‘Riddled with typos,’ one user said. Musical theatre fans have issued a complaint to Spotify about their real-time lyrics feature. The music streamer introduced on-screen lyrics across its mobile and desktop apps in 2021. However, users have noticed errors in the words on screen and how they are spelled when following songs along.
A genre that users have repeatedly reported to be affected is musical theatre, with one person on X/Twitter highlighting mistakes in the lyrics for the Hairspray Live rendition of “(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs”. Words misspelled in the real-time lyrics for Kristin Chenoweth’s iconic solo include “believe” (“belive”), “really” (“realy”), “plate” (“plade”), “bumping” (“bumbing”), “can” (“con”), “tough” (“togh”) and “never” (“necer”).
One X/Twitter user dubbed the on-screen lyrics a “mess”, adding they were “embarrassingly incorrect and riddled with typos” and begged the streaming platform to rectify the errors immediately. Another social media user claimed the issue was “the case with lots of musicals on Spotify”, adding that the cast recordings of the Stephen Sondheim show Company often have “extra/missing lyrics”.
Spotify responded to the complaints, noting that the lyrics for songs are written by the market’s provider rather than by their in-house team. In the UK, Spotify’s real-time lyrics are provided by Musixmatch – an Italian music data company who also work with Apple Music and Instagram.
