Why Song Psychic?  Why Not?

Spotify’s latest feature, Song Psychic, resembles a Magic 8 Ball, where users receive answers to their questions in the form of song recommendations.

• Song Psychic offers playful responses without accessing user listening data.
• The feature operates by matching keywords in song titles with questions, rather than using personal data for responses.

Spotify released its new Magic-8-Ball feature called Song Psychic, which allows users to ask their questions and receive answers in the form of songs.

Spotify got its inspiration for Song Psychic from the nearly 250,000 psychic-related playlists globally on its platform. Unlike Spotify’s Warped feature, Song Psychic doesn’t gather a user’s listening data. It actually solely relies on the company’s vast music library and understanding of song titles to offer whimsical responses to the questions.

To use Song Psychic, you can visit spotify.com/songpsychic on your mobile devices or scan the provided QR code. Once on the Song Psychic page, you can choose from categories like Love, Career, School, and more. Within each category, you can either select pre-populated questions or input your own. After submitting a question, vibrant colors swirl on the screen, accompanied by mystical music, before revealing the answer in the form of a song. You can then share the results on your socials.

Although it feels like it’s AI-driven, it’s not. It matches specific keywords in song titles with the questions asked, rather than analyzing someone’s song history on Spotify. Such new Spotify features are always fun to try.

So, I tried it. I asked, “Will I get a raise?” because, in this economy, I’ll take hope from anywhere I can, even an algorithm. It answered with Lorde’s Green Light. Do you think I can submit this to HR? The 21st-century oracle has spoken, after all.

Then I asked it if I was the drama.

The answer was a resounding NO, in the form of Megan Trainor’s NO. Ego-boost anyone?

It lagged a little bit, and I couldn’t input my own questions for some reason—I really wanted to know if my partner would like his anniversary gift. But it’s all forgiven because it made me giddy.

It gave me a taste of something I’ve since long forgotten. Merriment. The sole purpose of this is entertainment. And when was the last time someone made something just for the fun of it? No data collection plan, no real purpose. They built it because they could, and it sounded fun.

It dug up this buried memory from over a decade ago. I was a kid, and technology was not very widespread in our region. My dad had this laptop—was it an Acer or a Toshiba? —and its webcam had these silly, weird, and funny filters. My cousin and I would spend hours making videos of ourselves, laughing hysterically at how we looked in the filters. It seems silly now, but they were the funniest thing in the world back then. We were kids with nothing much to do. Those videos are now long lost, but the memory burst into my mind in all its colors and noise. Mostly laughter.

As odd as you might find this, the nostalgia brought me to tears. I had forgotten what it felt to just enjoy what centuries of technological development had given us.

This joy at having a new toy. A silly, stupid, and laggy toy. But my word! It’s fun. Just laughter at the ridiculousness. When was the last time you felt unadulterated joy?

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