers8 to take over our global playlist, Start Select.

“It’s worth mentioning that the playlist has a diverse audience,” shares Nicole. “So we’re talking about a multilevel impact here, one that validates our mission to bring the Saudi and international gaming communities together, united by the universal love for gaming.”

We also hosted onsite activations that engaged gamers and spectators alike—one at the festival and one at a local music venue. 

“When we talk about uniting gamers around the world through music, Spotify becomes a natural conduit for that,” says Nicole when referencing the importance of the partnership between Spotify and Gamers8. “It’s not only about reaching gamers; it’s about creating a global community that celebrates the joy of gaming through the language of music.”

Spotify’s Interactive Experiences Create the Magic of Wrapped Year-Round

October 18, 2023

Spotify users start chattering on social media about Spotify Wrapped months before the experience is unveiled. The data dive turned cultural phenomenon, in which we unveil global top-listened-to songs, artists, albums, and podcasts, as well as fans’ personal listening trends, is as much of a learning experience for us as it is for our users. It’s an opportunity to see firsthand how much audio impacts our listeners’ lives, and the ways they turn to our platform to dive into this experience even more deeply. 

So the Spotify marketing teams make efforts to leverage our unique abilities and insights for original interactive experiences throughout the entire year. From New Years–inspired Playlist In a Bottle to My Top Five artist experiences with Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, ROSALÍA, BTS, and Taylor Swift, these new campaigns delight our users, more deeply connecting them with the artists they love and with fellow fans. 

“Wrapped really credentialed us in the marketplace in terms of marrying data with creativity and delivering it to users in an interesting way. And it gave us permission to think outside the box,” says Louisa Ferguson, Head of Global Marketing Experience. “There’s a lot of cultural energy on Spotify, and it’s nice to carve out space for Spotify to be more experimental and to try things that we’re not sure if they’re going to work and we want to find out. Our users help us do that.”

Louisa notes that as the team developed ideas for interactive moments, they realized there were opportunities to illuminate new and different insights on our users’ listening behaviors.  

“We want users to more consistently stumble upon these exciting, engaging moments throughout the year,” says Colette McIntyre, an Associate Creative Director at Spotify. “We see the younger generation, in particular, craving more interactivity and more personalization. They want to connect with the artists they love more, they want to connect with their own tastes more, and they want to connect with other fans more. And we wanted to facilitate that more regularly.” 

Playlist in a Bottle is a notable example of a moment of surprise and delight when users aren’t expecting it. It also puts listening ownership in users’ hands by enabling them to create a playlist for their future self. 

“Playlist in a Bottle is a lovely complement to Wrapped, which is a look back, in that it’s a look forward, a prediction of how your year is going to unfold,” said Louisa. The team was floored by the reception and is eyeing January 2024 as an opportunity to reintroduce the experience.

Our platform reflects the cultural zeitgeist

Though Playlist in a Bottle is one example that focuses on a topical moment, New Years, the team also prides itself on keeping abreast of unique trends and cultural conversations. 

Social media is core to this. “We think social first, always,” says Colette. “Social conversation is inherent to these experiences. Part of why these are connecting with people is because they’re built on very real insights of fandom, of genre, of the ways our users or fans react. One of our interactive experiences, GetReadyWithMusic, was inspired by, yes, music’s long-standing relationship with fashion, but also the social phenomenon of ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos on social.” 

“We are very, very focused on tapping into existing cultural conversation,” Louisa agrees. “It is really important that we enable these fans, who are already having this debate in various places, to come to the place where they actually listen to the music, engage with the experience, and then share it out to their friends and spark maybe a little bit of disagreement. We’re okay with that. We like that friction.” 

Having those moments on our platform isn’t necessarily a given, and that’s where Johannes Vuorensola, Director for Tooling, Integrations, and Labs, comes in. Johannes oversees a back-end product that allows Spotify to create these playful experiences in our Android and iOS mobile apps, keeping listeners where they are to enjoy moments like Supergrouper or Pet Playlists 2.0. 

“We want to be able to provide a seamless experience for our users, rather than driving them to another destination on a microsite or web page,” says Johannes. “We know that our users love our app; they want to consume music and other content on our platform. And obviously it’s natural for us to be able to bring these playful elements into their everyday lives, right where they are.” 

Johannes notes that it’s also a boon for the team to be able to develop and get feedback on these experiences across Spotify. “It helps us to take the product onto the next level by pushing it even further. This allows us to continue to innovate and build even more engaging products that truly create these playful and meaningful experiences and connections with our users and artists.” 

Evolving data as the differentiator 

While some interactive experiences are more general, others fall into niche fandoms or favorite genres. All of these are rooted in the habits of the listening communities we see on Spotify. 

“You can’t escape the fact that genre is still a useful organizing principle for music, and it’s a way for fans to come together and convene over a passion and attract a bigger community,” says Louisa. 

In Find Your Flow, listeners discovered which Latin music style best defined them by answering questions specific to their tastes. Then they received a listening persona based on their styles. “For an experience like Find Your Flow, all the details we used were hyper-specific to the reggaeton community, and all those data and listening insights came from a local level to us,” notes Louisa. “That is a real example of how Spotify’s broad reach is enabling us to dive deeper into a specific market, pull out insights, and share them globally.” 

Our My Top 5 franchise focuses on highly visible artist fandoms and also pulls from the way fans naturally debate their fandoms. For the My Top 5 BTS experience, fans were encouraged to not only share their top songs, but to do so using a background that signified their favorite band members. The ease of sharing to social media naturally brought fans together and sparked new interactions. 

