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Do you want your life to have that movie-soundtrack quality? Create a playlist on Spotify and get personal and customized with the songs you listen to and love.
Updated February 13, 2021
HBO's hit series Big Little Lies captivated audiences a few years back, in part because of its compelling soundtrack(Opens in a new window). One character's child, for example, creates super-hip playlists on her iPod touch with songs like "Papa Was a
Rolling Stone" by the Temptations and "The Wind" by PJ Harvey; songs that reflect the various dramas taking place in the show. Though I'm skeptical that a young kid could have such super-cool playlists, it inspired me to create my own cool or (more accurately) not-so-hip playlists, and I'm not alone(Opens in a new window). A playlist is simply a list of
songs or sound clips played on an audio device or via a streaming service. Rather than click around Spotify to get from song to song, you can compile favorite tunes into customized playlists for parties, working out, or just hanging around the house. All you need is a subscription (free or paid) to Spotify, and
you can create playlists on your phone, mobile device, or computer. Here's how. Sign up for Tips & Tricks newsletter for expert advice to get the most out of your technology. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy
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About Terry Sullivan
Terry Sullivan has tested and reported on many different types of consumer electronics and technology services, including cameras, action cams, smart phones, wireless speakers, streaming music services, digital-imaging apps, and video-editing software. He has also written extensively on various trends in the worlds of technology, photography, multimedia, and the visual arts, covering everything from traditional oil painting to the latest trends in virtual reality. For more than 10 years, his articles and blogs have appeared in a variety of publications and websites, including Consumer Reports, PCMag, Photo District News, Lifehacker, and Professional Artist magazine. He is also a teacher, photographer, artist, and musician, and lives on Long Island with his wife and two children. He holds a B.A. in English and Fine Arts from Fairfield University and an M.A. in Studio Art from New York University.
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(Pocket-lint) - Spotify is a digital music streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs, podcasts and videos from artists all over the world, like Apple Music.
Spotify is immediately appealing because you can access content for free by simply signing up using an email address or by connecting with Facebook. If you're not keen on monthly subscription fees for Spotify Premium, or just want to dip your toe in and test it out, it's easy to get started and there's no commitment.
You can find out the main differences between Spotify Free and Premium in our separate feature but as a quick summary, the free version is ad-supported, much like radio stations. The free version of Spotify can be accessed on PC, laptop and mobile phone, but the full service needs a Spotify Premium subscription.
- What is Spotify's Family Plan, how much is it and what does it offer?
How does Spotify work?
Getting started with listening to music on Spotify is easy:
- Visit the Spotify website and sign-up. We'd recommend signing up with Facebook if you have an account as it'll make it easier to find and follow friends, see what they're listening to and share songs with them.
- Choose a subscription level. We'd recommend going for Spotify Premium as it gives you access to more features, is more flexible and will connect with more devices.
- Download and install the free Spotify application. There are versions for desktop and iPhone/iPad and Android phones.
- Sign into your account on those devices and get listening.
The basic setup is pretty straightforward but there's much more to Spotify once you delve in and it gets smarter the more you listen.
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"Discover Weekly" is a playlist that's automatically updated by Spotify each Monday and includes a number of different songs based upon what you've been listening to recently.
"Release Radar" is a selection of new tracks from artists you follow. It's worth noting here that if you follow your favourite musicians you'll get notifications and updates when they release new content too.
"Family Mix" combines music listened to by anyone in a Premium for Family subscription and you can choose between Chill or Upbeat.
"Top Songs of [year] is all the songs you've loved the most in the previous year.
To discover new music, you can either tap on the "Home" tab where you'll find plenty of options, or you can go to the "Search" tab to search for new content by category and genre. These are great ways to discover new music that's similar to your current taste but ones that you might not have otherwise listened to.
Pocket-lint
What is Spotify Enhance?
In September 2021, Spotify released a nifty update to its mobile app to help you upgrade your playlists. Enhance is a button you can press that sits at the top of your playlists. Tapping the button fleshes out the playlist with extra songs along similar lines. Personalise music recommendations based on your current listening habits.
The enhance button adds extra songs to your playlist, interspersed between those already added by yourself. You'll get one extra song after every two of your own tracks with a maximum of 30 extra ones being added to your playlist.
