One of my favourite bands has just released a new album, which means I now have 11 new songs to learn the words to before I go see them play next!
Older versions of the official Spotify desktop client had a neat ‘karaoke mode’ that let you to sing along in time to your favourite songs as they played.
It was pretty handy.
Sadly, once Spotify’s deal with online lyrics database Musixmatch ended the streaming music service lost this feature. Despite promises it is yet to add any feature to display lyrics from anywhere.
But thanks to open-source music lovers who like to know the right words to their favourite songs, we are not without options…
Spotify Lyrics
Last month we spotlight Lyricfier. This handy open-source desktop Spotify lyrics app restores the much missed lyrics functionality, albeit in a separate window. Lyricfier is able to fetch and display matching words to the currently playing song in Spotify, not only on Linux but on Windows and macOS too.
But something it can’t do is sync lyrics in time with the music — the ‘karaoke lyrics‘ in earlier Spotify versions.
That’s where Spotify Web Player for Linux steps in.
Matthew James, developer of the (pretty awesome) app, has brought Spotify’s nifty ‘lyrics sync’ feature back in his web-wrapper app for the Spotify web player. The additional lets you click a button to see music lyrics on screen and in sync with the currently playing track.
Certainly beats my go-to alternative of watching home-made lyric videos on YouTube! Which, since I’ve mentioned it, is where you can see a demo of this lyrics sync feature in action:
Excited to try it yourself?
Well, don’t get too ahead of yourself. Matthew James say that he doesn’t think the feature ‘ will ever be good enough to be stable’ but, even in this beta state, ‘is nice to look at, right?’
James also suggests that it’s the last big ‘feature’ of desktop Spotify he’s implemented in his deluxe web player, telling us that the ‘many limitations with the web version of Spotify’ mean ‘the app will probably turn into a slow dev-cycle’ from hereon out.
Spotify Web Player for Linux is a free, open-source app. You can download the latest release, as always, from the project’s Github page though you won’t find autoscrolling lyrics available in the current stable builds — look out for it in a future update.
Thanks Matthew James