Spotify Mixes: New Personalized Playlists Launched

Spotify Expands Personalized Playlists with New "Spotify Mixes"

Spotify announced a substantial expansion of its personalized playlist offerings this morning. The update introduces three new categories of playlists collectively known as “Spotify Mixes.”

New Mix Categories

This collection encompasses artist mixes, genre mixes, and decade mixes. Users will now have access to a significantly larger number of personalized mixes.

These mixes feature straightforward titles, such as 2010s Mix, R&B Mix, Pop Mix, Drake Mix, and Selena Gomez Mix. The playlists are tailored to individual tastes and listening preferences.

Inspired by Daily Mixes

The company states that the concept behind Spotify Mixes was directly inspired by its successful Daily Mixes, which were first introduced in the fall of 2016.

Daily Mixes represented a key step in Spotify’s personalization strategy, extending beyond its flagship Discover Weekly playlist. They provided a diverse set of playlists reflecting users’ listening habits.

The new Spotify Mixes function similarly, combining recent listens with new tracks to maintain user engagement. However, these new mixes offer more defined names and a focused approach.

Availability and Access

Spotify Mixes are available to all users worldwide, including both free and Premium subscribers.

Users can locate the mixes within the “Made for You” hub in the Search section of the app.

Spotify has prominently featured the mixes within its app. The “Made for You” hub now displays “Your Genre Mixes,” “Your Artist Mixes,” and “Your Decade Mixes” in the top three rows.

Each category offers a horizontally scrollable selection of mixes. Spotify confirms that each mix category will be updated regularly, ensuring a continuous stream of new playlists.

Competition and Context

This new feature presents competition to a similar offering from Pandora, which launched three years prior.

Pandora utilized its Music Genome technology to create personalized playlists based on attributes like genre and mood. While not a direct comparison, Pandora’s launch significantly broadened user access to personalized playlists.

It is somewhat surprising that Spotify took this long to introduce a comparable feature.