• Spotify Jam allows a group of up to 32 people control a collaborative playlist.
• The playlist must be hosted by a Spotify Premium subscriber who retains control but any Spotify user, free or paid, can contribute.
• The firm says it will continue to add improvements to this feature including the potential for voting on track order.

Have you ever been to a party where it seems like everybody’s favourite song gets airtime except yours? A new feature from the folks at Spotify could change that.

That feature is called Jam and it will allow up to 32 people to join a listening session where they can add tracks to a queue. The feature is being rolled out today but importantly, only Premium subscribers can start a Jam. Once a Jam has been started though, the host can invite any user, free or paid to contribute.

Ultimately, the host still controls the playlist and can remove tracks, change the queue order, and even remove participants. Participants can be added via a QR code, by tapping their devices together (with Bluetooth switched on), or with a link sent via SMS or instant messaging and social platforms. Spotify users will also be prompted to join a session when opening the app on a WiFi network where a Jam is being hosted.

While participants can all select whatever music they want, suggestions based on the tastes of everybody in the Jam will be offered up to everybody. This should help to make things a bit more fair.

Interestingly, Spotify says it will continue to improve this feature as reported by TechCrunch. According to that report, in future participants will be able to vote on the order of tracks and potentially more.

The key to this feature however, is going to be how Spotify recommends music as things can get very messy very quickly when you mix a group of people with wildly different music tastes.

“We are able to create great personalized recommendations because of our dynamic systems that consider a wide variety of inputs such as what you’re listening to, which songs you’re adding to your playlists, how others with similar tastes listen, and more,” design director at Spotify, Bryan Roy told TechCrunch.

“And with Jam, we have improved our recommendations to allow for more real-time listening,” he added.

This is a truly useful feature and we’re keen to see how it works in a group of people. We really just hope Spotify keeps its terrible AI DJ far away from this feature, the last thing we need is for a playlist to be interrupted by a terrible “radio DJ”.

As mentioned, Jam is being rolled out to all users globally. You may want to update your app if you want to give this new collaborative feature a whirl.