If you like what you see then you can click the plus button to add each track permanently. If you're not a fan of the additions you can click enhance again and it'll remove what was added like an undo button. Enhance is rolling out to multiple regions, if you don't see it now, you should in future.
Spotify Bluetooth connectivity
One of the obvious benefits of Spotify is if you're using it on your phone then you can connect to a wealth of different Bluetooth devices and stream your content that way. Whether that means a home audio receiver, head unit in your car, Bluetooth headphones or Bluetooth-connected speaker - there are plenty of possibilities. With Spotify Premium you can also take advantage of Spotify Connect.
What is Spotify Connect?
Spotify Connect allows you to play your music through a variety of different Wi-Fi connected devices including everything from Wi-Fi speakers to your television, Amazon Echo, Google Home, Chromecast, PC and much more.
This is great because it means you can listen to your music in more places and with more devices. It also offers you a choice in how you control the music playing on your Spotify account. For example, if you're streaming to speakers in your lounge using your phone then you can use it as a remote control to adjust the volume, change tracks or create a party playlist while listening.
- What is Spotify Connect, and why does it matter?
- How to control Sonos through Spotify
Pocket-lint
Spotify connectivity with Amazon Echo and Google Home
If you're the proud owner of a smart home speaker like Google Home or Amazon Echo then listening to your favourite tunes on Spotify is also a breeze. All you need to do is set up Spotify as your primary music service inside the relevant app, then use your voice to command the speakers to play whatever you want.
If you have multiple devices you can also take advantage of multi-room audio functionality to broadcast Spotify tunes throughout your home. Connecting and creating groups for these devices, then broadcasting music or a playlist to those groups with your voice is a straight-forward affair and one of the highlights of owning an AI-powered smart speaker.
- Doubling up on Google Home: How and why to use multiple Google Home devices
- Doubling up on Alexa: How to use multiple Amazon Echo and Dots
Spotify
What is Spotify Pets?
Spotify has apparently carried out some research and found that a large percentage of pet owners specifically play tunes for their pets.
To help create the perfect listening experience for pet owners, the company has created a tool to help you create a pets playlist. Getting started with it is easy too:
- Visit the Spotify Playlist mini-site
- Login to your account
- Click to choose your pet whether dog, cat, iguana, hamster or bird
- Choose a mood and add some info about your pet
- Add their name
- Click to create the playlist and start listening
These pet-centric playlists are based on your musical preference, only catering to your pet's mood and disposition.
Spotify Kids
Spotify Kids is an app specifically designed for young children who are part of a household that already has a Spotify Premium plan.
This app caters to children listening from age three and up and is designed to be "safe" and private too. As you'd expect, the music here is more interactive with singalong songs, film soundtracks and even stories.
Listening content on this app also includes tunes hand-picked by a dedicated team of editors to ensure great listening for your little ones.
The app is also designed to be kid-friendly to make it engaging and user-friendly too.
It's still rolling out, but is available in several regions including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand and more. Like the main Spotify app, Spotify Kids is also available for both Android and iOS devices.
Spotify Stations
Spotify Stations is another separate app that's available to download alongside the main Spotify app.
Stations is intended to give listeners easy access to curated playlists and a more radio-like experience. It also is designed to create a listening experience that makes stations based on your listening habits too.
Like Spotify Kids, Stations is available for both iOS and Android devices.
How much is Spotify?
Spotify comes in two main forms - free and Premium. Spotify Premium is £9.99/$9.99 a month, which includes access to features such as ad-free streaming, unlimited skips, extreme quality streaming and Spotify Connect.
If multiple people in your house use Spotify, you might consider Premium for Family which gives up to six people access to their own unique Spotify account under one bill. All users have to live at the same address so it's not a package to include your friends on, but it's a good way to split the cost.
At £14.99/$14.99, Premium for Family isn't too much extra over a standard Premium plan price, so it's a worthy investment. There's also Spotify Duo that costs £12.99/$12.99 a month for two Premium accounts.
For students, there's a discounted plan that costs just £4.99/$4.99 a month.
What do you get with Spotify Free?
You can use Spotify for free, but its features are limited. On the free plan, music can be played in shuffle mode and you can skip up to six times per hour, every hour. Spotify Radio isn't available, but you can access Daily Mix playlists.
With the Spotify free plan, you can access all playlists, discover new music and share tunes with friends. You can also play any playlist, album, or artist but only while in Shuffle Play mode.