We added Spotify data as another layer to our recent My Top 5: Taylor Swift’s Eras. After selecting their Top 5 Eras, fans received a share card, similar to past My Top 5 moments. But after self-identifying, “We’d come in with receipts, as only Spotify can,” says Colette. “Well actually, you’re more of a Reputation fan than you thought.” 

Colette notes this opportunity as a beautiful melding of what we’ve become known for with Wrapped, now applied to the framework of the My Top 5 franchise.

“When I think of Spotify, I think of discovery, and I think of play,” explains Colette. “And I think these experiences are inherently playful, right? They’re fun. They’re light-hearted. They provide unique, surprising ways for fans to look at their own fandom or look at themselves. They capture the spirit of Spotify and what sets us apart and why our users trust us and love us. At the end of the day, music is personal. But it’s also meant to be shared. I can’t think of better ways to have both.”

How Spotify Uses Design To Make Personalization Features Delightful

October 18, 2023

Every day, teams across Spotify leverage AI and machine learning to apply our personalization capabilities on a large scale, leading to the features, playlists, and experiences Spotify users have come to know and love. And when you spend your days working with emerging technologies, it’s easy to get transfixed by complicated new advancements and opportunities. So how do our forward-thinking teams ensure they can tackle this technical work while also prioritizing the experience of our users? 

That’s a question constantly on the mind of Emily Galloway, Spotify’s Head of Product Design for Personalization. Her team’s role is to design content experiences that connect listeners and creators. This requires understanding our machine learning capabilities as they relate to personalization to leverage them in a way that is engaging, simple, and fun for our users. 

“Design is often associated with how something looks. Yet when designing for content experiences, we have to consider both the pixels and decibels. It’s more about how it works and how it makes you feel,” Emily explains to For the Record. “It’s about being thoughtful and intentional—in a human way—about how we create our product. I am a design thinker and a human-centric thinker at my core. People come to Spotify to be entertained, relaxed, pumped up, and informed. They come for the content. And my team is really there to think about that user desire for personalized content. What are we recommending, when, and why?”

The Personalization Design team helps create core surfaces like Home and Search, along with much-loved features like Discover Weekly, Blend, and DJ. So to better understand just how to think about the design behind each of these, we asked Emily a few questions of our own.

How does design thinking work to help us keep our listeners in mind?

When you work for a company, you know too much about how things work, which means you are not the end user. Design helps us solve problems by thinking within their mindset. It’s our job to be empathetic to our users. We have to put ourselves in their shoes and think about how they experience something in their everyday life. A big thing to keep in mind is that when using Spotify, phones are often in pockets and people look at the screen in quick, split-second moments. 

Without design, the question often becomes, “How do we do something technically?” For those of us working at Spotify, we understand how or why we’re programming something technically in a certain way, but users don’t understand that—nor should they have to. What they need is to experience the product positively, to get something out of it. We’re accountable for creating user value. We really are there to keep the human, the end user, at the forefront. 

Without this thinking, our products would be overcomplicated. Things would be confusing and hard to use, from a functionality perspective. Good design is about simplicity and should largely remain invisible. 

But design is also additive: It adds delight. That’s what I love about projects like DJ or Jam that are actually creating connection and meaning. Design is not afraid to talk about the emotional side—how things make you feel. 

How does design relate to personalization?

Personalization is at the heart of what we do, and design plays an important role in personalization.  

Historically, Spotify’s personalization efforts happened across playlists and surfaces like Home and Search. But over time we utilized new technologies to drive more opportunities for personalization. This started from a Hack Week project back in the day to become Discover Weekly, our first successful algorithmically driven playlist. It then gave way to Blend, which was designed for a more social listening experience. And more recently, to DJ, our new experience that harnesses the power of AI and editorial expertise to help tell artists’ stories and better contextualize their songs. It utilizes an AI voice that makes personalization possible like never before—and it’s a whole new way for our listeners to experience Spotify’s personalization. 

When designing personalized experiences like these, we must think “content first,” knowing people come to Spotify for the content. Design ultimately makes it feel simple and human and creates experiences that users love. If recommendations are a math problem, then resonance is a design problem.

But we also have to have what I like to call “tech empathy”—empathy for the technology itself. My team, which is a mix of product designers and content designers, has to understand how the technology works to design our recommendations for the programming. Personalization designers need to understand the ways in which we’re working with complex technology like machine learning, generative AI, and algorithms. Our designers need to consider what signals we’re getting that will allow our recommendations to get better in real time and overtime. And when a recommendation is wrong, or a user just wants a different mood, we need to design mechanisms for feedback and control. That really came into play when we developed our AI DJ.

Tell us the story of the inception of DJ.

We’re always trying to create more meaningful connections between listeners and creators in new and engaging ways. And we use technology to deliver this value. DJ is the perfect example of how we’re driving deeper, more meaningful connections through technology.

Prior to generative AI, a “trusted friend DJ” would have required thousands of writers, voice actors, and producers to pull this off—something that wasn’t technically, logistically, or financially possible. Now, new technologies have unlocked quality at scale. Xavier “X” Jernigan’s voice and personality delivers on our mission of creating more meaningful connections to hundreds of millions of people. Generative AI made the once impossible feel magical.

To bring DJ to life we answered some core experiential questions knowing we are taking listeners on a journey with both familiar and unfamiliar music. We asked questions such as: What does it mean to give context to listening? How do we visualize AI in a human way? You can see this in how the DJ introduces itself in a playful way—owning that it’s an AI that doesn’t set timers or turn on lights. 

We also put a lot of thought into how we designed the character, since it is more than a voice. 

Ultimately, we really wanted to lean into making it feel more like a trusted music guide, as well as having an approachable personality. So much of our brand is human playfulness, so we made a major decision to acquire Sonantic and create a more realistic, friendly voice. And that led to Xavier training the model to be our first voice. His background and expertise made him the perfect choice.

