New year, new upgrades here are 5 improvements I want Spotify to make in 2026

Date:
Sat, 17 Jan 2026 13:30:00 +0000

Description:
2025 was great, but 2026 could be even better. These are the upgrades I need to see from Spotify this year.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Spotify was on one hell of a roll in 2025, pumping out one exciting new product launch after the next from Spotify Mix to the long-awaited Spotify Lossless . It rounded off the year nicely with Spotify Wrapped 2025 - one of the best music recaps its done in recent years - and now I'm looking ahead at 2026.

Going forward, it's difficult to tell what's in store for Spotify this year, given the facelift that it's had over the past 12 months. But there's always room for improvement.

While I start diving right into the first month of 2026's year in music, I'm also reflecting on what new features I want from Spotify. Some of them are reasonable requests, but others are my own personal (albeit unrealistic) yearnings. 1. Lyric translations and synchronization upgrades (Image credit: Future)

When it comes to lyric features across music streaming services, Spotifys is by all means one of the weakest for a number of reasons.

For starters, not every song on Spotify has synchronized lyrics, and even the ones that do often run into synchronization issues. As for newly-released songs, you have to wait at least a few days before you can view their accompanying lyrics, whereas services like Apple Music are very on top of
this plus, it offers lyric translations.

Spotify has been falling behind on the lyrics front for a while, so its time to make some changes. 2. Profile customization Musicboard (pictured right) allows you to select custom gifs and picture for your boarders with its Pro tier (Image credit: Future)

Spotify prides itself on its music personalization features, but I wish I could have more creative freedom with how my account profile looks. With platforms such as Letterboxd , and even the lesser-known Musicboard , paying users have the freedom to add a pop of personality to their profiles. Now, imagine that for Spotify.

At the moment, theres nothing eye-catching about the current state of Spotify profiles, its a simple format displaying your profile picture and short catalog of your recently made playlists, and it could do with some zhuzhing. Perhaps some custom profile frames and music artist banners are the next
step? 3. Lift restrictions on playlist and album pins (Image credit: Future)

Pinning playlists and albums to your Library is a godsend for quickly finding what you want to listen to instead of scrolling through Spotifys cluttered interface. Its a helpful feature that Ive come to use quite often, but you
can only pin four playlists and albums at a time a huge inconvenience for users who yo-yo between multiple playlists. 4. Group chats for Messages
(Image credit: Spotify)

Earlier this week Spotify unveiled two big upgrades to its Messages tab , bringing a Request to Jam button and real-time listening activity to chats. Messages hasnt been my favorite of Spotify's new features, but the
possibility of group chats coming to the service is interesting.

I use other platforms for group chats of course, but adding them to Spotify Messages would create a designated space for users to discuss all things
music with their friends, and share song recommendations and new artists without having to take the conversation elsewhere. 5. SongDNA (Image credit: X.com / Jane Manchun Wong)

I do more than use Spotify for music streaming, I like to use it to learn
more about the geniuses behind my favorite songs. Spotifys song credits have been a great way to familiarize myself with songwriters and producers, but it could be building this by taking inspiration from Tidal Credits , which
offers a way to discover new music by navigating through the credits of
songs.

Back in October, reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong noticed a feature called SongDNA in a code in the Spotify app, sharing it to social media before Spotify quickly removed it. So what does it actually do?

Apparently, SongDNA will come in the form of a visual mind map allowing you
to see what other songs artists have appeared on, and will feature the whole network behind the songs. Despite Spotifys radio silence on the matter, were pretty convinced that SongDNA is very much in the works now its just a waiting game.

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the
Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/audio/spotify/new-year-new-upgrades-here-are-5-impro vements-i-want-spotify-to-make-in-2026


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)