What is the oldest song on Spotify?
Over the past 20 years, Spotify has observed peaks and troughs of public rapport alongside a steadily rising profit curve. Today, the streaming giant’s name is often thrown about in bitter discourse related to royalties disputes, and for good reason. Spotify is currently the world’s most popular music streaming platform. However, undercutting some of its closest competitors, Spotify generally pays its artists less per stream than most other mediums ($0.003-$0.005 per listen).
Love it or loathe it, Spotify has dominated its niche and provides a vast library of music to the fingertips of its subscribers. While the audio quality may not sate the requirements of vinyl addicts, it’s safe to say that even Richard Branson would find it challenging to store every second of Spotify’s library in record format, and he owns a 74-acre island in the Caribbean.
Spotify holds most of the popular music one might think of, with the exception of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell’s sorely missed oeuvres; whether you’re into death metal or calypso, Spotify has you covered. While most of Spotify’s library consists of music written this side of 1960, its oldest dates back to the 14th century BCE, discovered on a clay tablet in the 1950s. Titled ‘The Hymn Of Ugarit’, this ancient sequence obviously wasn’t recorded 3,400 years ago, but in 2008, Al-Pha-X transposed the ancient carvings into the digital age. Hear below.
The oldest recorded song on Spotify dates back to between 1900 and 1920 and appears on the French compilation album Anthologie De La Chanson Française. Although information relating to these recordings, such as specific dates, is markedly lacking, Henri Fursy, Lucien Boyer, Ainé Mevisto and Gabriel Montoya are among the credited singers. You can also hear this album below.
Although it doesn’t appear in the Spotify library, the first-ever recorded song was the classical French song ‘Au Clair De La Lune’. The eerie, muffled recording was made on Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s groundbreaking phonautograph machine. Read more here.
When was Spotify founded?
Spotify was founded in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in Stockholm, Sweden. The idea originated when Ek realized the need for a legal digital music streaming platform that offered a vast library of songs accessible to users worldwide. Ek teamed up with Lorentzon, an experienced entrepreneur and investor, to bring his vision to life.
Spotify officially launched to the public in October 2008. Since then, it has grown to become one of the world’s leading music streaming services, with millions of users globally accessing its extensive catalogue of songs, audiobooks and podcasts.
How many songs are on Spotify?
Spotify prides itself on unrivalled scope. Currently, subscribers can enjoy over 100 million songs, five million podcast titles, and 350,000 audiobooks. Spotify surpasses competitors like Apple Music and Tidal as the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with more than 602 million users, including 236 million subscribers in more than 180 markets, per the company’s official website.
