The Spotify-powered music experience launches today at over 7,500 Starbucks locations throughout the U.S., Starbucks announced today. The company says this deal is the first of its kind.
“Music has played a pivotal role in our stores for over 40 years and we have been at the forefront of how to integrate it into a retail environment,” Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said. “Today is the next era in that experience. We are merging the physical and digital, providing new access points for Spotify as they continue to grow globally, placing more control into our customers’ hands and giving artists the world’s largest stage for them to share their talent.”
The core of this is that the music playing when you walk into any of the participating Starbucks locations is a simple Spotify playlist. If you like what you’re hearing, you’ll be able to immediately find out what is playing with a quick glance at your phone. If you want to hear it again later, you can save the song to Spotify right there. You’ll also be able to see recently played songs, so you don’t need to worry about identifying the song right away.
Starbucks will be sharing new playlists on Spotify, but the company will also be sharing some of the most popular music played in and sold at the company’s coffee shops in the past 20 years. These playlists will be available to any Spotify user, not just those paying for a premium subscription.
“Starbucks shares our passion for music and desire to create the best, personalized experience for users and customers,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said. “Together with Starbucks, we’re creating a unique new digital music experience that offers Starbucks customers and Spotify users the ability to discover even more music at Starbucks and enjoy that same music and more on Spotify, whenever they want and wherever they are.”
As part of this new experience, Starbucks will be kicking off a weekly feature in its own app, shining a spotlight on up and coming artists as well as those you’re probably already aware of. If you’re a heavy music collector, this likely won’t mean much to you, but for casual music listeners this could be a great way to discover new music.
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