The coronavirus pandemic appeared to have put the long-running soap opera of Spotify’s licensing renewals with major labels on hiatus. Now it’s returning: with concrete progress.
“Warner Music Group and Spotify are pleased to announce a renewed global licensing partnership. This expanded deal covers countries where Spotify is available today, as well as additional markets,” announced the companies yesterday.
Early focus was put on the ‘available today’ element, particularly India, where Spotify had already settled its dispute with WMG subsidiary Warner Chappell in January.
We’re more interested in the ‘additional markets’ part, with South Korea and Russia both in the frame for Spotify launches, and perhaps an even more ambitious territory like Africa on the horizon too.
In other Spotify news, the company has followed Deezer and Apple Music in launching a hub on its service – ‘At Home’ – gathering playlists designed for the homeworking / homeschooling / social isolation that many of us are now finding ourselves in. It gathers together all manner of mood playlists, as well as a dedicated Kids & Family section (including our new favourite playlist, ‘Dinosaurs’, which contains only songs about or named after dinosaurs).
And in yet more news, we already know Spotify Singles, but now there’s a similar (but differently branded) version for the Nordic region. Studio It’s Hits – the name matches Spotify’s popular ‘It’s Hits Sweden’ playlist – will see artists recording covers, new songs or reworks of their own hits in Spotify’s studios. Tove Lo kicked it off with a cover of Veronica Maggio’s ‘I’m Coming’.
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