Spotify is officially expanding its audio-only offerings presentation of music videos. The streamer is launching a beta program that offers premium subscribers access to music videos on mobile, desktop and TV for a select number of tracks from artists like Ed Sheeran and Ice Spice.
In an email seen by TechCrunch, Spotify’s vice president and head of global consumer experience, Stan Garmark, said: “We’re starting with a limited subset of our full catalog, which includes thousands of music videos. Within that subset, we’ve aimed to prioritize a wide variety of genres and artists in our launch markets.” YouTube (of course) and Apple Music both already offer music videos, so this new feature helps Spotify catch up with some of its biggest competitors.
Spotify users listening to the song can click the “go to video” button directly on the playback screen to watch the music video. The music video will always start the song from the beginning, but users can tap the sound again at any time. Even if the music video is playing, Spotify will queue the next song as audio only.
Currently, the beta version is only available in 11 countries, selected for “a number of criteria including market size and availability of local content support,” Garmark said. While the US didn’t make the cut, the countries included represent quite a global audience: Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden and the UK. Users from these countries must also have a premium account to view music videos.
Rumors Spotify can add music videos started last July after a series of layoffs (and more came). The announcement marks the first time that Spotify has announced the availability of music videos on its platform. However, a Reddit user three months ago they reported a “switch to video” option on a song: My wayby Limp Bizkit.
