Spotify now has lyrics for songs, including for Malaysian music

Spotify has rolled out a real-time Lyrics feature that keeps track with the song playing, so users can sing along to them. —Bloomberg

Been missing karaoke sessions outside? Spotify users can now sing along to local tunes, with the introduction of a real-time Lyrics feature on the mobile app.

The new feature, which is available for free and premium users, displays lyrics and highlights the sentence being sung to make it easier to follow.

To access, users can tap the Lyrics tab at the bottom of the Now Playing screen.

Done in a global collaboration with song lyric catalogue Musixmatch, the feature will show lyrics in the spoken language for local songs by artistes like P. Ramlee, Search, Ning Baizura and Fish Leong.

Spotify Asia team lead (editorial) Boon Ken Wong said lyrics have been one of the most requested features by Spotify users.

“We’re excited to make song lyrics available to listeners in South-East Asia, including Malaysia. Listeners can now get to know their favourite tracks – and the lyrics behind them – even better,” he said.

Spotify first tested real-time Lyrics last November in select markets, but included Malaysia in the recent rollout among 26 other countries across South-East Asia, India and Latin America.

The streaming service had previously worked with Musixmatch but ended the agreement in 2016 to work with competing lyric provider Genius instead.

Although Genius provided a “Behind the Lyrics” feature to explain the song’s meaning, it didn’t offer full lyrics.