With new technologies like generative AI, what are some of the new ways you’re thinking about your team and their work?

I’m challenging our team to think differently about the intersection of design and generative AI. We keep coming back to the conclusion that we don’t need to design that differently because our first principles still stand true. For example, we are still taking a content-first approach and we continue to strive for clarity and trust. We’ve realized that tech advancements are accelerating faster than ever, which makes design’s role more important than ever. 

Because there’s so much more complexity out there with generative AI, it means the human needs must be kept in mind even more. At the end of the day, if our users aren’t interested in a product or they don’t want to use it, what did we create it for? 

Emerging technology inspires you to think differently and to look from different angles. The world is trying to figure this out together, and at Spotify we’re not using technology to use technology. We’re using technology to deliver joy and value and meet our goals of driving discovery and connections in the process.

A Peek at Our New Video Podcast, ‘Hits the Spot’

October 18, 2023

illustration of a podcast studio with a couch booth and bookshelves

Every day, we share Spotify’s story across a variety of channels. Whether you prefer to hear about the company’s latest business developments audibly on our platform, via social media at Spotify News (follow us on X, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn), or right here on For the Record, we’ve got you covered.

But just as storytelling technology is constantly evolving, so too is our approach to how we serve it up. We always aim to meet our audiences where they are using methods and mediums they most prefer. Spotify has made a big push into video podcasts, and you’ve told us your preference is to see more of our news in a video format. 

Our new weekly video podcast, Hits the Spot, is the result. 

Each week we discuss Spotify news and developments and host guests from our studio at our New York headquarters. We dig into their Spotify experiences and data and explore how music, trends, and streaming shape their lives.

The team built a vibrant visual identity for the show and new studio that serves as a welcoming creative environment in which to chat. Our season is just getting started, but already we’ve surprised guests with fun insights that can be found only on Spotify, and sparked some fresh stories told to host Lea Palmieri.

From corporate conference room to creative space, scroll through this exclusive look at how our team brought the Hits the Spot studio to life.

How Spotify Island Is Leveling Up by Gamifying Sound

October 17, 2023

Last year, Spotify became the first music streaming brand to have a presence on Roblox with the launch of Spotify Island, an otherworldly digital destination for all things audio. Made up of the main Spotify hub, and surrounded by our awesome collection of themed destinations, this digital universe is an audio oasis where fans can mingle with their favorite artists, embark on interactive quests, and unlock exclusive content. We even have some special music-themed pets for players to collect by completing various challenges around the Island.

Back in June, we announced three new features that were in the works—the Dashboard, the Spotify Soundsphere, and the ability to ride Soundwaves. Since then, the first two have already made their way to Spotify Island and, starting today, the beach is open for all sound surfers.

Here’s all the new fun that awaits on the Island:

  • Take control of the Dashboard: While visiting Spotify Island’s studio, players can take a seat in the producer’s chair to mix their own tracks with a collection of sounds, loops, and one-shots exclusively from Soundtrap, the music-creation tool for beatmakers and songwriters.
  • Create your own sound in Spotify Soundsphere: Featuring whimsical interactive beatmakers, instruments, and equipment, Spotify Soundsphere is all about exploring and having fun. While visiting, players can create their own sounds and share them with friends.
  • Riding the Soundwaves: Starting today, players can grab a board and ride the waves of custom Soundtrap mixes. Depending on the music, the waves change in size, color, and intensity. 

You can access all of these features and many more by logging into Roblox and visiting the main island. We have a lot more fun new features on the way, so stay tuned.

While it’s only been a little over a year since we entered the massive space of Roblox, we’ve made quite a few additions to Spotify Island to make it more like a home for all music-lovers. Themed portals like K-Park, the whimsical wonderland dedicated to the vibrant dreamland of K-Pop, and Planet Hip-Hop, a futuristic universe that covers the world of hip-hop, were introduced to the world, creating an immersive genre experience like no other. Plus, an ongoing roster of collaborations with creators like Doechii and Stray Kids have led us to create unique experiences and games for fans while deepening their connection with artists through avatar meet-and-greets and special virtual merch sales. 

So, with so much happening in our little corner of the Roblox universe, it’s time we put you to the test. How well do you know Spotify Island? Take our quiz to find out.

1. Which exclusive virtual pet is available on Spotify Island?
2. Which creator(s) were the first to appear in K-Park?
3. Where in Planet Hip-Hop can you customize your ride?
4. What K-Pop choreographer visited Spotify Island and let fans join in on a dance session?
5. How could you previously unlock the Annyeong (안녕) emote?
6. Last year on Planet Hip-Hop, what did you have to do for Doechii to allow you into her swamp?
7. What is the best Korean treat to have at the K-Pop Cafe?
8. How could you get the Floating Boombox when it was on Planet Hip-Hop?

How Spotify Blend Creates a Connection Between Fans, Friends, and Artists

May 24, 2023

Whether you’re an artist, a listener, or a bit of both, there’s one thing that has been true since time immemorial: Music should be shared. If you’re grabbing the AUX on a car trip with friends or making a playlist for that special someone, there’s just a certain connection that comes with sharing in the genres and songs that have personal meaning to you.

That’s why in 2021, Spotify took that connection to the next level with Blend, our shared new social listening experience that combines the different tastes of friends and family, as well as fans and artists, into one. With Blend, you can create a personalized playlist that balances what you and your friends like to listen to, merging those music tastes to create something everyone can enjoy.

“Sharing music is a really vulnerable thing—but it also brings you closer together,” says Gianna Pisano, a product marketing manager at Spotify. “Those moments when you realize you and your friends have been listening to Stick Season by Noah Kahan on repeat, or have played boygenius’s new record for five days straight—Blend surfaces all of those insights, puts them together, and does all the work to make a playlist for you and your crew, updated daily. All you have to do is listen and explore.”

Connection in Collaboration

The creation of Blend came about via personalized features that were already in use on a smaller scale.

“Our personalization team was already working on a similar feature that we were excited about,” says Ian VanNest, a senior product designer. “Initially we had used it to connect mixes for listeners on Duo or Family accounts and that ended up being an instant hit. Eventually we decided that extending that functionality to everyone was the way to go.”

At launch, Blend allowed two users at a time to combine musical tastes. But the personalization team realized that more people would make for a merrier experience. So in March 2022, we expanded the number of people who can combine to 10, creating an even more powerful, collaborative tool that allowed even more people to feel connected to one another through their shared love for music.  

“Increasing the amount of listeners to make use of Blend was a natural next step,” says Maia Ezratty, an engineer who works on personalization at Spotify. “We don’t only connect over music with one person at a time. We listen to music with our families, go to concerts with our friends, and stream music at the office. I love creating a Blend with a group of friends when we’re together—right away, we have something that represents all of our music tastes that we can play while we hang out. And it’s a conversation starter!”

Beyond that, Blend has offered groups of listeners an opportunity to enjoy the music they have in common and celebrate the differences in musical taste on a granular level.

“Blend has a lot of perks to it, but by far the two best parts of creating a Blend with your friends are finding the artists you have in common and discovering artists that you didn’t know about,” says Ward Ronan, Spotify senior data scientist. “Music has always been a powerful way to bring people together, and Blend not only acknowledges that relationship, but actively helps it grow.

 

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Getting Closer to the Artists We Love

After fans responded enthusiastically to being able to Blend with groups, the personalization team started to think about how to evolve the playlist further. And in an age where it’s easier than ever for fans to connect with celebrities on a more personal level, the team found inspiration for their next innovation. The result was Blend’s new ability to let fans create a deeper bond with artists by combining their tastes.  

“We wanted to harness the power of Blend to create a bit of that same sense of connection between celebrities and fans,” explains Maia. “Music taste is so personal, and Blending with our favorite celebrities makes us feel like we’re getting to know them better by giving us a little window into theirs.”

In a few quick steps, fans can now Blend with artists like BTS to discover the songs that get the K-pop group dancing when they’re not onstage, find out which tracks they have in common with Megan Thee Stallion, and—most recently—see how much their overall taste aligns with that of Miley Cyrus. Find a full list of all available Blends here.

Blend has been incredibly popular with fans since it debuted in 2021. Recently, it’s grown significantly in popularity, and since June 2022, the number of Blends with artists has more than doubled. Of the artists fans can Blend with currently, BTS, Post Malone, BLACKPINK, Lizzo, and Stray Kids are the most popular as of May 2023.

Music has always been one of the most powerful ways for artists to share their lives and experiences, and for listeners to connect with one another and feel understood. And through Blend, fans have a magical way to connect with friends, loved ones, and even total strangers, in a shared moment of enjoyment. 

Want to compare your favorite anthems with Miley Cyrus’s? Click below and let Blend do the rest.

https://spotify.link/MileyBlend

The Transformative Power of Spotify Songwriter Sessions

May 24, 2023

“When you’re an emerging writer, the toughest thing is getting into the room,” starts Aaron Buckingham, a lead on Spotify’s Songwriter and Publishing Relations team. “Maybe you have some friends from college or school that you wrote songs with, and maybe it grows to someone you form a band with. But to get into rooms with more established writers and on to artists’ radars—that can take a lot of time.” 

The process is all too familiar—not just for Aaron, but for burgeoning songwriters looking for an opportunity to shine. Even when a new songwriter possesses undeniable talent, reaching that career breakthrough requires them to navigate an intricate path. And since part of Aaron’s role at Spotify is to unlock opportunities for songwriters and publishers on and off our platform, he goes further than simply helping songwriters and producers get into the room. He and his team construct the room.

Spotify Sessions: A first taste of collaborative songwriting  

Spotify Sessions gives rising hitmakers a first taste of professional collaboration. Occasionally themed, always thoughtful, these sessions give songwriters the opportunity to connect with artists, producers, and engineers who are further along in their careers. With specific opportunities for R&B writers and women and non-binary creators, as well as songwriters in our RADAR Songwriters program, we’re using the space to advance marginalized talent. 

To date, Spotify has hosted dozens of writing sessions globally that have been attended by an array of the world’s top songwriting and production talent, including Rodney Jerkins, Ink, Leland, Ilsey, Wayne Hector, Ricky Reed, Ina Wroldsen, and Kamille. The results are notable. Stream Dua Lipa’s ethereal dance track “Hallucinate” or 21 Savage’s Grammy-winning “a lot” and you’re hearing the results of a Spotify Session.  

“Songwriters are the architects who have built the music industry that we all kind of exist in,” Aaron explains to For the Record. “I’m incredibly passionate about the process of songwriting, particularly by those who aren’t necessarily performers themselves. I personally love how our writing sessions knock down some of the political walls and give people an amazing opportunity to create together, and come with no agenda attached.” 

Ines Dunn, a songwriter on the rise

Click the image to hear from Ines

Once the writers get into the room, Aaron’s next job is to understand how Spotify can best amplify their talent, starting by pairing them with fellow writers.

From the beginning, Spotify Sessions has set the stage for a few songwriters’ first collaborative writing workshops. For Aaron, Ines Dunn stands out. “I’d be listening to a new Mimi Webb song or Maisie Peters and look at the songwriter credits and be like, ‘Ines Dunn? Is that the same student who came to our writing camp?’ And it was!” 

