Photo Credit: Vollume
Additional details about Spotify’s super premium tier have surfaced online, revealing more than just lossless audio listening. Here’s what we know.
Spotify had the wind taken out of its sails when Apple made ‘HiFi’ listening available to its subscribers at no additional cost. Heading back to the drawing board, Spotify has decided to throw in some extras for its upcoming ‘super premium’ plan—which it is dubbing Spotify Supremium.
Chris Messina on Threads dissected a recent Spotify for Android update to reveal references to the new branding. The ‘Supremium’ tier will cost $19.99 per month and appears to include:
- AI playlist generation tools
- Last.fm-style listening stats including Highlights
- 20-30 hours of audiobook listening (Premium users only get 15 hours)
- 24-bit lossless audio
- Advanced playlist mixing tools (by BMP, Vibe, Mood, Activity, Genre)
- Special “Your Sound Capsule” playlist
What’s also noticeable about these code reveals is that Spotify seems to be ditching the HiFi tier it teased more than two years ago.
Spotify HiFi is no longer referenced anywhere in the code. When Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was questioned about the delay in launching Spotify HiFi, he told investors the tier “has value to more aficionados in the streaming market.” The added AI-driven playlist features seem like Spotify’s compromise to make a more expensive tier palatable to a wider audience beyond just audiophiles.
The “Your Sound Capsule” feature sounds suspiciously similar to the playlist in a bottle feature Spotify launched in January. That feature allows Spotify Premium users to create a playlist that will be locked until January 2024. Users seed the playlist with three songs and answer questions about their music—creating a year-long incentive to keep listening on Spotify.
The “Your Sound Capsule” playlist could be a way to take that data and allow a user to take a peek back through their Spotify listening history. Curious what you were listening to during the height of the pandemic? Could be on the table with this new feature. The new ‘Highlights’ feature listed also tracks stats like Last.fm, likely telling you how many times you’ve played a song and more.
Will users spring for Spotify Supremium for $10 extra dollars per month? Spotify’s experience with the AI DJ says users love new AI generated playlists. Creating custom playlists that are tuned to match a specific beat-per-minute (BPM) is great for those who exercise while listening to music so there’s added value in these new categories, too.