If you’ve ever been asked to be the DJ at a party or a gathering, you know how stressful it can be. Some people thrive under that pressure, but others struggle, especially if their music tastes don’t perfectly align with everyone else’s. Well, this week, Spotify released a new feature called Jam that might have solved this problem once and for all.
Spotify describes Jam as “a personalized, real-time listening session for your group to tune into together.” The feature is available to all Premium users with the latest version of the Spotify app, allowing them to start a Jam and invite anyone else to join.
Once you start a Jam, Spotify will provide a list of recommended songs based on your listening preferences as well as the preferences of all the users that join, but you can add any song to the queue. Whenever someone adds a song, Jam will show their profile picture next to the track, so you know who to thank (or yell at) when the song starts playing.
In order to start your Jam session, select any playlist or song from the Spotify app. Next, tap the three dot menu or the speaker icon at the bottom of the screen, and hit the “Start a Jam” button. Any Spotify users on the same Wi-Fi will be prompted to join the Jam.
Once you’ve started a Jam session, there are three ways to invite more users:
- Turn on Bluetooth, then tap your phones together
- Have your friends scan the QR code on your host screen
- Hit “share” to send the link through social, text, SMS, and more
Everyone in a Jam can add songs to the queue, but the host can decide whether or not to allow everyone to change the order of the tracks. The host can also remove songs or even a user if they add “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex to the queue 47 times in a row.