In 2019, Spotify invited Ines and some of her classmates from the East London Academy of Music to a dance and electronic music writing session at our Noteable Songwriting Studios in London. There they tasted their first collaboration between artist, producer, and songwriter. “Everyone wanted to work with Ines,” remembers Aaron. “She was an immediate star.”

For Ines the experience was her first time workshopping with seasoned songwriters, and it was life-changing. Now she’s a full-time songwriter with credits on Mimi’s and Maise’s recent albums, as well as on Griff’s, METTE’s, and Josie Mann’s. And while songwriting has become part of Ines’s everyday life, the process of coming together with others to write a song in settings like Spotify Sessions continues to be magical. 

“Songs are always such a landmark of the time and place and the people that you wrote something with,” she tells For the Record. “I have such strong attachments to the moments when I wrote those songs. As the days go by, you always forget what you did and how much time passed and the funny thing that happened. But I feel like songs really capture the ‘Oh God, and I remember writing that thing in that moment and finding it the funniest thing in the whole world,’ which is really nice because it kind of immortalizes those memories.”

Supporting songwriters from moment to music 

After the sessions, there’s more to do, including finding ways to showcase the work using the power of our platform. 

“Spotify is well positioned to really connect collaborators from around the world,” Aaron says. “Whether it’s things like having the names and the credits viewable on platform, or with the introduction of Written By playlists and Songwriter Pages, we’re giving anyone who’s listening to music that ability to be able to click into the credits and see the complete discography of a songwriter’s work straight away. That’s great for fans because it gives them more context around the folks who have helped create the music, but also I think it’s super beneficial for the writer in actually unlocking future collaborations.”

Click the image to hear from Aaron

We’ve long supported behind-the-scenes moments of music creation through programs like Equalizer. In 2021, we created Noteable as a home for songwriters, producers, and publishers, with resources like Songwriter Pages, Written By playlists, the Songwriters Hub, educational video series, the Created by Women playlist, and much more available. And with five studios, we’re also making in-person sessions even more accessible to creators in more locations around the world. Casa Spotify Medallo is the latest offering for Colombia-based songwriters to hone their craft together. 

Similar to RADAR, our RADAR Songwriters program helps develop songwriters on the cusp of greatness. With marketing and editorial content, we’ve helped songwriters in Canada, Mexico, America, Italy, the U.K., and beyond gain industry and audience exposure. Ines Dunn, in fact, is one of the latest RADAR Songwriters, bringing her journey full circle. 

“A music career is really borderless now with the impact of streaming. And we’re seeing that in the writing sessions as well,” says Aaron. “We’re seeing writers from America, the U.K., and Sweden write for all these big K-Pop artists. I’d love for Ines Dunn to get opportunities from places as far as Australia or South Korea because an artist’s manager heard her music on one of our playlists.”

Songwriters like Ines don’t necessarily seek out the spotlight, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want—or deserve—it. “For Spotify to kind of give the platform to people who choose not to have a platform is really lovely,” she says. “To know that there are people in the world who don’t know anything about songwriters, but who will know something about someone because of RADAR Songwriters, is really special.”

Catch the songs Ines has helped create on the Written By Ines Dunn playlist.  

 

Podcast Q&A and Polls Help Creators Talk to Fans Where They Are

May 24, 2023

Looking back, it’s clear the early days of podcasting were uncharted territory. Avid listeners would finish an episode and engage with each other elsewhere—on, say, a Reddit forum or Discord channel—but rarely with the podcast host. There was a desire for deeper conversations, but there wasn’t a channel. For podcasters, this disconnect kept them from the community interaction they needed to sustain momentum for their show. 

In 2019, when Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek announced that podcasts and podcasting would be the next phase of growth for the company, it was an opportunity to reimagine the future of podcasting by making a historically one-sided medium more engaging and dynamic for both listeners and hosts. So, as we grew our podcast offerings, Spotify was also able to expand capabilities for creators with the acquisition of Anchor—the world’s biggest podcast hosting platform—which has since become Spotify for Podcasters. In fall 2021, we launched Q&A and polls. 

“Podcasting can be two-way; it can be interactive. It can be a format that helps people connect with each other, instead of just one-way broadcasting,” says Maya Prohovnik, VP and Head of Podcast Product at Spotify. “As Spotify has become the number one audio listening platform in the world, as we’ve gotten a critical mass of listeners and creators in one place, it’s allowed us to really innovate and add these new ways to interact over audio.” 

Q&A and polls enable creators to incorporate a level of engagement by asking questions or soliciting voted responses. The tools allow podcasters to directly communicate with fans in a way that’s more personal. And since we enabled these features for all creators on our new Spotify for Podcasters platform, we’ve seen the number of podcasters who use them more than double.

“The creator response has been really strong, and it’s growing fast,” says Alex Yamamoto, a Product Marketing Manager in Spotify’s Podcast Mission who is focused on Creator Growth tools. “For the creators who are using it, it’s a way for them to get closer with their audiences. A lot of the creators we’ve seen have taken it in different directions. Some want to hear personal stories from their fans, others look for debate-like conversations. In general, it’s about getting people talking.”

Jump-starting conversations

In December of 2021, a few months after the features rolled out, Sapphire Sandolo, host of Stories with Sapphire, started experimenting and saw fans engaging almost immediately. “Before, you had to go off the thing that you were listening to the podcast to. You couldn’t interact right then and there,” she shares with For the Record. “I think that’s why people are really drawn to it. It keeps you there. You don’t have to go find where the discussions are happening.” 

