Warner Music, Def Jam Record Labels Among Spotify’s 12 New Apps

The record labels are in bed with Spotify, and now they’ll be in its app tray too. Tomorrow morning Spotify launches its second round of apps — 12 new ones from labels like Warner Music Group, Def Jam, and indie favorite Matador. There’s also more ways to discover and rate songs with apps like TweetVine that charts popular songs from Twitter, and Filtr that generates playlists based on your Facebook Event guests.

Since none of Spotify’s competitors have gotten an app platform out the door, the discovery potential of the feature could differentiate the company and strengthen its domination of the streaming business. [Update: These apps are now live in the Spotify App Finder.]

Spotify first opened its app platform at the end of November, allowing in 15 music discovery apps from a variety of independent developers, music publications like Rolling Stone, and established services like Last.fm.

As of March 6th, Spotify said 1500 years of time had been spent in the apps. Spotify currently has 5.8 million daily users and 17.3 million monthly users according to the AppData tracking service. That means each monthly user has spent and average of 45 minutes using the app platform.

As of tomorrow there’ll be 27 apps available. Unfortunately none are available via mobile. That’s something that will need to change if Spotify is anything like Pandora which has seen mobile climb as as a percentage of total usage over the years.

Until recently, humans have never had the ability to instantly listen to any song in the world. That amount of choice can be daunting. With more discovery apps to lend guidance, users will spend more time listening to ads or being annoyed enough by those ads to buy a subscription. If enough buy in on top of the 3 million people who already have, maybe Spotify will reach the 12.34 million subscribers it needs to prove Sean Parker right and overtake iTunes’ revenue within 2 years.

Here’s a look at what each of the new apps does:

Record Labels

the warner sound: Check out featured songs, albums, and playlists from major label Warner Music Group artists such as Green Day, The Doors, and Cee Lo. The app also includes genre-specific playlists, album of the day, artist family trees, and artist-curated playlists.

Def Jam: Browse a consolidated library of Def Jam Recordings including hip-hop, rap, R&B, and pop from artists such as Kanye West, Rihanna, and Nas.

Matador Records: View an interactive guide to the music of New York indie label Matador Records, as well as new releases, tour dates, and playlists.

Domino: Listen to the catalogue of indie label Domino which includes Pavement, Animal Collective, and Arctic Monkeys, plus get custom catalogue exclusives and commentary.

[PIAS]: Hear new albums, playlists, and recommendations from European indie label [PIAS]

Discovery Services

Filtr: Generate playlists based on the music tastes of your Facebook friends or guests of a Facebook Event, as well as your Spotify listening preferences. This app created by a team from Sony Music in Sweden is the one I’m most excited about, since it will make it a snap to create a party playlist everyone will enjoy.

TweetVine: Listen to the TweetVine website’s charts of the most popular songs on Twitter with the hashtag #NowPlaying. The app was built at London Music Hack Day by Matt Larsen and Matt Schofield from Universal Music.

Digster: Check out new playlists every week, see playlists that match your listening history and Facebook Likes, and play music in full-screen for easy DJing. From Universal Music Group.

Hot or Not: Vote between songs, earn points and badges, and contribute to a Hot playlist. From Warner Music Group.

The Legacy Of: View hi-res photos, curated playlists, biographies, and album recommendations from the world’s most celebrated artists. This is another app created by Sony Music

Classify: Browse an intelligently organized library of classical music by composer, era, mood, instrument or genre.

The Complete Collection: See rich background information on artists you’re listening to including lyrics, liner notes, images, producers, and writers. From Universal Music Group.