Genius gives Apple Music a brainy boost with new lyrics integration

By Kris Wouk Updated January 11, 2021

If you’ve ever wondered about the words to a given song, chances are fairly good that you’re at least somewhat aware of music lyrics service Genius. In a major move, Genius has partnered with Apple Music to add lyrics to the streamer’s content.

One major complaint users have had about Apple Music is that it doesn’t have any built-in support for lyrics. Now that has changed, as you’ll be able to find the lyrics to any of the “thousands of hit songs” supported by the service. That’s cool on its own, but the partnership goes further.

As part of the new working relationship, Genius has made Apple Music its player of choice for both the website and its mobile app. Now Apple Music subscribers will be able to easily play any music they find on the Genius website, simply by signing in with their Apple Music account details.

“Being able to read lyrics and annotations on Genius while you listen along on Apple Music is a dream Genius experience,” Genius chief strategy officer Ben Gross said in the blog post announcing the new integration. “We’re proud to make Apple Music our official music player, and we’re doubly excited to bring Genius lyrics to their amazing platform.”

This isn’t the first time Genius has partnered with a music subscription service. In 2016, the company partnered with Spotify to launch the Behind the Lyrics feature, which combined snippets of lyrics with the meaning behind them and explanations of background details. Earlier this year, Genius teamed up with YouTube to launch Song Stories, which combines clips from music videos and concert footage with informational snippets about the song in a Behind the Music-style format.

The difference with this new partnership is that Genius seems much more heavily invested in its partnership with Apple Music. This could be simply due to the fact that Apple Music is currently leading Spotify in the U.S., or we could see more from the two companies moving forward. Apple Music is currently available on the web version of Genius and its iOS app. Genius says it will have more to show off moving forward.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

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