Spotify is testing ‘Storyline,’ a behind-the-scenes artist feature

Spotify is taking the social route, with an artist-centric playbook lifted right from Facebook and Instagram.

The streaming music giant is reportedly developing a new “Storyline” feature, which will look and feel a lot like “Stories,” only it’s all about the artists.

Spotify Storylines is artist-first

If you desperately need to share your grim experience on public transport that morning, Spotify won’t be the place to do it.

According to reports out of the United States, Spotify Storylines will have the functionality of the streamer’s Behind the Lyrics slideshow, which presents the story behind the song.

And it’ll appear to users like an Instagram Story, complete with a clickable carousel of cards carrying text and images, the Verge reports.

It’s said to be in testing mode on iOS and Android in a handful of markets, including the U.S. and the Netherlands.

The tech writers at Android Police have apparently road-tested the new Storyline feature, and found cards under Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” and a handful of track by Billie Eilish tracks.

In some cases, Storyline and Behind the Lyrics pop ups were discovered bunched together on the same song. That may change.

When it’s live, users will be able to tap through the different screens at their own pace, notes Techcrunch, where horizontal lines at the top indicate how many screens still await them ahead.

Billie Eilish

It’s unclear whether the new cards signal the end of Spotify’s collaboration with Genius, a third-party annotation platform which provides the Behind the Lyrics content.

Unlike Behind the Lyrics, Storylines content will come straight from the artists

Or perhaps it’s simply primed as a bonus extra for artists to share and promote themselves on a music-focused platform, and one that gives the artist and their team more control.

Spotify clearly isn’t in chill-mode, despite reaching a massive milestone in recent weeks. In late April, the Sweden-originated company announced 100 million users worldwide now pay for Spotify Premium, the first streaming music specialist to hit that mark. Spotify now has upwards of 217 million monthly active users around the globe, include two million users in India, which welcomed the launch of its service in February.

A launch date proper has yet to be announced, and Spotify is keeping mum on the development.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.