As we gather together with friends and family this holiday season, music helps amplify the memories we’ll make. Spotify Jam is one way to create a personalized real-time listening experience that makes every festive moment even more memorable. With Jam, Premium listeners can invite others to contribute through a shared queue. The feature is a great way to reminisce over old favorites and show off new song obsessions.
In 2023, we saw a record-breaking number of users create a Jam on Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve—with the number of users joining a Jam session on New Year’s Eve nearly doubling. The groups got larger, too. As people rang in the New Year, we saw a tenfold increase in Jams with six or more participants.
Don’t get left out of the fun: Here are three ways you can make the most out of Jam this holiday season:
1. Jam on your smart TV
Easily Jam from any room at home with your smart TV. Your friends and family can seamlessly join the Jam from their own devices by scanning the QR code on the screen.
2. Listening in the car
When you’re on the go, let your passengers drive the music. We’ve seen that handing over control of the playlist has become increasingly popular, with users’ starting the Jam in the car increasing by tenfold in the last year. As long as your Bluetooth is enabled, passengers can join the Jam, see group recommendations, and add songs to the queue that are bound to be crowd pleasers.
3. Jam with friends near or far
Whether you’re together or apart, Premium users can Jam with friends. If you’re in the same room, a Premium listener can invite anyone to the Jam by simply turning on Bluetooth and tapping your phones together to join. You can also hit “Share” to send a share link through text, SMS, social media, and more. For those in your household, anyone on the same Wi-Fi network will be prompted to join the Jam as soon as they open Spotify.
With Jam, we’re giving Free and Premium users another way to connect more deeply with the artists, songs, and albums that unite them. Plus, Premium listeners can join from wherever they are, whether they’re in the same room or across the world this holiday season.
Earlier this year, Spotify introduced music videos in beta, giving Premium subscribers in 12 markets another way to connect with the songs and artists they love. Today we are starting to roll out that offering across 85 additional markets, giving even more Premium subscribers the opportunity to dive into the visual worlds of artists like Charli xcx, LISA, Fontaines D.C., Nick Ward, Anirudh Ravichander,and Fireboy DML.
Music videos are a powerful way to build connections between artists and fans. In fact, users who discover a song and then watch the music video on Spotify are 34% more likely on average to stream the song again the following week.* And on average, songs discovered with music videos are 24% more likely to be saved or shared in the following week by those who watched.
Music videos help immerse fans in the experience—whether they’re listening to a new song or revisiting an old favorite. As part of this expansion, Spotify is also adding new features to make the music videos in beta experience even better. These include:
Fans can easily find and discover new music videos to watch (on mobile and desktop) with video indicators on tracks.
Users can also more easily find the music video they’re looking for alongside its related track by typing the track or artist into search.
In addition, users will now have the option to seamlessly switch between music tracks and videos with a single tap of a button (on mobile and desktop).
Want to give it a try? Here’s how it works:
If you’re a Premium subscriber in one of our 97 beta markets, open Spotify on your iOS, Android, desktop, or TV device and tap the “Switch to video” button for music tracks with video.
The music video will start playing within the Now Playing view, picking up right where you left off.
If you want to return to background listening, simply press “Switch to audio” to head back to the music track.
You can even watch the music video in full screen by turning your mobile device to watch in landscape mode.
The beta version of music videos on Spotify is starting to roll out in new markets today with a limited catalog of music videos — and will continue rolling out over the next few weeks. We’re always working to build lasting connections between artists and fans, adding features like Countdown Pages, Canvas, Clips from your artists,Artist Profiles, Live Events, and Merch to deliver a rich music listening experience. And for Premium subscribers, music videos in beta—along with offerings like DJ, Jam, and AI Playlist—is yet another way we’re making that experience even richer.
Stay tuned, as we hope to expand the catalog of music videos, share new places for you to watch them, and take the feature to more users and markets.
*Than users who discover the song but do not watch the music video.
