Spotify buys WhoSampled to build its new SongDNA discovery feature
Spotify acquired WhoSampled, a London-based community-run database tracking sampled music, as announced in a Wednesday blog post. The deal includes the company’s approximately 10 staffers and its database, with terms undisclosed, to integrate data into Spotify’s music discovery tools.
WhoSampled launched in 2008 and maintains an extensive database covering songs, samples, covers, remixes, and artists. The platform currently tracks more than 1.2 million songs and nearly 622,000 samples, according to information on its website. This data collection supports detailed explorations of musical influences and interconnections among tracks.
Spotify confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch, specifying that it encompasses both the WhoSampled team and database. Employment data from PitchBook and LinkedIn indicate the company operated with around 10 staffers. The announcement coincided with Spotify’s blog post detailing new song credits features, highlighting the strategic alignment with enhanced music metadata capabilities.
The integration of WhoSampled’s data will power Spotify’s upcoming music discovery tool, SongDNA, which was also revealed on Wednesday. SongDNA aims to provide users with deeper insights into song compositions and origins through sampled elements and related tracks.
Spotify and WhoSampled established a partnership in 2016, enabling WhoSampled users to access their Spotify playlists and saved tracks directly within the WhoSampled app. This collaboration facilitated seamless cross-platform functionality for music enthusiasts researching samples and influences.
Following the deal’s closure, WhoSampled’s stand-alone platform and brand will continue to operate independently. The company anticipates several user-facing improvements under Spotify’s ownership. These include accelerated moderation times for user submissions to the database, ensuring quicker updates and verifications of new entries.
Additional enhancements involve the removal of display ads from the website in the coming weeks, improving the user experience by eliminating interruptions during browsing. The mobile apps for WhoSampled will transition to free downloads, accompanied by free subscriptions, removing previous barriers to access and broadening the platform’s reach to more users.
In its announcement, the WhoSampled team stated, “Through our recent discussions with Spotify, it became clear that we share a strong belief in the power of musical context — and a vision for helping listeners go deeper into the songs they love.” The post continued, “Spotify has shown a genuine commitment to our mission, and we couldn’t have found a better home for WhoSampled.”
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