Sapphire Sandolo

Sapphire was quick to adopt the features and has been using them in creative ways ever since. Since Stories with Sapphire focuses on encounters with the supernatural in cultures around the world, her engagement with these tools focuses on normalizing the topics she covers. “With the type of content that I do, people usually listen to paranormal stories because they have also experienced things, or they like to talk about paranormal stuff. Because of that, when I ask people, ‘Have you experienced something similar?’ people start chiming in because they most likely have,” she explains. 

Crafting the perfect question can be daunting, so our product team added a default question, “What did you think about this episode?” to all shows. With this addition, listeners and creators alike can experience and see the benefits from the Q&A capabilities—and get the conversation started. 

“The default Q&A helps people and it starts getting listeners engaged and using the tool,” says Chris Larson, a Product Manager for our podcast fan engagement features. “But where we really see benefits is when the creators put it in their own voice and customize it, either to their podcast category or to a specific show, or they ask about future shows and shape the direction of where they want to go. So, we’re trying to encourage more of that. We’ve learned from creators that that’s been really valuable. We look at the data and we see that it gets a lot more listener responses and there’s more engagement there when it’s been customized in their own voice.”  

For example, Teenager Therapy, a show hosted by a handful of Gen Z friends who try to normalize conversations around the harder topics within their lives, asks listeners to share their own personal stories. Gimlet’s Science Vs podcast, which takes on hot topics in science and health, asks listeners questions about their prior knowledge on a subject. And head to Stories with Sapphire for a deep cut: “What is your relationship with death?” 

In their own hands

Prior to the development of these tools, podcasters found other creative ways to generate two-way conversations. Smaller shows, in particular, were able to utilize voice memos and other alternatives to mimic call-in radio shows. “Some found workarounds maybe five or 10 years ago—it started being really popular to use a Google Voice number,” remembers Maya. “So people could call in, which is awesome, but it was not easy to set up. It was a lot of work for the fans and a lot of work for the creators—you had to listen to voicemails, export them, edit them. It was really cool to start to see that happening, but still really high friction.”

Beyond those who chose to call in, podcasters weren’t able to solicit feedback from fans. Now, Maya, who hosts a handful of podcasts herself, uses the Spotify for Podcasters fan engagement tools to crowdsource ideas for guests and topics and content. 

For Alex, keeping these features conveniently available on the Spotify environment—where listeners already are—also means that control and decision-making remain in the hands of the creators. “The power is really with the creators. They can initiate, engage with fans in what they see as the most positive and creative way,” he says. “The most creative Q&A and polls come from hosts who inherently understand the connection they have with their fans—and they’re the ones who see more listeners engage on Spotify. The beauty of the product is that it accentuates the connection a host already has with their fan base.” 

The tools also enable hosts to build community among their listeners.

“One of my main goals with my podcast is to normalize the paranormal,” says Sapphire.” A lot of the time, people don’t like to share their experiences because they think people will think they’re crazy. I want to create a space where people know they’re safe. I think that’s why people are more comfortable opening up when it comes to my show. They know other people who listen are going to be just as open.” 

A question for the future

As more creators start to use the tools and see the benefits of interactivity, the Spotify team is able to incorporate creator needs to help push conversations even further. “The things we’re committed to for the current functionality are just making sure we improve all the existing ways that creators are interacting with their audiences, and improve discoverability,” says Chris. “We want to close the feedback loop so that when creators do get feedback on their episodes, they’re notified in a timely manner and can actually engage. Because we know that for listeners, if they’re not getting feedback from the creators, it feels like fans are shouting into a black box. We want to encourage creators to start giving listeners that reinforcement.”

Alex’s tip to creators? Mention these new features in the episode intros and the show notes. “The best source of discovery of the feature for listeners is when the creator calls it out,” he says. 

And there’s always more to learn and experiment with. Sapphire, an early adopter of Q&A and polls, recently started using Spotify for Podcasters for analytics. After publishing two video podcasts, she noticed the number of people responding to her questions doubled. 

For Sapphire and Maya, podcasting incorporates an element of magic. “The world is a lot more magical than we give it credit sometimes,” Sapphire says. “We lose a lot of our sense of that as we grow older, but there’s always room for paranormal and room for magic.”  

“I really find it magical to be able to express myself and tell stories, and I really want everyone to be able to do that,” Maya explains. “So, I hope that’s what we keep seeing. It’s so easy to make a podcast on your phone and with all the developments we’re seeing in creator tools. I can’t even imagine where we’re gonna be in a couple years. As the barriers for creation become even lower, we’re going to see more experimenting and finding new, novel things to do with the medium. I’m really excited for Spotify to become the place that fans and creators think of when they think about connecting with each other.”

Rachel Bittner on Basic Pitch: An Open Source Tool for Musicians

September 1, 2022

orange open source and coding symbols on a blue, green, and white background

Music creation has never been as accessible as it is now. Gone are the days of classical composers, sheet music, and prohibitively expensive studio time when only trained, bankrolled musicians had the opportunity to transcribe notes onto a page. As technology has changed, so too has the art of music creation—and today it is easier than ever for experts and novices alike to compose, produce, and distribute music. 

Now, musicians use a computer-based digital standard called MIDI (pronounced “MID-ee”). MIDI acts like sheet music for computers, describing which notes are played and when—in a format that’s easy to edit. But creating music from scratch, even using MIDI, can still be very tedious. If you play piano and have a MIDI keyboard, you can create MIDI by playing. But if you don’t, you must create it manually: note by note, click by click. 

To help solve this problem, Spotify’s machine learning experts trained a neural network to predict MIDI note events when given audio input. The network is packaged in a tool called Basic Pitch, which we just released as an open source project. 