Since its launch just over a year ago, Spotify’s Audiobooks in Premium offering has helped introduce the format to an entirely new audience across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. We’re seeing more listeners try audiobooks for the first time and embrace new and different books, with hundreds of thousands of unique titles streamed.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that listeners in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg will now have access to audiobooks, which includes exciting work from local authors such as Gaël Faye, Maylis de Kerangal, Joël Dicker, Suzanne Vermeer, and Saskia Noort, to name a few.
Eligible Spotify Premium subscribers in those countries will be able to access more than 200,000 audiobook titles as part of their subscriptions. Any title not included in our Audiobooks in Premium offering can be purchased à la carte. Listeners in these regions without a Premium subscription can also purchase any title on Spotify.
In partnership with publishers from across these markets, Spotify, the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service, has the potential to grow the size of the audiobook industry overall. We are enabling more listeners than ever to discover and engage with a rich catalog of titles, including in their own language, and paving the way for future innovation of the audiobook format.
“Spotify’s reach presents a significant opportunity to expand the audiobooks market across France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg,” said Antoine Monin, Managing Director, Spotify Western Europe. “Since our launch in Western Europe 16 years ago, Spotify has evolved into a leading platform for music, podcasts, and now audiobooks. We are proud to spotlight this region’s rich literary tradition, with 15,000 French and 15,000 Dutch and Flemish titles joining our catalog, advancing our mission to empower audio creators globally and connect them with audiences both locally and internationally.”
One year of Audiobooks in Premium
While it’s still early days, the reaction to Audiobooks in Premium from authors, publishers, and listeners in available markets has been remarkable. On Spotify, we’ve seen user engagement increase among listeners who started an audiobook for the first time. In the U.S., these users spend an average of five additional hours on Spotify over their first two months after starting a book.
This launch opens up new opportunities for local authors and rights holders and helps create an additional revenue stream for the industry. With 28% of Spotify’s users located in Europe, we’ll continue investing in and growing the available audience and revenue pies for publishers and authors.
Spotify announced this latest expansion today in Paris with a panel featuring voices from across the industry: Laure Saget, CEO of Hachette’s Audiolib and Audiobook Commission President at the French Publishers Association, Liza Faja, Head of Lizzie, the audiobook imprint of Editis, Éric Marbeau, Head of Digital Distribution at Madrigall, parent company of Éditions Gallimard and Editions Flammarion, and Timothée Borne, CEO of the immersive audio content production company Blynd Media.
Kevin Kwan is one of the most distinguished authors of our time, and has captivated fans with his international bestsellers, Crazy Rich Asians,China Rich Girlfriend, andRich People Problems. The trilogy commanded the top three positions of the New York Times bestseller list for several weeks in 2018. The film adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians became one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing rom-coms, leading to Kevin being named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
For the Record sat down with Kevin to learn more about his creative process and the musical inspiration for his newest novel,Lies & Weddings.
What’s your earliest memory of stories being read aloud to you?
It would have been in kindergarten in Singapore, and I remember that the teacher would read to us from books while we sat on the floor around her. My grandfather also read to me from “The Monkey God” series of books that he had in his library. I remember sitting on his lap and marveling at all the amazing illustrations in the book as he read.
What’s your writing process like? Where do you get inspiration?
The inspiration for my new novel Lies & Weddings first came to me on the Big Island of Hawaii. I stayed in a little bungalow on the beach and suddenly words filled my head and I began writing a chapter a day. I write chronologically, without any outlines, and I let the story take me where it wants. As the plot revolved around destination weddings, I continued to move—to Los Angeles, London, Morocco, and Venice for more inspiration. The places really begin to become characters in my books.
Does a narrator reading your words aloud change the experience for the listener?
Absolutely! Audiobooks need to be performed, there’s an art to it. The Lies & Weddings audiobook is read by Jing Lusi, a wonderful actress who was in the Crazy Rich Asians movie. Jing did an incredible job—she made the story riveting and brought all the characters to life in the most gripping and hilarious way.
Can you tell us about the playlist you made for your new novel, Lies & Weddings?
