With Season 4 of Stranger Things, Volume 2 arriving on Netflix today, it might be a good idea to discover your own personal “savior song”, one that will free you from Vecna’s clutches. Spotify can help with this.
To go back a little — to Stranger Things season 4, volume 1, specifically — in episode 4, the gang discovers that music can overwhelm Max, allowing her to break free from Vecna’s clutches and escape the Upside Down. The song that makes this happen is Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’, a track that reached the Billboard Top 100 on its initial release in 1985 but has since risen to number one in the UK. . and number 4 in the US after airing that episode of the popular Netflix show.
With 465 million ‘Running Up That Hill’ streams (and counting) on Spotify, the service took notice and partnered with Stranger Things, who later tweeted a link to an Upside Down playlist on their official Twitter account:
want to know which songs would save you from vecna? go to your upside down playlist on @Spotify to find out 🎧 the first song on the list = your savior song 🎧[pictwittercom/N3KOU3ohSK[pictwittercom/N3KOU3ohSK[pictwittercom/N3KOU3ohSK[pictwittercom/N3KOU3ohSKJune 29, 2022
By clicking on that link, Spotify users can check out an upside-down playlist with a personal lifesaving song, as determined by the service’s algorithms. It works? Well, more or less. My own savior song determined by Spotify is ‘Simba Lines’ by something called Baked Shrimp. I had never heard this before, and after a brief listen, I decided it should be at the bottom of my list, or better yet, released into the Upside Down.
The second song, ‘Lust for Life’ by Iggy Pop, was more my speed, and would absolutely provide the burst of energy I needed to get away from the relentless Vecna. So Spotify is not 100% off.
Analysis: Spotify’s Pop Culture Partnerships Can Keep You Relevant
Competition in the music streaming world is fierce, with Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited steadily decreasing Spotify’s dominance, along with smaller services like Deezer, Tidal, and Qobuz. Faced with this situation, Spotify is constantly adding new features – from podcasts, to the newly announced ones. audiobooksfor a new Karaoke Mode where users can sing along to the tracks and the service listens and rates the performance on a scale from 1 to 100.
Despite these efforts, Spotify, which has recently seen a huge drop in its paid subscriber base, has not stack up as a good value compared to your competitors. A major sticking point is the no-show of Spotify HiFi, a lossless CD quality level that the company originally announced in February 2021. As the company continues to keep the promised update in the background, Apple Music and Amazon Music added lossless, high-res audio to their basic subscription plans under $10, while Tidal offers lossless audio for the same price. Spatial audio is another attractive feature found across all three competing services, and it’s one that Spotify hasn’t yet mentioned as a potential upgrade.
What Spotify has to offer that sets it apart is an ad-supported free tier of service, although the quality is limited to a mere 160kbps (on the mobile app, 120kbps on the desktop). Its $9.99/month Premium tier, in contrast, maxes out at 320 kbps.
Between its ad-supported free tier, smart features like Karaoke mode, and astute marketing partnerships like that of Stranger Things, Spotify has managed to stay relevant and keep its listener base steady, even as its paid service competition offers superior offerings. . When you add it all up, the cumulative result might just be Spotify’s own lifesaving music.