“Basic Pitch makes it easier for musicians to create MIDI from acoustic instruments—for example, by singing their ideas,” says Rachel Bittner, a research manager at Spotify who is focused on applied machine learning on audio. “It can also give musicians a quick ‘starting point’ transcription instead of having to write down everything manually, saving them time and resources. Basically, it allows musicians to compose on the instrument they want to compose on. They can jam on their ukulele, record it on their phone, then use Basic Pitch to turn that recording into MIDI. So we’ve made MIDI, this standard that’s been around for decades, more accessible to more creators. We hope this saves them time and effort while also allowing them to be more expressive and spontaneous.”

For the Record asked Rachel to tell us more about the thinking and development that go into Basic Pitch and other machine learning efforts, and how the team decided to open up the tool for anyone to access and to innovate on.

Help us understand the basics. How are machine learning models being applied to audio?

Rachel Bittner

On the audio ML (machine learning) teams at Spotify, we build neural networks—like the ones that are used to recognize images or understand language—but ours are designed specifically for audio. Similar to how you ask your voice assistant to identify the words you’re saying and also make sense of the meaning behind those words, we’re using neural networks to understand and process audio in music and podcasts. This work combines our ML research and practices with domain knowledge about audio—understanding the fundamentals of how music works, like pitch, tone, tempo, the frequencies of different instruments, and more.

What are some examples of machine learning projects you’re working on that align with our mission to give “a million creators the opportunity to live off their art”?

Spotify enables creators to reach listeners and listeners to discover new creators. A lot of our work helps with this in indirect ways—for example, identifying tracks that might go well together on a playlist because they share similar sonic qualities like instrumentation or recording style. Maybe one track is already a listener’s favorite and the other one is something new they might like.

We also build tools that help creative artists actually create. Some of our tech is in Soundtrap, Spotify’s digital audio workstation (DAW), which is used to produce music and podcasts. It’s like having a complete studio online. And then there’s Basic Pitch, which is a stand-alone tool for converting audio into MIDI that we just released as an open source project. We open sourced Basic Pitch and built an online demo, so anyone can use it to translate musical notes in a recording (including voice, guitar, or piano).

Unlike similar ML models, Basic Pitch is not only versatile and accurate at doing this, but it’s also fast and computationally lightweight. So the musician doesn’t have to sit around forever waiting for their recording to process. And on the technological and environmental side, it uses way less energy—we’re talking orders of magnitude less—compared to other ML models. We named the project Basic Pitch because it can also detect pitch bends in the notes, which is a particularly tricky problem for this kind of model. But also because the model itself is so lightweight and fast.

What else makes Basic Pitch a unique machine learning project for Spotify?

I mentioned before how computationally lightweight it is—that’s a good thing. In my opinion, the ML industry tends to overlook the environmental and energy impact of their models. Usually with ML models like this—whether it’s for processing images, audio, or text—you throw as much processing power as you can at the problem as the default method for reaching some level of accuracy. But from the beginning, we had a different approach in mind: We wanted to see if we could build a model that was both accurate and efficient, and if you have that mindset from the start, it changes the technical decisions you make in how you build the model. Not only is our model as accurate as (or even more accurate than) similar models, but since it’s lightweight, it’s also faster, which is better for the user, too. 

What’s the benefit of open sourcing this tool?

It gives more people access to it since anyone with a web browser can use the online demo. Plus, we believe the external contributions from the open source community help it evolve as software to create a better, more useful product for everyone. For example, while we believe Basic Pitch solves an important problem, the quality of the MIDI that our system (and others’) produces is still far from human-level accuracy. By making it available to creators and developers, we can use our individual knowledge and experience with the product to continue to improve that quality. 

What’s next for Basic Pitch in this area?

There’s so much potential for what we can do with this technology in the future. For example, Basic Pitch could eventually be integrated into a real-time system, allowing a live performance to be automatically accompanied by other MIDI instruments that “react” to what the performer is doing.

Additionally, we shared an early version of Basic Pitch with Bad Snacks, an artist-producer who has a YouTube channel where she shares production tips with other musicians. She’s been playing around with Basic Pitch, and we’ve already made improvements to it based on her feedback, fixing how the online demo handles MIDI tempo, and other things to make it work better for a musician’s workflow. We partnered with her to use Basic Pitch to create an original composition, which she released as a single on Spotify. She even posted a behind-the-scenes video on her channel showing how she used Basic Pitch to create the track. The violin solo section is particularly cool.

But it’s not just artists and creators that we’re excited about. We’re equally looking forward to seeing what everyone in the open-source developer community has been doing with it. We expect to discover many areas for improvement, along with new possibilities for how it could be used. We’re proud of the research that went into Basic Pitch and we’re happy to show it off. We’ll be even happier if musicians start using it as part of their creative workflows. Share your compositions with us!

Create a cool track using Basic Pitch? Share it on Twitter with the hashtag #basicpitch and tag the team @SpotifyEng.

Distributed First Contributes to Spotify’s Strength

September 1, 2022

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Enter a meeting room in any Spotify office and you’ll see a reminder on the screen, a mantra to keep in mind as you turn on the monitor to start your meeting: “We are distributed first,” it reads. “Does everyone in the room and on-screen have an opportunity to speak?” 

As a company, Spotify has long appreciated and embraced the intricacies of hybrid meetings. Global and local teams as well as collaborators worldwide meant that combined in-person and virtual meetings were already a big part of the company culture. Still, the majority of our 6,000+ employees were heading into work daily at one of our offices prior to the start of the pandemic. 

Yet Spotify’s leadership team recognized early that in-office work wasn’t the only way to achieve company goals. Particularly, the goals of globalization and digitalization necessitated an even more flexible way of working. So becoming “distributed-first,” or enabling employees to work from the places that were the most conducive to them, was a logical next step. The events of 2020, in addition to employee feedback, served to accelerate this transition. 

