The latest Spotify feature has begun its testing phase and is now rolling out to a limited number of users. In theory, it should help its listeners to greatly expand their musical horizons in a similar way to a number of other features it's rolled out over the past few months.
WhatHifi reports that the new Featured Curators system recommends user playlists curated by popular Spotify influencers, handpicked by the company as users who've either created popular public playlists, have large followings already, or who have unique, interesting stories to tell through the music that populates their playlists.
It's yet another welcome extension of Spotify's already excellent playlist features, and while it remains to be seen whether or not it'll help a majority of users find new music to love, it's at the very least an interesting way of shining a spotlight on songs and albums recommended by notable music lovers.
Another feather in Spotify's cap?
Spotify has been admirably consistent in finding creative ways to present its monolithic library of music and podcasts to its subscribers. Spotify Blend recently got a huge upgrade, for example, allowing listeners to co-create playlists with up to 10 friends - or their favorite artists - instead of just one other person.
Elsewhere, Spotify rebranded its Greenroom feature as Spotify Live, and integrated it into the main app, letting listeners join live conversations with popular content creators and artists, not dissimilar to the Twitter Spaces feature found on the ever-popular social media giant.
Spotify has also ramped up its podcast presence this year, greatly expanding its repertoire by buying out Chartable and Podsights - two massive podcast marketing and analytics firms. In fact, that may have been the spark that set YouTube's sights on improving its own podcast game.
With all that said, though, subscribers will no doubt be wondering where the elusive Spotify HiFi is amidst the expansion of all these already established features. The company insists that the feature is still coming, but difficulties with licensing have delayed it indefinitely.
Meanwhile, rival platforms like Apple Music and Amazon Music HD have taken the hi-res audio ball and ran with it, both offering huge collections of music that support the premium feature. Apple Music, in particular, also offers Spatial Audio at no additional cost, which is likely a huge reason as to why its subscriber numbers are speedily gaining on Spotify's.
While we're sure Spotify HiFi will launch eventually (hopefully before the end of the year), we can understand the frustration listeners may feel in its continued absence. Sure, additions like Featured Curators are nice, but arguably not at the top of the list when it comes to the most requested Spotify features like hi-res audio.