I designed this playlist to set the mood for different scenes and echo the emotional journey I take my readers on throughout the book. “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac is the pivotal song that helped me get to the heart of the emotions that my heroine Eden experienced when she was feeling most lost. “I Can See For Miles” by Kathleen Smith is a gorgeous love ballad that I picture during the wedding scene that takes place in a hot air balloon ride over the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Then there’s Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” It’s the song I imagined Rufus and Eden would listen to as they drove down a beautiful desolate highway on a moonlit night.
What are you listening to or reading right now?
I’m listening to lots of classic Björk, the jazz piano stylings of Joey Alexander, and I recently discovered the music of the Ethiopian Jazz legend Mulatu Astatke. And I’m reading Lea Carpenter’s latest novel, “Ilium.”
Stream Kevin’s Lies & Weddings playlist and experience the musical journey for yourself
On Spotify, users discover and enjoy music, podcasts, and audiobooks. So that we can continue to invest in and innovate on our product features and bring users the best experience, we occasionally update our prices. Over the next month, subscribers in the U.S. will receive an email (pictured below) explaining what this update means for their subscription. For new subscribers in the U.S., the new prices are:
Individual
Duo
Family
Student
$11.99
$16.99
$19.99
$5.99
We offer several subscription plans around the world, including Premium Individual, Premium Student, Premium Duo, Premium Family, Premium Mini, Day and Week passes, Audiobooks Access, Basic, and the Free tier. To sign up for Premium, visit spotify.com/premium.
Spotify is making it easier for booklovers to count down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until a new audiobook releases. With Countdown Pages for audiobooks, listeners can pre-save audiobooks prior to a book’s release date—and authors, publishers, and narrators can promote their upcoming titles ahead of launch. This new feature will help ensure that users never miss their next great audiobook listens and help authors and publishers drive streams.
We’ve seen the success and momentum Countdown Pages can have for musical artists and fans, with artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Justin Timberlake, Kacey Musgraves, Billie Eilish, and others trying it out for album launches with great results: On average, nearly 70% of users who pre-save an album listen to it in the first week. We’re now excited to introduce this feature to another content vertical on Spotify as part of our ongoing effort to improve the overall experience for our users.
How to use Countdown Pages for audiobooks
Beginning today, you can try out Countdown Pages for audiobooks by following these simple steps:
Search for the title of an upcoming audiobook on Spotify, or browse our editorial “Coming Soon” shelf in the audiobooks section.
Click the “pre-save” button on the audiobook’s Spotify page and see the timer count down to its release.
We’ll then add the audiobook to your Spotify library and notify you as soon as it’s released.
You can also view the “More like this” tab to browse similar books that you can start listening to right away.
Countdown Pages for audiobooks is available to both free and Premium users in all markets where Spotify audiobooks are available.
Finding the perfect song, pod, or audiobook can be transformative, which is why we here at Spotify continuously innovate our products and features to provide the best experience possible. For our more than 200 million Premium subscribers, that includes plenty of perks beyond access to ad-free music listening. If you’re a Spotify Premium user, here are five hacks you need to know to make the most out of your subscription.
How to download your favorites for offline listening
Navigate to the playlist, song, album, podcast, or audiobook you want to download and tap the ( ↓ ) icon at the top of the page.
How to multitask like a pro with the Desktop Miniplayer
This top-requested feature from users is now live and available for Premium subscribers using Spotify on Desktop. Premium listeners can open up a miniature window for Spotify, giving them playback control while using other apps and windows.
So whether you’re listening to your daylist while answering emails or watching your favorite music video (available in select markets) while online shopping, the new Desktop Miniplayer is the ultimate companion. It’s fully flexible, meaning it can be stretched as big or as small as you’d like, and is easy to move around your screen.
