Streaming has always been about access. Today, it is increasingly about context.

Listeners don’t just press play — they also want to understand where a song comes from. Who wrote it? Who produced it? Which collaborators helped shape its sound? The creative story behind a track is part of the listening experience itself.

With tens of thousands of tracks delivered to streaming platforms daily — and new AI-assisted tools accelerating creation — the musical landscape is becoming more complex, crowded, and interconnected. Against that backdrop, Spotify’s SongDNA begins to illuminate the architecture behind a song with a visual experience. The feature shines a light on collaborators, creative relationships, and musical connections that have long existed quietly within the metadata.

For artists and rights holders, it also underscores a fundamental point: the importance of accurate, well-structured music metadata.

What Is Spotify SongDNA?

SongDNA is an interactive discovery feature within the Spotify mobile app that highlights the people and relationships behind a track. When listeners open SongDNA, they can explore the creative network surrounding a recording, including producers, writers, engineers, and collaborators who contributed to the music.

The experience is currently available to Spotify Premium listeners and appears directly inside the Now Playing screen, where listeners can tap the SongDNA card to begin exploring the track’s creative ecosystem.

From there, they can discover:

• Songwriters and composers
• Producers and engineers
• Additional performers and collaborators
• Creative relationships between songs
• Samples and interpolations connected to the track

Rather than static credit lists, SongDNA visualizes music creation as a network of creative connections.

SongDNA can also be explored at the artist level, allowing listeners to view collaborators across multiple tracks and uncover creative partnerships throughout an artist’s catalog.

Spotify for Artists Preview: Early Access to SongDNA

Spotify is introducing SongDNA through Spotify for Artists Preview, giving artists and their teams the ability to explore and manage how their music appears within the feature before it launches broadly to listeners. This preview allows artists to review the information associated with their songs and ensure the creative credits accurately reflect the people involved.

To access SongDNA in the Spotify app, artists must:

• Be an Admin or Editor in Spotify for Artists
• Have at least 10 monthly active listeners
• Use Spotify mobile app version 9.1.28 or later

Artists can open SongDNA in several ways.

From the Now Playing screen

1. Play a song in the Spotify mobile app
2. Scroll down the Now Playing view
3. Tap Explore on the SongDNA card

From a track page

1. Open the track
2. Tap the three-dot menu
3. Select Explore SongDNA

How Artists Can Manage Credits Directly

One of the most meaningful developments introduced with SongDNA is the ability for artists to manage certain credits directly inside Spotify for Artists.

Historically, correcting or updating credits often required going through a label or distributor. If a producer or engineer credit was missing or incorrect, artists frequently had little control over how quickly it could be fixed. SongDNA introduces more flexibility.

Within Spotify for Artists, artists and teams can now:

• Hide or show certain third-party credits
• Manage song connections such as samples and interpolations
• Add supplemental contributor credits
• Remove credits previously added within Spotify for Artists

Credit management for SongDNA is currently available through Spotify for Artists on desktop, where artists can review contributor data and adjust visibility settings.

Artists with more than 5,000 monthly active listeners can also hide individual contributor credits delivered by their label or distributor and add additional contributors to the SongDNA experience.

These changes appear in the SongDNA experience within 48 hours.

However, these edits do not modify the official metadata delivered to DSPs by distributors via DDEX standards. Instead, they influence how contributor information appears in the SongDNA discovery experience.

Even so, this level of control represents an important step toward improving credit accuracy and contributor visibility.

Where SongDNA Gets Its Data

SongDNA draws on different sources of music data across the industry.

Contributor credits may originate from metadata delivered by labels or distributors, typically transmitted through industry standards such as DDEX. This metadata includes songwriter, producer, and performer credits attached to a recording.

Song relationships — such as samples or interpolations — may also be sourced from external data providers like WhoSampled, which track connections between recordings.

Together, these sources form a layered data environment that allows Spotify to surface the creative relationships behind music.

But the effectiveness of experiences like SongDNA ultimately depends on one thing: the quality and completeness of the underlying metadata.

Why Metadata Matters More Than Ever

SongDNA is built on music metadata — the structured data that identifies the people, rights, and relationships attached to a recording.

For a deeper look at how metadata works and why it’s critical to the modern music ecosystem, you can explore this guide:

👉 https://revelator.com/blog/musicmetadata101

Incomplete or inaccurate metadata can create major challenges across the industry.

Missing metadata can lead to:

• Misattributed credits
• Lost or delayed royalty payments
• Broken connections between works and collaborators
• Reduced discoverability across streaming platforms

As streaming platforms surface more of the creative story behind music, the infrastructure supporting that data becomes increasingly important. Platforms across the industry are investing in better systems to capture contributor roles, rights data, and identifiers across catalogs from the start.

FAQ: Spotify SongDNA

What is Spotify SongDNA?

Spotify SongDNA is an interactive feature that allows listeners to explore the collaborators, contributors, and creative connections behind a song.

Where can listeners find SongDNA?

SongDNA appears in the Spotify mobile app within the Now Playing view, track menu, and artist profile menu.

Can artists edit SongDNA credits?

Artists can manage certain credits within Spotify for Artists, including hiding or showing third-party credits and adding supplemental contributor information.

Does editing SongDNA change official metadata?

No. Changes made within Spotify for Artists only affect the SongDNA experience and do not modify metadata delivered to DSPs through distributors via DDEX standards.

For a full breakdown of SongDNA features and eligibility requirements, artists can review Spotify’s official documentation