Spotify’s new Group Sessions feature lets you control a queue with your friends

12 May 2020, 12:18

Up to 100 Premium users can control the same queue at the same time.
Up to 100 Premium users can control the same queue at the same time. Picture: Filip Radwanski via Getty/Jay Versace
Sophie Thompson

By Sophie Thompson

Spotify's Group Sessions feature, which launched on May 11, will allow Premium users to control, skip, and add to a collective queue with their friends.

It's been mere weeks since we all went wild for Netflix Party, the new add-on that allowed us to stream along with our friends, and now music giant Spotify is following suit, with their aptly named new feature, Group Sessions.

The new feature, which was rolled out on May 11, will allow Spotify's 124 million Premium users to stream along with their friends and control one collective queue. We can already hear the arguments brewing over who added the Frozen soundtrack to the group listening party.

Just last week, the streaming platform launched a Listening Together campaign, which included a website that created notifications when two users anywhere in the world started listening to the same track at the same time, and Group Sessions is about to level that up.

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In order to use the new feature, you do need to be close to whichever user 'hosts' the listening party, as you'll need to be able to scan a barcode on their phone to gain access. All participants will then be able to add, remove, play and skip tracks in one collective queue, and the session will automatically close when the queue has been inactive for more than an hour.

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The best part? Up to 100 users can be controlling the same queue at any one time, and we already know not a single song is going to make it the whole way through without drama ensuing.

Let the games begin.

Unfortunately given the current circumstances (thanks a lot coronavirus), not many of us will currently be able to use it, as it's designed for people to listen on a speaker together in the same room, and at present, you can't stream the queue from multiple homes - although people seem to be pretty excited about it anyway...

The post-lockdown parties are about to be seriously lit. Or chaotic. Choose your friends wisely.

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