Why Are Spotify Lyrics Wrong Sometimes? (Explained & Fixed)

The way you listen to music has changed. The internet has made it easier than ever to get your hands on new music and stream it straight from your phone.

With the rise in popularity of streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music, many people are choosing to forego their CD collection and buy digital copies instead.

But if you’re looking for a specific song or album and want to sing along with the lyrics, you might find that they aren’t exactly right. And that’s because not every lyric site is created equal.

One of the problems with Spotify is that it has a lot of wrong lyrics in its database because of this.

Here’s Why Spotify Lyrics Are Wrong Sometimes:

Spotify has a reputation for having the wrong lyrics. This happens because Spotify doesn’t have all the lyrics in its database, so it will sometimes use Google or Genius to find them. But this means that other services may have wrong lyrics as well, which then show up on Spotify.

How Are Lyrics Added on Spotify?

Lyrics are a big part of the Spotify experience. We all love to sing along to our favorite songs.

They’ve partnered with Genius, the world’s largest lyrics platform, to provide you with the most accurate song lyrics on Spotify.

Genius Lyrics is an online community that allows artists and fans to connect over their favorite music and lyrics.

Artists can submit their lyrics for free, and in return, they receive feedback from their listeners. Fans can discuss and annotate the meaning of songs with other fans around the world.

Spotify is using Genius Lyrics as a way to enhance your listening experience by offering a more immersive listening experience while providing artists exposure to millions of new listeners who may not have found them otherwise.

There are two ways your lyrics can be added to Spotify:

• You can submit the lyrics yourself.

• A listener can submit your lyrics for you.

If you want to add your own lyrics, you’ll need to write them in the correct format and then submit them to Spotify.

The way this works changes from time to time, but as of 2020, it’s relatively simple:

• Go to https://www.spotifyartists.com/l/edit/ and paste in a link to your full album on Spotify (the link should include a /spotify-artist-album-link/ after the title) or any track on that album if it’s just one song.
• (If you don’t know what this looks like, go to Spotify and search for one of your albums; it should have an “Album Artist” link next to it.)
• Once you paste that link into the box on this page, click “Add Lyrics”—that will make sure all of your songs have the same titles so they show up correctly when someone listens to your album or playlist on Spotify.

For a more in-depth answer, please take a look at our FAQ on Spotify and lyrics.

Does Spotify Use AI Software to Add Lyrics?

Spotify has made a big deal about using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its service.

At the end of last year, it announced plans for an AI-powered assistant called Spotify Insights. The company also has a partnership with Google called “Prepared for Success,” which aims to help musicians use machine learning tools to help them make better decisions about their careers.

But does Spotify actually use AI software to add lyrics and other information to its playlists?

It certainly looks like it, but let’s take a closer look at how Spotify’s playlisting process actually works.

Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service, with over 140 million active users and more than 30 million paying subscribers.

The company has built its success on a simple proposition: access to millions of songs on demand, anywhere. But there’s one thing that Spotify can’t do — supply lyrics.

That’s right — despite all the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Spotify doesn’t use either technology to add song lyrics to its vast catalog.

Instead, it employs hundreds of people around the world who manually add new lyrics as they’re released by artists and labels.

The Spotify Lyrics team is based in Stockholm, where it’s responsible for adding lyrics from Swedish artists such as Icona Pop and Avicii, as well as international acts like Madonna and Lady Gaga.

The team also adds lyrics for older songs that have been newly released on streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music after being unavailable for many years (for example, Prince’s Black Album).

Is There a Way to Report Wrong Lyrics to Spotify?

There are a few ways to report a wrong lyric.

If you’re on the desktop version of Spotify, click on the artist’s name and then click on “View artist.” This will bring up their information page where you can click “Add Lyrics” and report the error.

If you’re on the mobile app, click on “More” in the bottom right corner and then select “Report Lyrics Error.” You’ll be able to do this for both artist and album lyrics.

Once you’ve reported an error, Spotify will review it within 7 days and make any necessary changes so that all users can enjoy accurate lyrics.

Can You Edit Incorrect Lyrics on Spotify?

The answer is, yes. But it’s not as easy as you might think.

Spotify has a feature called Lyrics that lets you see the song’s lyrics along with the music.

This can be useful for learning to sing along or just to know what the song is about.

Unfortunately, there is no way to edit these lyrics — at least not yet.

Spotify will automatically pull lyrics from Musixmatch, which is a third-party app that Spotify uses to provide lyrics for its songs. If there are any mistakes in those lyrics, you will see them when you play your favorite tracks. You can’t edit these incorrect lyrics directly on Spotify — but there’s another way.

What Setting Do You Have for Lyrics on Spotify?

To check what setting you have for lyrics on Spotify, open up any song and click on the three dots in the top right corner of your screen (or tap on an Android device).

Then, choose Settings on iOS or Preferences on Android and look under “Showing Lyrics & Podcast Info” in the General section of your account settings page.

Your options are Normal, On or Off depending on whether or not they are turned off by default or if they are always shown when available (which is usually the case).

There are three options available: none, ID3 tags only and embedded lyrics.

• None means that there’s no text displayed next to your song title when you hover over it with your mouse cursor.
• ID3 tags only display only the song title and artist name as text in an MP3 file, but this isn’t visible in Spotify’s interface itself (unless you open up the file with an audio player).
• Embedded lyrics mean that if they exist they’ll be displayed within Spotify itself when you hover over a particular track — which makes sense because this is how most people listen to music these days anyway.

How Can I Fix It?

Spotify doesn’t have an option to fix lyrics automatically, but you can manually correct them yourself by downloading the song and looking at the lyrics before playing it.

You can also try using other apps that specialize in fixing lyrics such as Musixmatch or LyricFind – both are free to download from the App Store or Google Play Store (Android).

Conclusion

It also depends on what version of Spotify you use.

For example, if you have an old version of Spotify installed on your device and try to search for a new song, you may not be able to find it because it doesn’t have all the information about that particular track yet (or maybe it does).

In any case, there are ways to fix these problems and make sure that you get accurate information when using Spotify.

If you’re someone who truly loves to sing along or you are looking for a karaoke feature, check out our article all about Spotify and Karaoke.

Sources

• Genius: Spotify Intergration
• The Guardian: My Chemical Romance Accuses Spotify Off Using Wrong Lyrics