Spotify has announced it has begun beta testing music videos within the app. It will offer full-length music videos to select beta testers in 11 countries. And if you are a beta tester, you also need to be Spotify Premium subscribers to be able to stream music videos. Here are the details.
Music Videos on Spotify
Spotify’s Music videos are now available on Android, iOS, desktop, and smart TVs. The beta testing is currently limited to the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kenya. The feature is expected to reach more countries soon based on user feedback.
One thing to note is that even if you can access Spotify music videos, you should not expect to get videos for all tracks. The official announcement reveals that the catalogue of music videos is limited for now. It does include popular songs from global artists like Ed Sheeran, Ice Spice, and Doja Cat, but has local artists like Aluna and Asake.
How to Watch Music Videos on Spotify
Each supported music track will have a new “Switch to Video” toggle on the Now Playing interface. You can tap the toggle to instantly watch the music video for that track. The music video will start playing from the beginning and you can enter full-screen mode by switching to the landscape mode on the device. Whenever you want to go back to only audio, tap the “Switch to Audio” toggle.
The overall process is similar to the YouTube Music streaming app. It will also let you switch between audio-only and music-video formats with just one tap. The major difference is that YouTube Music does not play the music video from the beginning. It plays the video from the same timestamp when you tap the button.
Apple Music is another music streaming service that supports music videos but it does not offer a seamless transition between the two. It has a dedicated section for playing music videos. You cannot switch between the music video and audio-only option of a track on the fly.
