Spotify Officially Expands Song Credits, Confirms Early 2026 Launch Plans for SongDNA and About the Song

Spotify has officially expanded its credits and unveiled SongDNA, a feature designed to shine a bit more of the spotlight on the many professionals who contribute to tracks.

The streaming platform today got the credits-expansion ball rolling and confirmed About the Song as well as the already-spotted SongDNA. On the credits front, Spotify previously displayed songs’ “topline” artists, songwriters, and producers.

Now, however, fans can view “all of the contributors who make each song possible” – among them engineers and performers. Currently live for mobile users, the bolstered credits offering is expected to arrive on “desktop over the coming months,” according to Spotify.

Next, SongDNA is being billed as “an interactive view that maps out connections between songs.” Within this Premium-exclusive view, the platform will assemble tracks’ collaborators, samples, and covers; the latter two sub-categories are “powered by WhoSampled,” which Spotify has acquired.

Finally, About the Song, also exclusive to Premium, will let subscribers “explore swipeable cards” describing the playing music’s inspiration, story, and/or cultural impact.

Perhaps most interestingly here, the songs’ “stories are sourced from third parties” – with a screenshot pointing to seemingly AI-powered summaries of text from Rap-Up, Time, and Wikipedia.

As for the features’ timing, the way Spotify sees things, “more than ever,” it is “critical to spotlight the humans, creative process, and stories behind the music.”

That presumably refers in part to the avalanche of AI audio hitting DSPs. As machine-made tracks’ chief contributors are, of course, robots, their credits, connections to other works, and purported stories are insignificant (or nonexistent) indeed.

Additionally, the credits buildout certainly aligns with Spotify’s well-documented superfan ambitions – especially since SongDNA and About the Song will be available only to paid subscribers.

Looking ahead to 2026, the service intends to make a Spotify for Artists preview of SongDNA and About the Song accessible “[e]arly next year.” That way, “you’ll have a chance to check out the features first, redeliver your credits if there are inaccuracies, and give us feedback,” Spotify summed up.

In a statement, producer Mike Dean applauded the improvements as “great steps forward in modernizing credits.”

“Back in the record and CD era, people read liner notes and it was a big thing to do while you listened,” the Hurry Up Tomorrow producer said. “We used to listen, read, and dream of being listed one day. Later in my life, when my career started, people discovered me through the credits long before the internet was popular.

“A lot of information gets lost in metadata when labels deliver, and credits for assistant engineers, additional producers, mastering engineers, and others often get left off. So I think expanding Song Credits and SongDNA are great steps forward in modernizing credits,” concluded Dean.