Lorde calls out Spotify’s AI song blurbs over wrong tour detail
The singer said Spotify’s beta “About the Song” feature misidentified one of her performances and asked for an artist opt-out.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
Lorde has taken aim at Spotify after the platform’s new AI-powered “About the Song” feature served up a description she said got her own stage show wrong.
The Grammy-winning artist posted about the issue on Instagram Stories on Thursday, sharing a screenshot of a Spotify-generated note for her song “Current Affairs.” The blurb described a moment from her Ultrasound World Tour and tied it to that track.
The Spotify text said that Lorde turns “Current Affairs” into a performance piece on tour, with a dancer pouring water over her stomach while she strips to underwear, making the song play out like a shower scene she discusses onstage.
Lorde tagged Spotify in her post and pushed back on both the accuracy of the description and the idea of attaching AI-written meaning to songs inside the listening app.
“Hey @spotify i’m gonna go out on a limb n say we don’t want this,” Lorde wrote, according to her Instagram post. She added that the description was “inaccurate” because it was “not the song i did that in.”
She also argued that presenting an AI summary beside a track could narrow what listeners take from it. Lorde wrote that “reducing a song to an ai generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation imo,” and asked Spotify to at least let artists opt out.
What Spotify says the feature does
Spotify announced “About the Song” in February as a beta feature. In its newsroom post, the company said the tool creates summaries by drawing on “third-party sources” to bring forward “interesting details and behind-the-scenes moments.”
The complaint lands as Spotify continues to build AI into its music products. The streaming service has used artificial intelligence for playlist curation and personalized recommendations, and it has also launched an AI DJ that speaks to listeners about their music tastes.
Lorde’s post focuses on a different use case: interpretation. Her objection was not just that Spotify’s description allegedly attached the wrong stage moment to “Current Affairs,” but that the app was placing an AI-generated reading beside the song itself.
The debate comes amid wider tension over AI’s growing role in music. Rolling Stone reported in March that producers, songwriters and artists have been using AI in studio work, often privately, describing the moment as the “don’t ask, don’t tell era of AI in music.”
For artists, the Spotify dust-up raises a more public question: who gets to frame a song once it reaches listeners. Lorde’s answer, at least for this beta feature, was blunt: give musicians a way out.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.