How to find your next beach read with audiobooks in Premium
Booklovers, rejoice! In the U.S., U.K, and Australia—and coming soon in Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand—Premium subscribers can stream up to 15 hours each month of over 250,000 audiobooks on Spotify, all included in their existing plan. This includes a sweeping range of both contemporary and classic novels, from RuPaul’s The House of Hidden Meanings to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
Any book marked “Included in Premium” is available to each Premium Individual subscriber, as well as plan managers for Family and Duo accounts. Just hit play and dive right in.
How to soundtrack your day using our AI DJ
Ever wish you could just sit back and let someone else pick your favorite music for you? Well, if you have Premium, you’re in luck. Did you know that Spotify has a personalized AI DJ named X? Simply tap the “Music” tab in the Spotify app or search “DJ” to launch your personal DJ experience complete with tailored song selections, cultural commentary, and more.
How to start a group-listening session with Spotify Jam
There’s nothing quite like connecting over a shared love of music. That’s the beauty of Jam, a personalized, real-time listening session for your group to tune in to together. While anyone can join a Jam in person, only Premium users can “host” a Jam session with full control over the queue. Premium users are also the only ones who can join or create a long-distance Jam wherever they are.
Select a playlist or song to get started. You’ll see the “Start a Jam” button by clicking the speaker icon at the bottom of your screen or by hitting the three-dot menu within the playlist or song. You can also select a device to play on, whether that’s your phone or a speaker.
You can then invite your squad by turning on Bluetooth and tapping your phones together, or by having your friends scan the QR code on your host screen. You can also hit “share” to send the link through social, text, SMS, and more.
Oh, and Jam also works on desktop. Simply tap the three-dot menu or right click on a playlist or song, click “Start a Jam,” and then invite your friends through a share link or QR code.
Ready for the perks of going Premium? Peruse our plans at spotify.com/premium.
*Update as of April 17, 2024: Now through May 21, Spotify Premium is offering three months free to eligible Free and first time-users for the Individual Premium plan. For those who are missing their Individual Premium plan and canceled for one reason or another, Spotify Premium is also offering three months for just $10.99 (or market equivalent). Explore offers at spotify.com/premium.
*Update as of August 14, 2024: Now through September 17, Spotify Premium is offering three months free to eligible Free and first time-users for the Individual Premium plan. For those who are missing their Individual Premium plan and canceled for one reason or another, Spotify Premium is also offering three months for just $11.99 (or market equivalent). Explore offers at spotify.com/premium.
*Update as of November 25, 2024: Now through December 31, Spotify Premium is offering three months free to eligible Free and first time-users for the Individual Premium plan. For those who are missing their Individual Premium plan and canceled for one reason or another, Spotify Premium is also offering three months for just $11.99 (or market equivalent).
Today we’re launching a test for video-based courses on Spotify in the U.K. We’ve partnered with educational tech companies including BBC Maestro, PLAYvirtuoso, Skillshare, and Thinkific to bring video content directly to Spotify users.
U.K. users will now find video courses for purchase alongside their favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks. The content for courses on Spotify covers a variety of topics categorized into four main themes: make music, get creative, learn business, and healthy living, giving listeners an abundance of options to expand their knowledge.
“Testing video courses in the U.K. allows us to explore an exciting opportunity to better serve the needs of our users who have an active interest in learning,” said Babar Zafar, VP Product Development at Spotify. “Many of our users engage with podcasts and audiobooks on a daily basis for their learning needs, and we believe this highly engaged community will be interested in accessing and purchasing quality content from video course creators. At Spotify, we’re constantly striving to create new offerings for our creators and users, and having built best-in-class personalized music and podcast offerings, we look forward to exploring the potential of video-based learning on Spotify.”
With this offer, we are exploring a potential opportunity to provide educational creators with a new audience who can access their video content, reaching a bigger potential swath of engaged Spotify users while expanding our catalog. About half of Spotify Premium subscribers have engaged in education or self-help-themed podcasts.
For this test, U.K. Free users and Premium subscribers will be able to trial at least two lessons per course for free before making the decision to purchase additional lessons, which they can do on a dedicated web page.
Try it out for yourself:
On the mobile app, U.K. users will find course videos in the home and browse tabs.
