Did you know that Chappell Roan was inspired by The Pink Cadillac, the name of a hot pink strip club in her Missouri hometown, for her hit song Pink Pony Club? Or that the Fountains of Wayne song Stacy’s Mom was inspired by a friend’s confessed crush on late co-founder Adam Schlesinger’s grandmother?
If you like knowing juicy little tidbits about popular songs, you might find more trivia in About the Song, a new feature from streaming giant Spotify that’s a bit like the old VH1 show Pop-Up Video.
About the Song is available in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia, initially only for Spotify Premium members. It’s only on certain songs, but it will likely continue to expand to more music. Music information comes from various websites and is summarized by AI. They appear below the song lyrics when you play a particular song.
“Music fans know the feeling: a song stops you in your tracks and you immediately want to know more. What inspired it and what is its meaning? We believe that understanding the art and context behind a song can deepen your connection to the music you love,” Spotify wrote in a blog post.
While this version of the feature is new, it’s not the first time Spotify has presented fun facts about the music it streams. The streaming giant partnered with Genius a decade ago for Behind the Lyrics, which included themed playlists with facts and trivia about each song. Spotify kept this up for a few years before canceling due to multiple controversies, including Paramore’s Hayley Williams accusing Genius of using inaccurate and outdated information.
Spotify soon began testing its Storyline feature, which presented fun facts about songs in a limited capacity for some users, but was never released as a core feature.
About the Song is the latest in a long line of announcements from Spotify, including a page matching feature which allows you to seamlessly switch from a physical book to an audiobook, and from a AI tool that creates playlists for you. Spotify also recently announced that it would start selling physical books.
How to use About Song
If you’re a Spotify Premium user, the feature should be available the next time you listen to music on the app.
- Start listening to any supported song.
- Scroll down from the lyrics preview area to the About Song area.
- Swipe left and right to see more facts about the song.
I tried this with a few songs and was pleased to learn that it doesn’t just work for the most recent hits. The Spotify chart for Metallica’s 1986 song Master of Puppets notes the song’s rise in popularity after its appearance in a 2022 episode of Stranger Things. The second card discusses the band’s album cover for Master of Puppets and how it was conceptualized.
To see how far support for this feature actually went, I searched for a few off-the-beaten-path tracks, like NoFX’s The Decline and Ice Nine Kills’ Thank God It’s Friday. Spotify supported all the tracks I personally checked out.
There seems to be a limit to the depth of fun facts, which makes sense since not every song has a complicated story. For these songs, Spotify by default offers trivia about the album containing the music or an AI summary of the lyrics and what they might mean.
