5 things you need to know about Spotify Free

Spotify launched in Nigeria in February this year, meaning that music fans across the country could immediately enjoy millions of songs and over 3 billion playlists for every mood and moment, absolutely free.

With a fully English user experience and a wide range of locally curated playlists, music fans can enjoy the vast catalogue of music and playlists on the free tier.

With personalized music recommendations for you from day one, and an easy-to-use interface, users can enjoy unprecedented access to both the music they love and the favourites they’re yet to discover. Simply put, it’s the best way to get music for free!

But to really enjoy the new Spotify free experience, here is a list of the five must-use features you should be aware of:

1. Let the app get to know you with Taste Onboarding

After you first download and sign into the free app, you’ll be prompted to choose five or more artists you like. That means the app will be able to learn more quickly about your favourite artists, songs, and genres so it can recommend songs based on your music preferences.

From there, Spotify will make some great playlists for you as well as tailor your home screen for easier music discovery. The Daily Mix and Release Radar playlists are made especially for you and are based on the music you like. The more you listen, the more Spotify will learn about your music tastes, with the recommendations getting better and smarter over time, and introducing you to artists you’re bound to love. Win-win!

2. Enjoy On-demand playlists

Next up, data from your streaming activity along with insights from your initial Taste Onboarding are used to offer access to 15 personalized and curated playlists particular to your music taste. What this means is that every user gets something different to suit their music style. On-Demand Playlists offer a broad mix of genres from Hot Hits Naija to Gbedu and allow you to play songs in any order and skip as much as you like.

Spotify’s Free users can also listen to up to six Daily Mix playlists on-demand, which will be updated constantly based on the music you listen to. You can find these playlists under ‘Made For You’ on your home screen. Once Spotify has enough information about what you like to listen to, Spotify will update your Discover Weekly every Monday and Release Radar every Friday. The more you stream, the quicker these will become available.

3. Find new music with Assisted playlisting

Making your own playlist? Just start with a title, and then choose a few tracks. Spotify will then start recommending songs for you to add to the playlist with the tap of a button. Spotify will show songs based on artists in the playlist, your taste profile, and even the title of your playlist—particularly songs with that theme or word in the lyrics—so make sure you choose wisely!

4. Stream more with Data Saver

Spotify believes that music should be accessible to everyone, anytime and anywhere they are. However, some music fans may be concerned about mobile data costs or data availability in their country. That’s why Spotify offers the Data Saver Mode, a simple toggle that optimizes the listening experience to use lower rates of mobile data when listening to music.

Spotify’s Data Saver mode means that music streams at a lower bit rate so you can listen to more music with less worry. Note that Data Saver isn’t a default setting, so make sure to switch it on in your ‘settings’ tab.

5. Personalize by Liking and Hiding

By using the ‘like’ and ‘hide’ buttons you will get recommendations tailored just for you. As you’re listening to songs, note which you ‘like’ by tapping the heart icon ♡. You can also do this with artists, albums, and playlists. This way, Spotify will get to know what you love and want to hear more of—helping personalize the Spotify service to you even more.

All your liked songs will then appear in a new playlist called ‘Your Favourites’ and newly-released tracks from artists you have listened to will appear in your Release Radar. On the other hand, tapping the “hide” ⃠ icon will ensure you don’t have to hear that song, or others similar to it.

Between more personalization, enhanced playlists, easily-to-create playlists, and a data-saving feature, what better way is there to listen to and discover music? Make sure you’re not missing out and sign up for a Spotify Free account now and listen to some of the most popular Nigerian, African and Global playlists.

Download the Spotify app via the Android or iOS app store or by heading to www.spotify.com – to embed Spotify into a website – right click on any playlist, go to ‘share’ and copy embed code.