Spotify is free to use on mobile, desktop or tablet - so it's accessible with ease, wherever you are. You can access the free version using the smartphone app, desktop software or website.
Spotify's Premium tier gives you access to everything but doesn't force adverts - whether you're listening on desktop, mobile, or tablet.
Premium users can play any song they want (on demand), as well as find and hear playlists, discover new music, create and edit playlists, plus share music and playlists.
Premium users can also skip any track, listen offline, hear high-quality music and use the Spotify app on their mobile device as a computer remote control.
Spotify
What are Spotify Codes?
Spotify Codes is a feature from Spotify that allows users to easily share music with friends and family, as well as their account for others to follow. You can use it to generate a unique code for a song, album, playlist or you profile, and then get someone else to scan the code to share it with their device and allow them to enjoy it too or follow you.
Spotify Codes works on both iPhone and Android devices, in order to use it you just need to click the '...' button next to what you want to share and you'll see a pop-up with the album, song or playlist artwork and the code sits underneath. Click that code to zoom so the other person can scan it.
On the other device, tap on the search tab at the bottom, then tap the search bar at the top. There is a camera icon in the top right, which if you launch, you'll then be able to simply scan the code. Spotify Codes is open to everyone.
Outside of Spotify Codes you can also easily directly share songs from Spotify across a number of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Tumblr or just a straight link to copy a usable link to wherever you want on the web. Simply right-click on desktop or press the three dots on mobile on the song, album, artist or playlist you want to share and select the appropriate service.
Spotify
What is Spotify Time Capsule?
Spotify regularly releases updates to its service to help improve your listening experience. This includes tailored playlists and discovery voyages to help you expand your musical horizons and find new artists you're likely to enjoy.
Sometimes though, they just add quirky lists which show how well they know you based on your current listening trends. Time Capsule is one example of this wizardry.
This is a personalised playlist which picks out around 60 tracks that you would have listened to as you were growing up. It's a collection of throw-back songs that'll fill you with nostalgic joy.
We found Time Capsule to be pretty accurate, scarily so in fact, but it obviously requires Spotify to have a good working knowledge of your musical taste, so get listening!
Spotify
What are Daily Mix Playlists?
Spotify learns what you like as you use it. The more you listen, the more intelligent it becomes. This music streaming service is brilliant for this sort of intelligence. Automatic playlists are then created based on your preferences.
This includes automated playlists like Summer Rewind which features all the songs you've been listening to the most over the last few months.
Daily Mix playlists are slightly different, they're like a radio station which mixes your favourite tunes with similar music Spotify thinks you'll enjoy. Multiple Daily Mix playlists are available for the different styles or genres of music you listen too. These individual mixes keep playing for as long as you want to listen and can be improved by liking the songs you enjoy or removing the ones you don't.
Like Discover Weekly, Daily Mix playlists are a great way to discover new music that you'll love.
Private listening mode
Listening on Spotify can be a social experience. If you've connected Spotify to your Facebook account, for example, then friends and family will be able to see what you're listening to and you can share your favourite songs with them.
There might be occasion though where you don't want people to know that you're listening to a certain album or song on constant repeat. We all have the guilty pleasure that we don't need the world knowing about.
Spotify accounts for this with a "private listening mode" that you can activate from the settings in the app, under Social, and a quick click of a button on the desktop browser.
Spotify
Podcasts
Spotify is more than just a music streaming service. If you have a Spotify account you can also use it to listen to thousands of different podcasts that include everything from comedy to sports, lifestyle, news and more.
These podcasts are available in both the app and desktop browser and it's easy to hunt down and follow your favourite podcasts and access the latest episodes wherever you are.
How to delete your Spotify account
If you decide you no longer want your Spotify account, you can delete it. It is worth noting though, that you can downgrade from Premium to a free account, so if cost is the issue then we'd recommend considering that first.
If you're still keen on deleting your Spotify account, then follow these steps:
- Visit Spotify's Support page on how to close your account.
- Login to your Spotify account.
- Click this link to delete your account.
If this doesn't work, then you can also try this method:
- Login and go directly to Spotify's Contact Support page.
- Choose 'account' as the category.
- Select 'I want to close my Spotify account permanently'.
- Then click to close your account or cancel your subscription
- Spotify free vs Spotify premium: What's the difference?
Writing by Adrian Willings. Editing by Chris Hall.