Fast-forward two years, in which we’ve incorporated a Work from Anywhere (WFA) policy and converted our offices to become dynamic workplaces. Now, employees are again holding hybrid meetings, with some in offices and others at home across the world. However, much has changed, and more employees now work fully remote, while those who choose to go into the office one, two, or five days a week find themselves in an entirely new set-up. 

All of this ladders up to our distributed-first mentality—one in which Spotify provides a productive work space for everyone, even when no two employees’ work places, preferences, or optimal schedules are the same.

Meet the dynamic workplace

Start with a hub—a location like Spotify’s New York office (where you’ll be treated to sweeping views of the harbor and comfortable seating for meetings and relaxing alike). Around the corner, desks are dotted across open collaborative areas that are great for in-promptu conversations; the space’s quieter padded conference alcoves are ideal for when employees need to focus. Conference rooms with smart monitors for hybrid meetings can be booked for groups of two, four, 10, and more. Employees can flex as their day and work needs require. 

 

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The concept of providing an office space that reflects the needs of employees, or a “dynamic workplace,” was under consideration even pre-pandemic. According to Mattias Stålhammar, head of Global Workplace Services, Spotify started office transformations in autumn of 2019. “We consider the dynamic workplace to be an approach and not a solution,” he explained. “The goal is to provide a workplace that reflects the needs of the employees and thus the business. The three main objectives are flexibility, well-being and sustainability.”

Some view collaboration as their primary motivation for spending time in the office; for others, it’s the focus time. Our offices are being designed accordingly. Unassigned desks allow employees the flexibility to change up their office environment depending on their work needs or even their moods. 

“Some of the coolest things I’ve worked on here have grown out of small talk in the hallways and around our desks,” says J.J. Italiano, Head of Global Hits, who works out of Spotify’s Los Angeles office. “With the layout of the LA office, it’s so easy to run into people that I might not interact with in my normal day-to-day work. Moving from one conference room to another or getting up to grab a snack can turn into a 30-second conversation with a colleague that helps to inspire something I’m working on or get me up to speed on something interesting happening elsewhere in the company that I wasn’t aware of before.” 

 

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But for J.J., a best-of-both-worlds approach allows him to do his best work. “Some work is easier to do alone at home, like catching up on emails or working on a project,” adds J.J. “Other stuff—like planning, brainstorming, and problem-solving—are easier to do in person with the team, where ideas can be bounced around and refined in a group setting.” 

In any location, proper equipment is critical. “We provide three different types of workplace nodes,” continues Mattias. “Our Spotify offices, coworking spaces, and home offices. In our office and home office nodes, we make sure that we provide an ergonomic set-up together with a proper IT set-up.” So employees who work primarily from home and those who are hybrid can order ergonomic equipment to ensure a comfortable environment. 

At the end of the day, J.J. chose to primarily work from the office—something we call “Office Mix”—because his teammates are his favorite thing about working at Spotify. And that’s a sentiment that’s shared across the business. 

“Our people are our most important asset and it’s crucial that we provide the best possible conditions for them to be productive, stay healthy, and feel connected to the company—and, let’s not forget—to have fun!” says Mattias. “Our workplace plays an important role in attracting and retaining top-talent to make sure the company continues to develop in a positive way.”

 

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A Work-From-Anywhere mentality

Our “Work from Anywhere” (WFA) policy, which was rolled out in early 2021, cements that the office isn’t the be-all and end-all for work at Spotify. “We believe that work isn’t something you come to the office for, it’s something you do” is a philosophy long held by Katarina Berg, Spotify’s Chief HR Officer. “Giving people freedom to choose where they work will make great people more effective, and this flexibility will better support work-family balance, ultimately helping to attract and retain talent.”  

 

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This mindset has already paid off for plenty of employees. Maria Rossi, a Product Insights Manager for Personalization who relocated from Argentina to the Netherlands six years ago, says she was only looking for jobs where she could work mostly remotely from Amsterdam. She enjoys the flexibility of working from home, which allows her to harness deep focus time during the workday as well as daily runs right before sunset. She doesn’t miss opportunities for in-person connections, either.

“Working from Amsterdam while my direct team is distributed across Europe means that going to the office brings the best of both worlds,” she says. “I get the flexibility to live in a city I love with friends and family that are here, while having a global team and collaborating with colleagues across the world. Being able to have a distributed-first mentality also enables us to have, in my opinion, the biggest benefit of all: creating a team with different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences by acknowledging that you cannot always find that in one place.” 

Marina Cupaiuolo, an Operations Manager, was hired in Stockholm but relocated during the pandemic to Östersund, a five-hour train ride north of the city. The benefits of remote work and the culture surrounding it have enabled her to enjoy her new home and stay connected to colleagues. 

“Without WFA, I wouldn’t have been able to live this close to relatives, or afford the kind of living situation I can now—with a house and a big garden and a lake view. I’m able to go outside during lunch and pick veggies from my garden. I get to immediately play with my daughter as soon as I’m done with work. I value the trust that I’m delivering on the work that I was hired for, no matter if I’m sitting at an office desk or not.” 

 

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That trust is core not only to her day-to-day life working from home, but the Spotify mentality that contributes to a positive—and productive—distributed-first environment.

“We believe we can make people and teams more effective by building on the lessons we’ve learned on how Spotify works and rethinking how that work is done,” noted Katarina. “Operating as a distributed organization will produce better and more efficient ways of working through more intentional use of communication and collaboration practices, processes, and tools.” 

“I know this is a journey and that there are still things we have to figure out, but what I have found amazing is that there’s really been a mindset shift towards working distributed first,” says Maria. “People are very open and everyone is doing their best to make this work out. I’m confident it can only get better.”