Once clicked through, users can explore available courses across the four categories before purchasing them on desktop. Once purchased, the courses will be available on mobile and desktop.
Users can select courses they’re interested in, and upon purchase, start learning, watching on mobile app or desktop.
Learn more about our content partners:
BBC Maestro creates content to educate and inspire people to explore their creativity. Through prerecorded lessons and detailed course notes, anyone can learn a wide range of disciplines and follow in the footsteps of experts respected all over the world. www.bbcmaestro.com
PLAYvirtuoso is transforming modern music learning through artist-led courses, mentoring, and structured curriculums. PLAYvirtuoso develops artists to become inspirational educators and empower young creatives with real skills and outcomes. www.playvirtuoso.com
Skillshare is an online learning community where millions of creatives go to develop and deepen their skills. Watch thousands of creative classes in topics including design, freelance, 3D animation, entrepreneurship, photography, productivity, and more. Join today athttps://join.skillshare.com/learn
Thinkific Labs Inc. is a leading platform for creating, marketing, and selling courses, digital products, communities, and learning experiences. www.thinkific.com
Update as of June 25, 2024:
Spotify has partnered with Superintelligent, an education platform that teaches anyone to use AI for work and fun, to bring new content to its courses platform for U.K. users. The partnership will bring 10 different courses and companion how-to’s that provide step-by-step instructions for using the most important AI Tools.
In the early neon-infused ’80s, music videos burst onto TV screens, turning some of the most beloved songs into visual experiences that redefined the way fans connected with artists around the world. Since then, not only have music videos become one of the many ways that fans discover and fall in love with artists, but iconic videos have become part of pop culture, igniting conversations and influencing style.
They’re a powerful way for fans to discover and connect with music, and a natural fit to live on Spotify. That’s why we’re excited to launch music videos in beta for Spotify Premium users across 11 markets, adding another way to enhance the artist-to-fan connection.
Spotify is where fans go to dive deeper into an artist’s music. So whether you’re a superfan who wants to rewatch the videos you love and share them with friends, or a casual fan on the lookout for new releases, music videos create a new point of connection with artists.
“So many times in my own experience and for countless others, music videos play a key role in hooking you: taking you from being a listener to leaning in and becoming a fan,” says Charlie Hellman, Vice President and Head of Music Product at Spotify. “They’re an important part of so many artists’ tool kits, and it’s a natural fit for them to live in the same place that more than half a billion people choose to listen to music.”
Through Spotify features like Canvas, Clips, Artist Bios, Live Events, and Merch, artists are able to connect with new fans and loyal listeners in meaningful ways. Canvas visuals in particular have been shown to drive engagement, with users sharing, saving, or adding songs to playlists at a higher rate.
The beta version of music videos on Spotify begins rolling out today with a limited catalog of music videos, including hits from global artists like Ed Sheeran, Doja Cat, and Ice Spice, or local favorites like Aluna and Asake.
How to watch music videos on Spotify:
We’ll begin to roll out music videos from a select catalog for Premium users in the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, and Kenya.
Premium listeners in those markets can head to their iOS, Android, desktop, or TV device and select the “Switch to Video” toggle for supported music tracks. Then, the music video will start playing from the beginning within the Now Playing view.
Want to return to background listening? Simply press “Switch to Audio.”.
You can even watch the music video in full screen by turning your mobile device to watch in landscape mode.
In this beta launch, we’ll continue to innovate and iterate based on feedback from both users and artists. Stay tuned as we hope to expand the catalog of music videos and bring the feature to more users and countries.
*Update as of May 28, 2024: Music videos in beta is now available in Egypt.
Spotify Premium subscribers in France will soon experience a price increase due to additional costs on music streaming services imposed by the government, as part of the “CNM Tax.” While Spotify worked very hard to encourage the government to avoid adding this tax, unfortunately they decided to move forward.
