Spotify’s partnership with Genius to provide ‘Behind the Lyrics’ information for tracks is pretty cool, eh? Well, not so much if you’re an artist who disagrees with the information that’s being presented. Hayley Williams of Paramore is one example: she took to Twitter this week to complain about the notes for the band’s track ‘Hard Times’.
@spotify hi. for about a yr now my band’s mgmt has tried get yall to take down some… outdated… facts on behind the lyrics for our song “Hard Times”.
the facts are: it’s all embarrassing & there was no “bright side”… hence the title, Hard Times.
thank you & goodnight.— hayley from Paramore (@yelyahwilliams) April 24, 2019
i love spotify i just dont want folx subjected to some lies while listenin to the truest & purist of pmore albums.
— hayley from Paramore (@yelyahwilliams) April 24, 2019
Genius has since told AltPress that “we’ve reached out to Hayley’s team and label and are looking forward to updating the Behind the Lyrics experience for the track accordingly”.
It raises this question: labels, managers and artists alike are keen for streaming services to do more stuff around the music – to provide more context, to help listeners see artists and songs as more than lines on a playlist. But if they do, there needs to be a well-understood mechanism for reporting and rectifying errors if that context is, well, wrong. Beyond tweeting at the companies, we mean, although that does seem to have a speedy effect if you’re a musician with a decent following, so fair play to Hayley Williams for finding a way to get her complaint dealt with.
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