Photo Credit: Genius
Apple Music has teamed up with Genius for the lyric site’s popular video series, Verified. The show is now available on Apple Music.
Apple Music will also co-produce the series, with episodes premiering on Apple Music first. Episodes will then roll out to the Genius website before making their way to YouTube.
There are over 800 episodes of Verified since it debuted in 2016, making this a considerable snag for Apple.
To celebrate the new partnership, Genius has released two new Verified episodes. These episodes cover Alec Benjamin’s “Mind Is A Prison” and Yung Baby Tate’s “CAMP.” Upcoming Verified episodes will focus on songs from 24KGoldn, Olivia Rodrigo, Caroline Polachek, and more.
Apple Music is working closely with Genius in other regards, too. It became the first official music player for Genius in 2018. Apple Music listeners can play songs on the site without leaving it. It is also the official lyric provider for thousands of songs on Apple Music.
Genius also powers Spotify’s “Behind the Lyrics” feature that rolled out for select songs and playlists. Songs and playlists that support the feature will have a lyrics button in the mini-player when a song is playing. Both services are keen to partner with Genius, partly because the company frequently works with artists directly.
The deal comes after Lyricgate last year — Google was caught copy/pasting lyrics from Genius red-handed.
Google later shifted the blame to its lyric partner, LyricFind. Genius used alternating commas to spell out ‘red-handed‘ on specific lyrics. Those lyrics then appeared on sites wherever LyricFind provided the lyrics. Now both Google and LyricFind are facing down a $50 million lawsuit over the practice.
LyricFind says it will do a better job of vetting the lyrics on its site and their origins. For now, Apple appears to be content partnering with a company that works closely with artists and has for several years. New episodes of Verified will appear every weekday on Apple Music and the Genius website.