Spotify's New "Daily Drive" Playlist Gives You The News Between Your Favorite Songs

If trying to find the perfect mix of bops, mellow voices, and daily news for your drive to work has been adding more time to your commute than you’d like to admit, you’re going to want to listen up. Announced on Wednesday, Spotify is launching "Daily Drive," a personalized playlist of music, podcasts, and news meant to accompany you on your regular commute.

“Americans log 70 billion hours behind the wheel each year,” a press release from Spotify states, “with a big chunk of that time spent commuting to and from work or school.” Starting today, you’ll no longer have to curate your own morning commute playlist if you don’t want to; Spotify’s Daily Drive will do it for you. (The robots are winning and they know we like to start our mornings with a lot of Rihanna.)

Spotify’s Daily Drive is unlike the platform’s other previous curated playlists, specifically in the type of content it curates. The mix “combines the very best of news talk shows, including the relevancy and personality of the hosts, with the best of audio streaming (on demand, personalized playing and discovery). It combines music you love with relevant, timely world updates from reputable sources — all put together in a seamless and unified listening experience.” In other words, it makes sure the soundtrack to your drive has a little bit of everything.

Your Daily Drive playlist will include short-form podcast news updates in partnership with Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Public Radio International. It will also include a mix of songs you love and songs you’ll likely love (per Spotify’s “discover” algorithms).

Also, unlike Spotify’s other playlists, it will update significantly more frequently. While your Discover Weekly playlist changes week to week and your Daily Mixes update up to once daily, Your Daily Drive mix will update multiple times during the day. Thus, making sure both the news and music you’re listening to is fresh. Spotify describes Your Daily Drive playlist as “an escape from toggling between multiple stations to avoid music that isn’t quite your speed.”

You’ll be able to start listening to your curated mix starting today. Here’s how to access Your Daily Drive:

• Select “Made For You” on the left navigation bar under Your Library
• Scroll past your Daily Mixes and Discover Weekly to the “Even More” Section
• Click on “Your Daily Drive” and enjoy

If you’re having trouble finding it, you can always just search “Your Daily Drive” in the search bar.

Spotify is also releases a Driving Hub under its list of “genres.” There, you’ll be able to browse through popular playlists curated for road trips, divided by genre or mood. Want to have your own six-hour carpool karaoke session? There is an entire playlist for that. Curious what classifies as a “classic roadtrip song”? Here’s six hours of music for that as well.

As TechCrunch notes, the launch of Your Daily Drive appears to be part of the Spotify’s larger efforts to grow its podcast listener base. While songs will play in full (obviously), the news included in the mix will give listeners bite-sized versions of news podcasts.

This latest release comes about a month after Spotify announced it was testing an in-car smart assistant: “Car Thing”. In beta, Car Thing plugs into your car’s lighter and can be activated by saying, “Hey, Spotify.” Then, users can ask Car Thing to play specific music and podcasts.

As Spotify’s press release for Car Thing states, “We don’t have any current plans to make this specific device available to consumers, but the learnings from our test will dictate how we develop experiences everywhere you listen.”

In the meantime, you’ll just have to enjoy your curated Daily Drive mix.