This is a first for a music streaming app: Deezer is launching a lyrics translation feature.
If you’re the type to search for lyric videos on YouTube for your favorite songs, you probably also enjoy reading the lyrics when listening to them on mobile. Music streaming platforms are now betting on it. So, Spotify offers the feature, and it was also available on Deezer since 2014.
It turns out that Deezer has just extended the display of lyrics to that of translations. The translation feature has been active since April 11, 2022, on the web app, on iOS and on Android — you just need to update if you haven’t already.
What titles are translated by Deezer?
In the immediate future, the translation is not valid for all the titles which have the lyrics displayed live. The platform explains that this is limited to “ most popular titles ”, which would represent at this stage, according to Deezer, 10,000 eligible songs.
About fifty of these titles, the most listened to recent songs, are gathered in the playlist entitled Hit Tracks, Hot Lyrics.
However, we note that the deployment still takes a little time: many titles gathered in the playlist do not yet have accessible translations, titles that are very popular such as Happy Than Ever by Billie Eillish, or Shivers by Ed Sheeran.
In addition, for the moment, Deezer specifies that this only concerns titles in English, translatable into French, Portuguese, German and Spanish. You will therefore not yet be able to have French translations of titles in Korean or Spanish, for example.
Note that the quality of the translations leaves (for the moment) something to be desired, so it would seem that they are automatic and not carried out by humans.
How do I enable lyrics translation on Deezer?
To check if lyric translation is available for a track, just go to the usual live lyric display — the little microphone at the bottom right of the cover. If available, a “with translation” button will be displayed at the very bottom.
The translation will simply be added to the lyric text — smaller, below each verse.
What about Spotify and Apple Music?
Although Spotify and Apple Music also have a live display of the lyrics, this is not the case of the translation functionality, launched only by Deezer on this date. The case of YouTube Premium is a bit different, as all you need to do is access the lyrics videos.