How to Become a Spotify Power User?
Spotify Power User: We help you get the most out of the gadgets and software you already own or want to buy in this column.
Spotify is the largest music streaming service globally, with over 100 million users. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been a Premium subscriber for years and have no plans to change.
However, because Spotify is continuously updating, adding new features, and changing its layout, there’s a lot you probably don’t know about the service – after all, being a paid member is about more than simply ad-free listening and offline downloads.
In order to make the most of your Spotify subscription, we’ve compiled a list of the finest tips and techniques from the pros.
Manage your downloads like a master with this tool.
A major benefit of having a Spotify Premium subscription is the ability to download tracks, albums, and podcasts directly to your device so that you can listen to them while not connected to the internet.
This is especially useful for people who have a limited data plan or who know they’ll be traveling to a location where there will be no service.
The trouble is that keeping track of your downloads is anything but intuitive — especially if you download stuff from a variety of genres, such as albums, playlists, and tracks.
Even though Spotify makes it difficult, you can still erase all of your previously downloaded songs.
Open the app, navigate to “Your Libary,” and then click on the large “Music” tab at the top of your screen to begin listening. To manage your playlists or albums, select either Playlists or Albums from the drop-down menu and slide up until a search bar appears—select Downloads from the drop-down menu that appears after clicking on the Filters button.
You can access all of your previously downloaded playlists and albums from this page and then remove them one by one.
Create a playlist with your friends and share it with them.
Collaboration Playlists are a feature on Spotify that allows you and a group of friends to share playlists. Each participant can add or delete music and reorder tracks on the Collaborative Playlist, and this tool is available to all Spotify users. Simply open one of your playlists, click the ellipses next to the playlist, and pick “Make collaborative” from the drop-down menu. Then tap the ellipses a second time and select “share.”
A group listening session would be a good idea to experiment with.
It is referred to as Group Session, and it is one of Spotify’s most recent additions. Group Sessions differ from Collaborative Playlists in that they are more of a brief listening session where everyone can manage the music from their smartphone, rather than contributing to a playlist like they do with Collaborative Playlists. Given that it needs scanning a QR code to sync up and that the music will only play from one source, this can only be done with others in the same location. In order to start your own Group Session, simply play a song on Spotify, click the “Devices Available” logo, and then select “Start a group session.” You can also select “Scan to Join” if you wish to join someone else’s Group Session by scanning their QR code.
jqbx.com is an excellent resource if you’re seeking a means to listen to music with a group of people at the same time, but you’re all in separate places (maybe due to quarantine). In this web player and mobile app, you may organize listening sessions in which you and your friends can take turns selecting tunes while listening in sync. Everyone participating in the listening session must subscribe to Spotify Premium, which is the only catch.
Using this tool, songs on your favorite album can be rearranged (or even deleted).
For Spotify Premium subscribers, you may rearrange the tracks on any music album, or you can simply delete the tracks if you don’t want to hear them ever again. Suppose you want “Snowchild” (track 5) and “Heartless” (track 7) to be the first and second tracks on The Weeknd’s album After Hours; you can have your way. Simply play an album, then pick the queue button in the bottom-right corner to delete or reorganize the tracks in the album’s playlist.
Make sure you’re listening to the highest-quality audio possible before you start listening.
By default, Spotify broadcasts audio songs at a rate of 96 kbit per second. If you subscribe to the Premium plan, you can get a stream at 320 kbps, a very high-quality stream (although it is still not CD quality). Go to Settings > Music Quality > Very High to make changes to the audio quality of your music or podcasts.
It should be set up so that everyone can sing along.
Real-time lyrics, which display the words of the music you’re now listening to so that you may sing along in real-time, have been one of the most requested features for Spotify. In early 2020, Spotify began rolling out the feature to all users; however, it is not yet available to all users.
Meanwhile, downloading Musixmatch, registering, and connecting your Spotify account is the most effective approach to obtaining real-time lyrics. Intriguingly, Spotify and Musixmatch have formed a partnership, which means that shortly, you will not have to open a separate app to have the lyrics overlayed in real-time. (It’s worth noting that Musixmatch cannot display lyrics for every song.)
Songs can be removed from your history by clicking here.
Long-time Subscribers to Spotify know that the service keeps track of the songs, albums, and artists they listen to, so they may be given “similar” artists and albums. Similarly, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime Video also engage in this activity. But maybe some of your belongings are no longer appropriate, or you want to start over.
Even though it is a commonly desired feature, Spotify does not currently allow you to remove your previous listening history. However, there is a simple workaround to this problem. The Spotify desktop application allows you to delete tracks from your “Recently Played” area if you run it from your desktop. Simply pick “Remove from Recently Played” from the context menu of the song, artist, radio station, or podcast you wish to remove.
Set up a link between Shazam and your Spotify account.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, chances are you haven’t used Shazam. The app gained popularity around 2008 due to its ability to rapidly listen to and identify any song playing. If we fast forward to 2020, it will be simple to integrate Shazam into any of the most popular music streaming services, such as Spotify. Once you’ve downloaded and registered Shazam (which is completely free), you can connect it to your Spotify account, which will allow you to add songs to your Spotify playlists every time you Shazam them from then on.
Ensure that your listening sessions are kept confidential.
The Friend Activity feature of the Spotify app, which is enabled by default, will be familiar to anyone new to the service. It allows all of your friends to see what you’re listening to. You can easily disable this feature by visiting Settings > Social and selecting “Private Session” from the drop-down menu. In this case, nobody will be able to see what music you are now listening to.
Pandora-like functionality is available through Spotify.
Unlike other streaming services, Pandora produced playlists based on the music or artists you were listening to. The same goes for Spotify. Simply search for a song you like, click the ellipses next to it, and select “Go to radio” from the drop-down menu. You’ve developed a full radio station with additional performers based on that single song.
When it comes to parties, make use of Crossfade.
One of the most straightforward yet crucial things you can do while hosting a party and putting together a Spotify playlist is to enable Crossfade.
This option skips the irritating silence at the start and finish of each track, making the music blend seamlessly and appear endless.. To enable Crossfade, all you have to do is go to Settings > Playback > and change the Crossfade slider to the length you want it to last. More tracks will merge into each other as the quantity of songs increases.
