Spotify’s ‘Song Psychic’ Answers Life’s Tough Questions with Music

Spotify has always had a whimsical side compared to Apple Music, which often feels like it takes things a bit too seriously. While Apple’s streaming service prefers to focus on the music, Spotify doesn’t hesitate to mix things up with fun features that increase social engagement.

Neither approach is necessarily a bad one. Apple Music is an excellent service for serious music fans, while Spotify has a few extra bells and whistles for those who want more exciting ways to discover new music. You can perhaps best see the difference when you compare Apple Music Replay, which is simply a retrospective of your top hits, with Spotify Wrapped, which throws in social media features like quizzes, song histories, badges, and even podcast stats.

So, it’s no surprise that Spotify is continuing that approach with a new feature it’s rolling out this week called Song Psychic, “a mystical music experience” that promises to help answer all your most burning questions.

Life’s full of little mysteries, and sometimes the most fun way to tackle them is with a bit of cosmic guidance. Spotify is ready to take you on a journey of enlightenment with Song Psychic, a new, mystical music experience. Spotify

Of course, don’t expect too much clairvoyance here. As TechCrunch describes it, the feature is more like “a magic 8-ball that answers your questions with music.”

Song Psychic can’t yet be launched inside the actual Spotify app. Instead, you’ll need to visit spotify.com/songpsychic on your mobile device; visiting the site in a desktop web browser only provides a QR code to take you there on your iPhone.

The experience begins by offering nine categories, from everyday ones such as School, Love, Career, Friends and Family, and Lunch (yes, Spotify will provide appropriate songs to help you decide what to eat for lunch) to more cerebral choices like Life’s Great Mysteries and My Future.

Unlike Spotify Wrapped, Song Psychic ostensibly looks to the future rather than the past. However, from the above categories, you can choose only from a relatively narrow list of predefined questions, and Spotify isn’t exactly using a deep neural network to come up with its musical answers. In fact, the company admits in the fine print that they’re entirely random.

Answers are generated entirely at random. Please note that this experience was designed for entertainment only. Song Psychic should not be considered a serious source of advice on any issue whatsoever. Do not rely on your result to make any decision – please. Song Psychic was created as a fun experience and absolutely, positively, without a doubt cannot predict the future. We cannot stress enough: Song Psychic is in no way actually magical. Spotify

At the most, there are some basic filters in play here. For example, asking Song Psychic what you should have for lunch will bring up food-themed selections. However, that one is the exception, and like what you’d ask a magic eight-ball, most of the other predefined questions are geared toward responses that will be some form of yes, no, or maybe — and it’s not hard to find a wide selection of song titles that will randomly fit just about any of the questions you can ask.

Still, it’s a fun way to discover new music, and the best part is you don’t need a Spotify subscription to try it out. The musical responses won’t automatically play unless you tap the Play on Spotify button, at which point you’ll need a subscription if you want to hear them ad-free.