After a successful test run in 2020, Spotify has officially launched its latest feature to even more markets around the world, expanding the Music+Talk capabilities to creators in Japan, India, Indonesia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and our very own, the Philippines. Essentially, the new feature brings together music and podcasts. It allows creators to select tracks from Spotify’s 70 million-big library to incorporate into their spoken word content.
The global audio streaming platform has also tapped Anchor, a free, beginner-friendly, podcast creation tool, to make the format more accessible for a wide range of creators. They can now play with the “Music” tool in Anchor, where they’ll have direct access to songs on Spotify. Likewise, listeners can directly interact with the music incorporated to each episode by liking, saving, and sharing them easily as they would in any playlist.
Music+Talk shows and episodes are available to both Premium and Free listeners. But while Premium users will hear full tracks seamlessly as part of the show, Free users can only enjoy 30-second previews of each song.
As part of its promotion rollout to formally introduce the new tool into the Philippine market, several shows specific to Music+Talk have been announced, while other, already well-established podcasts like Ang Walang Kwentang Podcast have added it as a new segment into their shows. New shows launched specifically for the feature include:
Soundtrip with Jugs & Teddy
The show sees OPM icons and Showtime hosts Jugs & Teddy showcase classic local hits, and discuss stories and trivia about them. New episodes drop every Wednesday, and with the two episodes currently out, the duo have zoomed into the era-defining music of Apo Hiking Society, Eraserheads, Rico Blanco, and more.
Makinig Ka Muna with Jim & Saab
The Makinig Ka Muna show follows the age-old “love doctor” radio format where husband-and-wife Jim & Saab go through letters sent by listeners pertaining to all things love and life. As they try to give out advice, they’re also creating a mixtape specifically to help the sender cope with the situation.
Worms Upon a Time: An Itchyworms Podcast
As the band celebrates 25 years of music in OPM, The Itchyworms is hosting their very own Music+Talk podcast to dissect and share secrets from their hits, old and new. The very first episode is out now, zooming into their latest anniversary single, Eto Na.
There’s a dedicated category for Music+Talk now as well on the “Search” tab on Spotify to make sure we don’t miss out as more shows are coming out to further explore and integrate this feature into the modern-day Filipino culture of consuming music and audio recordings.
These are all exciting developments in terms of content in the Philippines, and all over the world, and it’s really interesting how we’re somewhat reverting back to that classic format of music and discussions at this time. After years of studies saying that Radio is getting less and less listeners, it’s notable that this new feature replicates that in some way.
Whatever the case may be, it’s cool that we’re getting a lot more options on however way we want to consume our music and discussions. For those of us who miss the classic radio experience, this is as close as we can get without tuning in live. At least, we don’t have to miss any episode or inside joke because everything’s all ready inside our Spotify app, for whenever and wherever we want to listen in.
This article first appeared on www.rankthemag.ph on August 31, 2021