How To Add Meta Data To Spotify Tracks
Spotify tracks are often missing meta data. It’s odd considering it’s a premium service that doesn’t let users upload music. In stark contrast, music you download from iTunes has a good deal of meta data added to each file. The iTunes app may lose it when you sync music to your iPhone, or when you move your library but that’s to do with the app, and not the service itself. To rectify this problem, Spotify has added a new tool called Line-in. The tool can add meta data to Spotify tracks, and it lets you edit existing meta data as well.
Meta Data For Spotify Tracks
Visit Line-in and sign in with your Spotify account. You can use Facebook login too if you like. Use the search bar at the top to search for a track. Select one from the search results.
Line-in doesn’t play tracks. It’s basically Spotify’s own tool for looking at the meta data that accompanies a track. Any category that has an Add option under it allows you to add meta data. For example, in the screenshot below, you can see an ‘Add Genre’ option under Genre.
It’s not clear if the meta data you add will be accepted immediately. There has to be some way for Spotify to determine if the information is correct or not. Users may not always get it right for a track and if too many people get it wrong, it may affect Spotify’s search algorithm which can generate auto-playlists based on this kind of information.
Some categories, like the Explicitness category, asks for additional details that describe the song. This is obviously there because the idea of an explicit song may be different for different people. For some, it might be the usual set of curse words while for others, it might be certain themes of the song.
The other categories are far less subjective i.e. the genre and what language a song is in. Language is hard to get wrong but there can be some disagreement on the genre. The Line-in tool is a good way to crowd source meta data. Spotify will eventually have to implement and update tracks with the new meta data. There’s no timeline on when that will actually happen and since it relies on users to actively input the data, it could be a while. The tool works in a web browsers which means users who prefer the desktop app are unlikely to use it to contribute meta data.
