Spotify is launching a new real-time lyrics feature in 26 markets today, including India and countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America, TechCrunch reports. When available, users can access them by tapping the “lyrics” card at the bottom of the service’s “Now Playing” screen. The new feature uses lyrics provided by Musixmatch, and will be displayed in the language of the song.
The lyrics have a complicated story on Spotify. The service actually worked with Musixmatch previously, before severing ties with the company in 2016. That same year, Spotify began working with Genius on its “Behind the Lyrics” feature, which provides background information on selected tracks, along with letters themselves. It’s an interesting feature, but this background information gets in the way if you just want to sing along with a song. This new realtime lyrics should be much better for karaoke sessions.
When available, the new feature updates Spotify with Apple Music, which has provided Genius lyrics since 2018.
TechCrunch reports that the following markets are receiving the new real-time lettering feature at 10am ET today: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Nicaragua , Panama, Paraguay, El Salvador, Uruguay, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Of these, TechCrunch it notes that Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico previously included some letter supports from other suppliers, as did Japan.
It is unknown if the new real-time lettering feature could be expanded beyond new markets. However, last year Spotify confirmed that it was testing the real-time lyrics feature in markets like Canada, which hopefully means the feature could hit more places soon.
