Thirteen years ago, our beer-goggled eyes met across a crowded dance floor in a tiny club. We’d been vaguely set up by a mutual friend – my flatmate – and, somehow, our pheromones cut through the throbbing, nondescript house music and nudged us towards the bar for tequila shots and flirtation …
It may have been dance music that inadvertently brought us together on the sticky lino, but it was a best of Bon Jovi album back at the ranch that sealed the deal. Our mutual appreciation for this very specific brand of poodle-rock had us sitting on the floor in a corner, duetting the entire album, and oblivious to our friends shuffling out of the room with their bleeding ears.
Years have passed, but music remains the food of love – so much so for many of us that it can apparently make or break a relationship. The online dating website OkCupid found that an interest in music is more important when choosing a partner than movies, books or sport. More surprising, a study by the audio purveyors Sonos revealed that couples who listen to music out loud have 67% more sex than those who don’t. But that’s only if they’re on the same aural wavelength, of course; one person’s pleasure can be another person’s House of Pain.
Enter Spotify Premium Duo, which, while not promising to revolutionise anyone’s sex life, is nonetheless aimed at satisfying cohabiting couples – through the medium of algorithms.
Premium Duo is a new monthly subscription service exclusive to two people living in the same household, and takes “the couple that plays together stays together” adage literally. It also works out much better value than if two individuals take out single subscriptions.
I was one of the many free Spotify users who recently decided I needed interruption-free music. I sussed out the subscription options and, since my boyfriend was also a free user, it was a no-brainer to pool our resources on Premium Duo.
Exactly like the Premium subscription, the benefits of Premium Duo include ad-free music, ie no enforced shuffle or caps on skipping tracks, while each of you can listen to your own stuff simultaneously and independently – you don’t have to take it in turns.
Signing up is a doddle and you can invite your other half into the account via email, WhatsApp or text. You each have your own login – there’s no shared email or password – and if you’re already Premium subscribers, you can upgrade to Premium Duo and see your music, playlists and recommendations migrate to the new plan respectively.
So far so easy, but what about the algorithms/playing-together-staying-together bit? That’s where Duo Mix comes in: a combined playlist put together by Spotify, based on the music each person is listening to. So no more bickering about who’s in charge of the tunes, but a 50/50 melange of your favourite bangers, ballads or whatever else tickles your collective fancy.
Once registered to Premium Duo, both parties need to join (or leave) Duo Mix either via the app or at www.spotify.com/account/duo. Both users will need to listen to their own stuff for a few weeks, to give the algorithm a chance to populate the new, bespoke playlist, then, hey presto, Duo Mix will be located in the Made for You section.
What we learned over a couple of weeks of getting to know Premium Duo – and Premium Duo getting to know us! – is that our tastes are pretty aligned, and that there’s a world of music out there to discover and enjoy together. There’s certainly more to us than repressed Bon Jovi fandom and a litany of 90s pop hits. As two middle-aged people, we have a habit of fixating on music that shaped our mid-teens and late-20s, so we both appreciated Duo Mix suggesting contemporary acts in our mix, such as Halsey, Idles, Jake Bugg and Chvrches.
We can also tweak our Duo Mix according to the vibe we’re trying to achieve. When we’re working from home, we favour silence and birdsong during weekdays. But when it comes to domestic chores, cooking and Sunday afternoons reading the papers, we can switch between Duo Mix’s Upbeat and Chill playback options, categorising tracks into jaunty or mellow.
So if you’re at home with your loved one, and listening to different music in different rooms (or on headphones), it might be time to unplug and reconnect. “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music,” said Aldous Huxley, and, safe to say, for every murmur of a baby boom after the coronavirus pandemic, there are many more couples struggling to get their mojo back. Spotify Duo Mix, then, could just be the party-for-two you’ve been waiting for, poodle-rockers optional.
Spotify Premium gives you music without the interruptions. To find out more, click here
