Spotify is just to say, made some strange choices when it came to user experience.
There are a number of panels in the app and the layout is confusing. The service constantly follows your activity. The app also seems to have a strange hostility to playing real albums. All of this contributes to creating a general feeling that Spotify the designers try to trick you into using the service in a particular way.
So it’s understandable that some people are annoyed with the way music videos have been added to the platform. For the most part, playback started by default, in the background, whenever an artist uploaded a video for the song. Some music videos sound very different from the original tracks, particularly if they include sketches or sound effects, which can be distracting if you prefer the album version of the song. And even if you like music videos (which I do), the decision to play videos by default – using up bandwidth and battery – upset a lot of people.
There are a few other oddities. On Spotify’s desktop app, videos are barely visible; they stay contained in the small album art panel until you manage to find the hidden and extremely small Now Playing button that enlarges them. In addition, the selection of videos present on the platform and those which are mysteriously absent seems completely random. For this reason, I check YouTube first when I really want to watch a music video.
Most annoying, however, was the lack of an obvious way to turn off all videos. This has changed recently– there is now a toggle in Settings to completely disable music videos in Spotify, as well as controls that disable the Canvas (animated album art) feature and video podcasts.
On mobile, you can do this by tapping your user profile icon at the top left to bring up the side panel. Then press Settings and privacyfollowed by Content and display.
Photography: Justin Pot
In the Videos and web In the section, you will see three toggles: one for music videos, one for Canvas, and one for all other videos. This last toggle turns off video podcasts, meaning you’ll get the audio-only version of the podcasts instead. Turn all of that off and Spotify will use a lot less bandwidth.
On the desktop app it’s a little different. Click your user profile icon in the upper right corner, then click Settings. Scroll to Videos and web to find options to disable video clips and Canvas.
I tested this and it worked. The music video icon in Playlists and Albums is gone, as is the music video collection on Artists pages. The only remnant of the disabled feature is a Skip to Video button in the Now Playing sidebar, which appears below the album art. Click on it and you will be informed that the video will not be able to play unless you re-enable videos in the settings. Strange, sure, but overall, turning this feature off means you no longer have to think about music videos in Spotify.
I sincerely wish Spotify would distribute music videos more carefully. Sometimes I really want to watch a video, but not every time I listen to a song. Music video playlists may be welcome if streamed separately from audio-only playlists. I just don’t want to have a music video when I’m looking for the album version of a song, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. I can only hope that Spotify’s future interface design choices will keep things more clearly separated.
