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Here’s how Spotify’s new karaoke feature will work

The song options are simply endless...

By Hollie Geraghty

A man wearing headphones looks at the Spotify app on his phone
Spotify is currently rolling out the new feature (Picture: Pexels/Cottonbro).

Warm up those pipes, people – Spotify has just started rolling out a new update that will allow users to access karaoke on the app.

Eager as popstar hopefuls may be to try the new feature, it is currently only available to some users who have the most updated version of the app (both free and premium), but it is expected to be accessible to everyone over the next few days.

One lucky TikTok user discovered the feature on their phone, which revealed that singers also get scored by the app. “Nice one! You’re on the road to become famous,” the screen read.

It looks similar to the standard lyric feature, but now users will see a “sing” button in the top right corner when they scroll down.

After you hit the button, a different lyrics screen will appear and scroll through one line at a time like a karaoke machine.

The app will use your device’s built-in microphone to monitor your voice, which will then give you a score out of 100 for accuracy. As for other criteria that singing will be scored on, we’re not sure just yet.

The singalong feature follows new updates this year, which includes the ability to “hide” songs from appearing on app-generated playlists. Users can do this by searching for a song, selecting the three dots next the name, and tapping “Hide song”.

You can unhide a song by going to Settings, selecting Playback, and toggling the button that says “Hide Unplayable Songs”. Alternatively, you can search songs and press the “Hide” button again to reverse it.

According to Tech Radar, the app is also testing a new “Community” tab feature, which will display Facebook friends’ activity by showing what they have been streaming in real time, as well as playlist updates.

The test area can currently be accessed by anyone who uses an iOS device – just type “spotify:community” into your browser, select “Open” to bring up the app, and have a nosey at what your pals are listening to.

In November, reports also surfaced that Spotify had tested a vertical video feature that was described as similar to TikTok’s interface.

Chris Messina, who is widely credited as the inventor of the hashtag, confirmed the finding to Techcrunch. On Twitter he wrote that the “Discover” tab is “basically a pared down version of a TikTok-style feed of vertical music videos (likely using their canvas format) that you can like or skip.”