Spotify’s new feature lets listeners explore the people and stories behind their favorite music

On Wednesday, Spotify announced new features designed to introduce users to the people behind their favorite music, including producers, engineers, songwriters, and background vocalists. The company also plans to release tools that show how songs are connected and what inspired them.

The second set of tools is introduced with a new interactive feature called SongDNA, which shows you what songs are sampled on a particular track, who covered the song, and what other projects the song’s collaborators may be involved with.

TechCrunch reported in October that Spotify was developing the SongDNA feature as a way to let users discover music through song credits, after reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered references to the feature in the app’s code. SongDNA allows Spotify users to explore other projects by artists, musicians, and others who have worked on their tracks.

Previously, the song credits feature only featured top-line performance, songwriting, and production credits.

Meanwhile, references to sampled music come from WhoSampled, an online community-built database acquired by Spotify. Notably, streaming service TIDAL also offers interactive credits that allow users to explore music through the contributors behind the songs.

Spotify is also planning a feature called “About Song,” which will allow listeners to explore swipeable cards in the “Now Playing” view. These cards provide details about the song’s inspiration, the story behind the music, cultural influences, and more. These stories come from third-party resources and are linked within the cards.

This type of background information about music is something Spotify has offered in the past few years, in partnership with lyrics site Genius, which provides details on the backstory of a particular song. However, that functionality was limited to stories that Genius stored in its database. The upcoming feature will link to various places on the web, including information and news sites like Wikipedia, according to the screenshot.

Spotify says expanded song credits will roll out on mobile devices starting Wednesday and will be available on desktop in the coming months.

SongDNA and About the Song are available to premium subscribers only. However, these features won’t be released until early next year and will initially be released as a Spotify for Artists preview. This gives those involved in music the opportunity to preview features first and ensure credits are accurate before they are released to the wider public.