Cynthia Erivo and Hilary Swank read classic novels for Spotify

Lawrence Kim

January 27, 2021

Asked by AFP, a spokesperson for Spotify said that this launch was part of "tests" that the Swedish group regularly "to improve listening to our users".

In addition to the above-mentioned titles, Spotify enlisted well-known narrators to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage, and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, among others.

This is not the first time Spotify has commissioned and officially launched audiobooks on its platform.

Known to be a music platform originally, Spotify has made podcasts a growth driver since early 2019, and now seems to be taking a closer look at audiobooks, the only literary publishing sector to post premium rates. double-digit annual growth. Next up on the company's list of markets to conquer is audiobooks, potentially setting up a clash with Amazon's Audible. Swank read Kate Chopins "The Awakening". The company has experimented with audiobooks before, bringing the first book in the Harry Potter series to the platform previous year with narration by celebrities like Daniel Radcliffe, David Beckham, and Dakota Fanning, but we hadn't heard anything since then.

Spotify has not announced any concrete plans regarding the launch of other types of subscription plans, however, and it has not yet elaborated on whether it will expand its audiobook lineup with more novels that are not in the public domain. It's also releasing an accompanying audio series called Sitting with the Classics on Spotify, a show in which Harvard professor Glenda Carpio explains the stories' histories and narratives for a modern listenership.

Spotify has a massive library of music and an online culture magazine, called 'The Pudding, ' designed an AI that tells you if your taste in music is good or if it is just plain very bad.

Another shared they had been told, due to their constant playing of Eminem and Blink 182, that their playlist was 'moms-spaghetti-high-school-graduation-middle-aged-pop-punk bad'.