By: Nick Gambino
For years, I’ve been trying to use my Spotify app to showcase my world-renowned karaoke skills (read: awful), but the app just isn’t made for it. Thankfully, a sing-along feature that has been sorely missing since we all converted to the cult of Spotify is finally coming to the music streaming app. Well, it’s currently only in the testing phase but one can hope for a wider rollout.
Spotify is testing real-time lyrics that will follow along in sync with whatever song you’re listening to, allowing users to stop butchering lyrics. If the feature gets a widespread rollout, gone will be the days when you mistakenly sing “I got my first real sex dream” when listening to Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69.
Multiple users have reported the feature popping up on their phones. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason on who is privy to the beta, but it looks like they’re all Android users.
You might have noticed that Spotify already has a lyrics feature of sorts for some of their more popular songs. The lyrics currently appear below the song window courtesy of Genius but are continually interrupted by bits of trivia about the song. It’s a cool feature for sure, but it can get quite irritating when all you’re trying to do is sing along.
Spotify hasn’t offered much in the way of confirmation of the feature or whether or not it’ll become a permanent part of their app.
“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience,” the uninformative statement from the company read. “Some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don’t have any further news to share at this time.”
First spotted by Android Police, the real-time lyrics are provided by Musicxmatch which has been used as a third-party app that displays lyrics as an overlay on top of music streaming services like Apple Music, Amazon Music and even Spotify. This is the same company behind Instagram’s Lyrics Stickers that users can add to their Music Stories.
While the feature will still be limited to only a select number of songs on the platform, I’m hoping to see it sooner rather than later.