Perhaps you’ve never heard of the Center for National Music. It’s a public body that commissions studies on the French music industry and provides financial aid to record labels and the live industry. At the end of 2023, as part of its 2024 budget, the French government decided that digital music streaming services will now have to pay a new tax in order to finance it. Our worry, on top of what would be equivalent to a double payment on our part, has been that this tax will not go directly to artists, nor will it have a tangible output visible to fans; instead, it will simply come at the expense of listeners and create an additional middleman: the CNM. In fact, this tax will generate approximately 15 million euros, when the CNM’s administrative budget (office fees, personnel, capital expenditure, media monitoring or professional training etc.) sits at 20.2 million euros. Our concern is that possibly less than half of its overall 146.9 million euros budget will find its way toward effectively aiding music.
Spotify has proudly championed French artists for the past 15 years. We certainly didn’t wait for the CNM to be created in 2020 to help artists find success in France and outside of France; to help promote French repertoire and grow the royalty pool for French rights holders. Spotify’s payments have totaled close to 225 million euros in 2022 alone (or about 1/4th of all the French recorded music industry revenues for that year). That is up more than 200% percent since 2017.
Yet, with the creation of this new tax, Spotify would be required to give approximately two-thirds of every euro it generates to music to rights holders and the French government. Of course, this is a massive amount and does not allow for a sustainable business. As we have long said, we simply can’t absorb any additional taxes. Even after making the difficult decision to reduce our artist marketing budget and support of French music festivals—which is an essential vehicle for Spotify to continue to drive hundreds of millions of euros to the music industry—it still continues to impede our ability to operate in France. Accordingly, over the coming weeks and months, we’ll need to make changes to our price plan in France.
To put it bluntly, all French users will see their subscription plan fee go up. French users will now pay the highest subscriptions across the European Union.
Spotify is increasing prices in France in order to offset these new costs. We’ll come back to our French subscribers over the coming weeks with the full details on the upcoming price increase.
For more information on the global streaming economy, the players, and the process, please visit Loud & Clear.
Spotify is continuously innovating to provide the best possible offering for every kind of audio fan. Since launching Audiobooks in Premium, we’ve seen a 45% increase in free users searching for and interacting with Audiobook content each day. Now we are introducing a new plan option to give our listeners a variety of choices.
Starting today, the Audiobooks Access Tier provides booklovers in the U.S. with 15 hours of listening from our audiobooks catalog of over 200,000 titles for $9.99 a month. With this plan and in one app experience, listeners can continue to tune into music and podcasts on our free, ad-supported service, offering a great option for literary enthusiasts who are looking for more audiobook-specific content.
Spotify offers several subscription plans tailored to fit a variety of users’ preferences and will continue to invest in giving our listeners more options to cater to their unique needs.
For more information on our available plans, visit our audiobooks page. To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Spotify, follow @SpotifyNews.
And if you’ve yet to experience the ease of Spotify Premium, now’s your chance. Our special holiday offer is back, making it the perfect gift to give yourself this celebration season.
Here are five reasons why Premium should be on your wishlist:
It’s ad-free music listening, making your holiday singalongs as seamless as your four-course family dinner … well maybe a bit more seamless than that.
You can always download and listen offline so that when you head over the river and through the woods, you don’t have to worry about the tunes cutting out if your device loses signal.
You get instant access to 80 million tracks. Our library is more expansive than the North Pole and with Premium, it’s all available on demand. You can pick the songs you want to hear or leave it to our curated playlists, like Holiday Magic, to get your household into the festive spirit.
You have a month to take advantage of three months free. From November 28 through December 31, 2022, eligible Spotify Free and first-time Spotify listeners can sign up for our Individual Premium plan for three months of free service. Long after the mistletoe or menorah is taken down, you’ll enjoy the perks of Premium at no additional cost.
If you used Spotify Premium previously but canceled before October 28, there’s a miracle in store for you. Come back and remember the joy that Premium brings with a special offer of three months for just $9.99 (or your local market equivalent).
Ready to knock an item off your wishlist a little early this season? Sign up and listen to ad-free, on-demand, unlimited-skip music at spotify.com/premium.
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