Genius tests out swipe-able 'song story' explainers
Snapchat-esque 'stories' add interviews, playlists and more to a handful of tracks.
Genius, which you might remember from its slick Behind The Lyrics feature on Spotify, is now introducing an even richer, Instagram Stories-style feature, with some YouTube assistance. Song Stories folds together Genius artist interviews, social media missives, concert videos and interactive elements (like quizzes) to swipe along to as the track plays.
Like Snap or Instagram Stories, cards will also automatically swipe themselves, so that lyric quotes and other thematic card line up in time. Swiping up will open up other videos or sites related to the track or artist. You can take a quick look how this all comes together here. Genius showed us several demo stories for the likes of Cardi B, Joy Division and Troye Sivan, but at this point it's still just an experimental feature that'll include over 10 songs at launch on both the Genius site and companion mobile apps.
Like Behind the Lyrics on Spotify, it'll be interesting to see how many further tracks get covered in this experiment. It takes more effort to make these media-rich additions than simply folding in pre-existing lyrics. Ilan Zechory, Genius's co-founder and president said that: "Genius and YouTube, the two biggest sources of musical deep cuts and rabbit holes on the planet, are natural collaborators on this mission."
