Lorde has taken Spotify to task over its new ‘About the Song’ feature, which scrapes third-party sources to provide information on the music that’s currently playing.
The feature was announced last year, and is now available in beta, but Lorde has issues with both its accuracy and the concept in general.
Posting on her Instagram story, she users the example of the About the Song info for Current Affairs, a track from her 2025 album, Ultrasound. The overview says: “On her Ultrasound world tour, Lorde turns Current Affairs into a full-on performance piece, stripping down to underwear while a dancer pours water over her stomach so the song plays out like the shower scene she talks about on stage.”
The information is attributed to a review of a show from the Ultrasound tour that took place in Brisbane, but is apparently incorrect. It was published on Australian website The Music.
“Hey Spotify, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we don’t want this,” writes Lorde. “Not only is this inaccurate (not the song I did that in), but reducing a song to an AI-generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation imo. At least make it possible for artists to opt out please.”
Spotify has since confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that the offending text has now been removed, but About the Song information from other sources remains.
Responding to Lorde’s concerns about the feature, a Spotify spokesperson said: “About the Song is a beta feature that presents cited information from third-party sources. We’re continuing to improve it based on feedback from artists and fans.”
About the Song was announced at the same time that Spotify confirmed it was expanding its song credits to include all the listed contributors to a track. It's also been rolling out SongDNA, new interactive view that enables you to join the dots between different songs, showing collaborators, samples, and covers all in one place.
