Spotify is taking its synchronised lyrics feature global, having launched it in 26 countries last year. As of yesterday, the feature is live globally in Spotify’s mobile, desktop, console and TV apps. The company’s partner is lyrics firm Musixmatch, which has a long (if not always harmonious) history with the streaming service.
Musixmatch was one of the launch partners when Spotify added external apps to its desktop client back in late 2011, and its app was one of the most popular on the platform. When the ‘App Finder’ feature was retired early in 2015, Spotify integrated Musixmatch’s lyrics into its service, but they were removed in May 2016 after the two companies fell out.
“We regret the end of this partnership… we will not allow anybody to ignore our business model,” was Musixmatch’s comment at the time. By June 2020, when Spotify launched its synchronised lyrics feature with Musixmatch – perhaps nudged by Apple Music having trumpeted time-synced lyrics as a USP for its service – the business models had seemingly aligned again.
In separate news, Spotify has published some data around artists selling merchandise through its service: practical insights for artists, rather than the kind of topline data (sales volume, revenues etc) that nosy people like Music Ally would love to know.
Among the insights: artists’ merch shelves on Spotify get 18.4% more clicks at the weekend, with the biggest monthly spikes being in April and May; more than half of all merch clicks come in the first 24 days after a new release; and the first day a fan discovers an artist generates more merch clicks on average than the next 40 days combined.
The timing of the article is no coincidence: Spotify is on a new merch push having signed a deal with ecommerce firm Shopify in October.
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