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Image: Spotify
Impressing everyone when you’re handed the aux in the car to play DJ just got easier. Spotify now offers the option to listen to playlists with seamless transitions between songs, plus the user interface (UI) to mix them yourself if you want.
Spotify released the beta version of a new “Mix” mode for its Premium subscriber tier on Tuesday. The feature shows up as a “Mix” button above a track list that can be toggled on or off. Listeners can either opt in to auto-transitions between songs, or they can mix their own transitions instead with preset options like “Fade” or “Rise,” and settings for volume, equalization (EQ), and effects.
The feature is perfect for fitness instructors who want to program a playlist for a class or for anyone hoping to create a low-effort, high-impact soundtrack for a party.
Spotify designed the Mix mode UI to make things simple for beginners. After tapping “Mix,” the app shows each song’s key and beats per minute to make track ordering simple, and the visualised waveform and beat data help when finding the best part of a track to drop in a transition.
Spotify advises newbies to choose songs with similar tempos and keys, consider the energy they’re trying to capture with a playlist, and start with genres that are transition-friendly, since mixing “works best with music produced for seamless transitions. Dance genres like house and techno tend to blend more smoothly.”
Spotify’s new feature comes two months after Apple Music announced its own “AutoMix” option for a seamlessly mixed listening experience. Spotify takes the idea of automatic mixing and makes it customizable and shareable, with the ability to swap and collaborate on playlists. There are also exclusive stickers and labels for custom playlist cover art that can only be used with mixed Spotify playlists.
“With nearly 9 billion playlists made on Spotify, we’ve seen the creativity of listeners from their playlist titles to cover art,” Spotify marketing lead Dayna Tran tells Fast Company in an email. “Now, we look forward to seeing them take their creativity to the next level by adding and customising transitions between tracks. We hope to empower users to continue to shape their listening experience by expressing themselves through the music they love.”
Spotify reached its first full year of profitability in 2024. The company has more than 270 million paying subscribers and reported $4.75 billion in revenue for the second quarter of this year, up 10% year over year. That was led by Premium revenue, which rose 12% for the quarter.
Retaining and growing its paid subscriber base is key to the company’s future growth. Spotify announced a price hike for Premium subscribers in markets outside the U.S. earlier this month, and it’s pursuing a multipronged strategy to provide paid subscribers with content beyond just music by growing its video and audiobook offerings.
With Mix mode, the Swedish streaming giant shows it’s also finding new ways to offer Premium subscribers a one-of-a-kind music-listening experience that connects them with friends. Spotify’s Mix mode takes something that could have been just for personal listening and makes it social.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hunter Schwarz is a Fast Company contributor who covers the intersection of design and advertising, branding, business, civics, fashion, fonts, packaging, politics, sports, and technology.. Hunter is the author of Yello, a newsletter about political persuasion.
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