Image via Complex Original
The battle for online music supremacy is in full swing. Between Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, Rdio, Slacker, Rhapsody, and a few others, competition is fierce, and it's only getting more intense. Like any other business, anyone in the market has a fair shot at success, but since Spotify's American debut two summers ago, its shown a serious capacity to dominate the online music industry.
Personally, we're big fans of Spotify at Complex. The streaming service has anchored features like our 50 Best Songs of 2012 and Kendrick Lamar's 25 Favorite Albums lists, but there's still room for growth. Last year, Spotify became the second biggest source of revenue for record labels, so it's definitely not going anywhere, but we think the service can have an even bigger 2013—especially if certain features are added or improved upon.
After logging hours of obsessive library management and endless play counts, it's safe to say that we're very familiar with Spotify. Here's what we'd like to see happen with the streaming service, sooner than later: 11 Things Spotify Needs to Win the Online Music War.
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Stop letting other services get big exclusives.
Two of last year's biggest releases, Rihanna's Unapologetic and Taylor Swift's Red, aren't on Spotify. Still. Over a month after each LP came out. But they are on iTunes. This simply cannot happen.
We know this has more to do with record labels and the increased profit margins they see from digital downloads versus streams, but it's a lose/lose situation for both parties. Given Spotify's massive popularity, labels leave a lot of money and exposure on the table when they withhold major albums from the service, and of course, Spotify loses users in search of those albums.
Whatever talks need to happen, whatever compromises need to be met, Spotify needs to get it done. Their exclusive pre-release stream of Crystal Castles' last album, (III), was an excellent of how album rollouts should be handled. We'd love to see more of that.
Give explicit versions equal billing.
There's nothing more frustrating than when you play a song like A$AP Rocky's "Fuckin' Probems" because you just want to hear 2 Chainz scream, "Yeah, I like to fuck, I got a fuckin' problem" but instead you hear, "Yeah I like to ____, I got a _____ problem."
Fact is, clean versions suck. They're like decaf coffee or non-alcoholic beer. But, we must admit they serve a purpose. When you're in the whip with your mom and you're not trying to offend her with a rapper's potty mouth or you want to introduce your nephew to an awesome song but don't want to be a bad role model, a clean version can be the right solution. However, that's only the case like 3.8% of the time. That's why Spotify needs to chill with giving clean versions top billing.
Meek Mill's "Amen" is still only available in an edited format. The same goes for Eminem's vulgar Slim Shady LP. And sometimes, explicit versions are available, but they're a hassle to find, like "Fuckin' Problems," for example. Us rap fans like our profanity—don't take that away from us.
Add a repeat option.
Spotify does have a general repeat mode, but the only way to repeat one song is to put it in a playlist all by itself and turn on the repeat mode. Nobody wants to make a one-song playlist. Sometimes we're in the middle of an album or our Starred selections, we get fixated one song, and we want to play it over and over with minimal effort.
It seems like a simple enough request for Spotify to make this a reality, although we suspect there's some legal issue at hand that's prevented this from happening. Regardless, the users want it, and that's enough of a reason to get it figured out.
Expand the library.
We need Dr. Dre's The Chronic. We need Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. We need the Beatles and De La Soul's entire discographies. We know that it involves a lot of complicated legal work, but seeing as to how Adele's 21 and Dr. Dre's 2001—projects that were both previously missing—were eventually added gives us confidence that something can be worked out with other gaps in the library.
Make the business model clearer.
Too many people still ask, "What is Spotify?" Then, to boot, they're usually thrilled when told about how the service works. Perhaps Spotify needs a massive ad campaign that helps get its purpose across to the general population because there are so many music lovers in need of the functionality Spotify offers, who have no idea that what they're looking for already exists.
Introduce a web app.
One way Spotify can edge out its competitors is because, in 2013, we're all about having access to everything we own, everywhere we go. That's why we use Google Docs and haven't touched Microsoft Word in ages. We're up in the sky, chilling in the cloud, baby.
If you head over to a friend's house and want to play that dope mix you recently made, you can log into your Spotify account and it'll be there—if they already have the app on their computer. If not, you're out of luck. For now.
Spotify actually has a web app, that's currently in beta, on the way. When you can log into the service from any browser, like Facebook, expect the service to get even more popular.
Update new releases quicker.
A new album just came out and you want to listen to it and talk about it on social media with your friends. You go to Spotify and it's nowhere to be found. At least, not until nearly noon on the day of release. Not cool.
On the Internet, everything is about being first, so Spotify needs to have all of the week's new albums ready to go at midnight every Tuesday. They did a great job of that with Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city, so we know they can do it. They just need to do it every time.
Make social integration smoother.
Spotify has a high profile relationship with Facebook, and it'd be great if they took more notes from them when it comes to social media. The social functions contained within Spotify should be more developed. Sometimes we don't want Facebook friends to know what we're listening to, and we don't feel like sharing out playlists with our Twitter timeline, but until Spotify's native social components are updated, that's all we have.
If the social functionality of Spotify was focused on the app itself, then the average user would be much more apt to embracing it, knowing that their listening habits are only being shared with and judged by a like minded Spotify-using community. Plus, it's simply more practical. If the Spotify discussion is mostly happening on Spotify, it's a win for users and the service.
Improve shuffle quality.
If you look on Spotify's community boards, you'll see that the lack of shuffle diversity is a common issue amongst users. We don't know why, but even when shuffling a massive playlist, it's likely that you'll hear the same artist, and possibly even the same song, too many times. It's not a terrible nuisance, but if the service's engineers can update that shuffle algorithm to accomodate a bit more variety, that'd be greatly appreciated.
Get rid of amateur cover versions.
Before we joined Spotify, we had no idea there were so many cover bands out there. And before Spotify, we never realized how annoying they could be.
Our natural assumption was that they were originally added as a way to supplement the library because it doesn't have legendary bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin due to licensing issues. But if you're really itching to listen to Dark Side of the Moon who in their right mind would settle for Pink Project JB Production's A Tribute to Pink Floyd? Worse yet, who listens to the Mac Miller Karaoke Band? Especially when Spotify already has Mac Miller's actual album.
All the cover bands are pointless. They don't supplement Spotify's library, they clutter it. Get rid of them.
Improve the range and accuracy of song info.
Maybe we're a bit biased because we're sticklers for information since it's what we deal in, but we hate seeing incorrect info on Spotify, especially the wrong year of release. The service needs an army of fact checkers who make sure things are in order. Or, at the very least, let users fix data on their own. It works wonders for Wikipedia.
It wouldn't hurt to add information like "genre" and "producer," either. Those are both qualifiers by which we'd love to search and organize our libraries and playlists.