Uber And Spotify Pair Up To Allow Riders To Choose Their Own Tunes For The Drive

Look how much fun these good-looking people wearing sunglasses are having!

“What do you mean when you say you ‘have no Janet Jackson’??!?!” at least one car full of people has gaspscreamed at at least one car service driver (sorry, guy). That outraged reaction could be a thing of the past for Uber customers, as the company has joined forces with Spotify to offer Spotify Premium account holders the ability to play their own playlists and control the music during some Uber rides.

In this case, “some” Uber rides means in cars that are “music-enabled,” the companies explained in an announcement today in a joint statement. The rollout starts Nov. 21 in 10 launch cities: London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney and Toronto.

You’ll have to have a Spotify Premium account first of all and then connect it to your Uber account — and only this one time –from the Uber profile screen or sign-up page.

Then any time you request a rider in the Uber app and it shows you’ve matched with an Uber that has music, the music bar will appear at the bottom of the app. Tapping it allows riders to either select music from a ready-made playlist, queue up your own playlist or search for new stuff to play during the ride.

When the car arrives, your music will supposedly already be playing when you get in. You can then put your phone away and enjoy the ride, or wirelessly control the tunes from either the Uber or Spotify apps.

This sounds neat, but as it’s unclear how many drivers will actually have music-enabled cars. As such, we’ve reached out to Uber to see if we can get an idea of how widespread the music option is expected to be.

Because if I can’t get some JJ on when I’m in the mood for it, I’m going to employ the gaspscream if I need to.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist