Spotify just release in beta SongDNAa tool that promises to change the way we discover music within the platform. When you play any compatible song, you can access a visual map with the entire creative network behind the song: composers, collaborators, samples, covers, interpolations. All from the playback screen, with one touch.
What's interesting about SongDNA is that it is not static information. You can click on each collaborator to discover other artists he has worked withand from there continue branching out into new songs, covers, and connections—a musical rabbit hole that's hard to get out of.
How does it work and who can use it?
To access SongDNA, open the Now Playing view while listening to a compatible song, scroll down, and search SongDNA card. From there that entire creative network unfolds. According to Spotify, the function is powered by data contributed by the artists themselves, record labels and contributions from the community. Artists can also manage how their work appears through Spotify for Artists.
At the moment, SongDNA is in beta and only available to users Premium on Android and iOSwith wider availability planned for April. Spotify presents it as a complement to its “About the Song” feature, which focuses more on narrative storytelling, while SongDNA aims directly at exploration and discovery.
The feature looks good, although the actual value will depend a lot on how many songs in the catalog are well documented from the beginning. Searching for the DNA of a Taylor Swift hit is not the same as that of an indie artist with fewer resources to manage their profile on the platform. And if you add to this that Spotify also incorporated the translation of lyrics in real timethe application has been accumulating functions that go beyond pure streaming for quite some time.
