Spotify

Spotify Clarifies Exactly How it Will Use Your Information After Privacy Kerfuffle

Everybody (including this blog) freaked out a little bit yesterday when Spotify released a new privacy policy that asked permission to do everything from track your location to look at your photos. But Spotify is sorry. The company’s CEO just clarified that Spotify doesn’t want to spy on you. In a blog post boldly titled…

Wow, Spotify’s New Privacy Policy is Atrocious [Updated]

Update (10:46 am) 8/21/15: Spotify has clarified exactly how it’ll use its new privacy policy, and it’s not as bad as we initially thought. You need to give Spotify explicit permission to access your personal data. Read more about it here. https://gizmodo.com/spotify-clarifies-exactly-how-it-will-use-your-informat-1725609395 There’s a new privacy policy going into effect with the latest Spotify update,…

The White House Interns Have Pretty Good Taste in Music

Mr. President, you have great taste in music. I know this because you have posted a few playlists on a newly-created White House Spotify account. You see? Barry Obama is just a regular guy who isn’t afraid to put Coldplay on a public playlist. If you wanna connect with constituents, you gotta use the socials.…

David Byrne Implores Record Labels To Stop Being Shitty About Streaming 

David Byrne, well-known recording artist and performer, has written a stirring op-ed about streaming music and the plight of musicians in today’s recording industry. He’s right about the problems, but his solution seems a little…far-fetched. So here’s the problem according to David Byrne. These days famous musicians, like David Byrne and Pharrell Williams, can get…

The Nike+ app for iOS now lets Spotify Premium play the streaming service’s music through the sports brand’s app, helping streamline the number of apps you have to use while you work out.

Spotify’s New “Discover Weekly” Playlist Knows You So Well It’s Creepy

Spotify’s got a new feature called “Discover Weekly,” an automatically generated playlist of music that’s tailored specifically for you. For something made by a computer this playlist is pretty damn good! The new playlists updates every Monday, and it’s generated using the music you’ve been listening to as a foundation. It also takes into account…

These Are the Songs That Define Your City, According to Spotify

Like every popular online service out there—from OkCupid to PornHub—Spotify keeps tabs on its users, and especially their listening trends. The popular streaming site’s already demonstrated its anthropological power to learn about people through music, and now it’s expanding that power to a global scale. Spotify calls this innocuous use of anonymized data gathering as…

Prince is starting to remove his back catalog from music streaming services, with tracks disappearing from Spotifyand Rdio so far. They’re still available on Google Play, Deezer and Tidal—though it’s not clear how long that will last.

How to Get Free Music for the Rest of the Summer

Apple Music is finally here! You know what that means? That means it’s time to cancel your other premium streaming services and coast through the rest of the summer on Apple’s dime. Here’s how. The process is simple, if you’re an iPhone user. (The same process will work for Android in a few months, when…

One Pissed-Off Artist Made an App to Scam Spotify’s Royalty Payments

For as much love as Spotify gets from customers, it draws equal hatred from musicians, who are consistently unhappy with the tiny amount of revenue generated by streaming music. But as the Silicon Valley proverb goes: if you don’t like it, just code an automated app to optimize the problem away (and get paid in…

Google’s Gunning for Apple Music With Free Streaming Option

Ahead of the long-awaited and controversial launch of Apple Music next week, Google is making a last-ditch effort to pull users onto its own platform with a free option. Google’s new free option will be ad-supported. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as good as Spotify’s free option because you’ll only have access to the curated playlists,…

Jay Z’s Troubled Music Service Tidal Loses Another CEO

The latest boss of Jay Z’s floundering music streaming service Tidal has already washed out. Tidal’s interim CEO Peter Tonstad stepped in after the company ditched former CEO Andy Chen in April, but he just left the company. Executives in Oslo and New York will run Tidal until a replacement is found. “The only thing…

1989 Won’t Be On Apple Music, And That’s Bad News For Apple

Joke about TaySway and her army of loyal Tumblr tweens all you want (go on, I dare you), but Swift is an undeniable powerhouse in pop music. Eight months after the launch of 1989, it’s still the fourth-best selling album in the country. And that makes it doubly bad for Apple that she’s just stuck…

Spotify’s “Rewind” Feature Discovers the Heritage of Your Favorite Music

Music, like any other artistic endeavor, is endless progression. Artists influence artists who then write new tunes tempered by their culture. It’s in this steady march of evolution that we can lose sight of the bands that got us to this musical modern day—that’s where Spotify’s “Taste Rewind” comes in. Right now, I am listening…

How Is Apple Music Actually Different From Spotify (Or Anything Else)?

Yes, yes, alright! Here we are! We have Apple Musicnow, yet another subscription streaming music service. This time, it’s from Apple, though. Is it worth switching to? Well, maybe. We’re just getting our hands on it now. But among our staff here at Gizmodo there’s basically only one question that matters: How does it compare…

Everything Apple Tried to Kill Today at WWDC 2015

Today at WWDC, Apple announced a slew of new features and products. Energy was high, Drake was in the building, but a lot of the big reveals looked a lot like the features and products of rivals…especially Google. Imitation is the sincerest form of trying to kill the competition? Here’s a quick rundown of some…

Apple Music Is Coming to Android for $10 a Month 

Apple is so hellbent on dominating the streaming music game, it’s doing something I never thought I’d see: Bringing its first app ever to Android. Starting this fall, Apple’s new Beats-fueled streaming music service will be available on Android phones. Apple Music is the first native Apple app to bust out of Apple’s walled garden.…

Can Spotify’s Algorithm Improve Your Workout? It Can’t Hurt to Try

Running is big business. There are shoes, clothes, fitness trackers, apps, and countless other products that promise to make us faster—or at least distract us from our pain. For me, music is the only thing that’s ever worked. So when Spotify announced a way to “change the way you run forever,” I leapt at the…

Spotify Wants To Be Your Endless Source for Video and Podcasts, Too

Spotify just revealed a huge service overhaul that adds video, podcasts and improved discovery to its massive streaming music service. During a New York City press conference, CEO Daniel Ek expounded how his company wants to be a comprehensive source for every type of entertainment media possible through its formerly music-only platform. That means podcasts…

Rdio Launches $4 Service For Budget Streaming

Jay-Z’s TIDAL made big, messy waves the other month when it launched a $20-a-month streaming service. The accepted monthly rate for this kind of streaming service has normalized around $10 — which is why Rdio’s is hoping to undercut the competition with a new $4 tier. http://gawker.com/tidal-atry-my-tortuous-trial-with-jay-zs-overpriced-sp-1697023467 For that paltry amount of money, Rdio Select…