Genius Lyrics on Spotify

Spotify uses data from the crowdsourced lyrics database Genius.com to power the interactive “Behind the Lyrics” on their mobile app which provides synchronised lyrics and annotations while the song is playing in the Spotify Mobile app.

Songs must meet several conditions to be considered for the Genius x Spotify “Behind The Lyrics” feature:

1. Minimum 200,000 Spotify streams for the song under consideration.
2. A verified account on Genius for the artist (see below).
3. Lyrics must be 100% correct and have a minimum of 1 artist annotation per song segment.
4. The following questions in the Q&A section of the song page must be completed:
   a. How did the song come together?
   b. What inspired it?
   c. What was the process of making the song like?

If the artist is not verified yet, please follow this link and follow the instructions. Once you have done this email your label manager with the details. We will request for your application to be expedited.

Annotating as many of the lyrics as possible and using the Q&A section will give the editors more information to work with when compiling the feature. What they look for in the annotations is both information that will be interesting to fans and invite new listeners into the universe of the song. Avoid simple restatements of the lyrics. The information does not have to be solely focused on the lyrics but can include additional background about the making of the song and relevant stories relating to the lyrics and production.

This guide will help with onsite navigation.

Follow these links for examples of great annotations:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3​

Once the prerequisites above have been met, email your account manager with links to the genius song pages that you wish to be added to the queue. It can take up to a month (maybe more) for a Behind The Lyrics feature to go live.