Hello! Thanks for swinging by for the latest edition of the Spotify Newsletter!

I appreciate you taking a few minutes on this Friday to have a look at the best Spotify news for the week that we are closing the book on.

I spent a bit of time this week with my Spotify AI DJ. The DJ is a personalized AI guide that knows you and your music taste so well that it can choose what to play for you.

Did my AI DJ play non-stop Steely Dan and Stye Council? No. But the experience overall was quite good - from the selection of tunes to the dynamic AI voice, built via their Sonantic acquisition that brings to life realistic voices from text.

Xavier “X” Jernigan (Head of Cultural Partnerships) serves as the AI model for the debut iteration of the feature. I must say, as far as AI DJs go, ‘X’ does quite alright; calm and cool and sounds good.

I can’t say I’m jumping for the AI DJ button every time I log-on, but it’s a cool feature and keeps me engaged for what comes next.

Speaking of AI, Ars Technica tells us that Universal Music Group has told streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple, ‘to block artificial intelligence services from scraping melodies and lyrics from their copyrighted songs, according to emails viewed by the Financial Times.’

The AI Wars have reached into music streaming, which should be a hoot to follow as humanity slowly, then quickly gets sucked into a dark world of angry music robots calling the shots. Just don’t mess with my Steely Dan mega playlists, AI overlords!

In sunnier news, Spotify has a new iPhone Lock Screen widget so that you can launch your tunes quicker. Yay! Take that, AI demons!

Anyway!! Everyone have a fantastic weekend!! 😀😀😀

★In the SPOTlight★

⭐️ Spotify introduces an iPhone Lock Screen widget for easy access to its app

Spotify is embracing the iOS Lock Screen. The company announced today it’s introducing a new iPhone Lock Screen widget to all users running iOS 16 or later that allows you to tap on Spotify’s icon to launch the app directly before unlocking your phone.

⭐️ India is going to be a huge paid market

Spotify India has run a series of experiments in the India market to capture the audience- like offering different price points to users. When Spotify India entered the market 70% of the consumption was international music but now it’s 70% local music.

⭐️ Spotify may start using Sliding Doors-style 'what if?' AI to suggest your new music

A team of researchers at Spotify just built a new kind of machine-learning model which, for the first time, captures the complex math behind counterfactual analysis. And apparently, it can be used to identify the causes of past events – and predict the effects of future ones.

⭐️ Strava launches integration with Spotify to let users listen to content while tracking activities

Users can play, pause, resume, skip and browse Spotify content from the record screen on Strava. With this new integration, users will no longer have to switch between the two apps when adjusting the content that they’re listening to.

🗣 Podcast Action 🗣

• Spotify Courts Broadcasters to Convert Radio Shows Into Podcasts

🎧 The Playlist List 🎧

• Ben Affleck Reveals the ’80s Classics That Inspired His New Movie, ‘AIR’

• Juice WRLD Hits 30 Billion Streams On Spotify Alone

💡 Tips & Tricks 💡

• How to use Spotify's built-in equalizer for better sounding music

• 5 powerful Spotify For Artists features you may not know about

• Change These Spotify Settings to Amp Up Your Music - CNET

• 5 ways to get better Spotify sound

🖌 Design Notes 🖌

• Spotify's AI DJ Talked to Me for Two Hours Last Night

• Spotify introduces new tech for turning radio broadcasts into podcasts

• Gaining confidence in synthetic control causal inference with sensitivity analysis

💰 Spotify Stock 💰

• How to Handicap Spotify's Next Move

🔥 Extra News 🔥

• Sweden's tech workers launch push for union deal with Spotify

• Record Label UMG Begs Spotify and Apple Music to Stop AI Scraping

• An ode to playlists, the perfect kind of sonic diary

🎵 New Adventures 🎵

The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Love Guarantee Young Gun Silver Fox

Cat and Mouse With the Light The New Pornographers

Shake and Pop Nick Lowe

Bring It On Home To Me The Animals

Broken Hands Fraser A. Gorman

The Best Man's Fall Trashcan Sinatras

📧 Get in touch 📧

If you have a question, idea, request, or simply a desire to chat about Spotify, please email me at jeff.spotifynewsletter@gmail.com.

😀 Have a Nice Weekend! 😀