Today marks the worldwide launch of Spotify’s brand new ‘Follow’ tab, which allows music lovers to follow their favourite artists, musicians, celebrities, and brands. It’s another step forward in the future of music listening and Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s vision of this future (more on this after the video). The launch is accompanied by the ‘Follow Phoenix’ video, in which the French alt-rock band is seen spending the day in Portland, Oregon before one of their shows.

Spotify users will be able to get recommendations from their favourite and most inspiring music legends such as Shakira, Skrillex, Metallica, Bruno Mars, etc.. Friends, journalists, trendsetters, and media can be followed as well which makes it possible to discover the favourite records of Barack Obama, David Guetta, One Direction, and Daniel Ek among others. There are also many Dutch artists active on Spotify such as Anouk, Nick & Simon, and The Opposites.

To show how easy it is to use this new feature, Spotify has collaborated with Phoenix on a video following the band during 24 hours in Portland. This morning, only a portion of the 18-minute documentary was available, but as the day goes on, users can come back and watch more. By the end of the day, all 18 minutes will be viewable. The video can be watched below and comes just a few days before their new album Coachella will be released.

This new feature is just the beginning for Daniel Ek and Spotify, as he explained on CNET. Spotify’s future seems bright with 24 million active users, of which 6 million pay to subscribe. Spotify has a speedy growth rate and is on track to pay its rights holders $500 million this year alone – the same amount the company paid out in total since its 2008 launch. Spotify has become the big music label’s second largest digital revenue source behind Apple.

The story behind Spotify started when Daniel Ek’s parents (both musicians) gave him a guitar and Commodore Vic 20 computer for his 5th birthday. Aged 14, in the middle of the 1990s Internet boom, he taught himself HTML and started making commercial websites and soon made $15,000 a month. Two years later, he applied for Google who rejected him because he lacked a degree. He started working for Tradedoubler building an analytics tool and eventually making $2 million for the rights and patents.

Ek was 23 and picked up the fast life – including the Ferrari and luxury appartment – only to realise he was unhappy. He traded all of this for a secluded cottage and contemplated a life as musician. Ek decided to combine his two passions, music and programming, resulting in the first steps towards Spotify.

The ‘Follow’ feature is the onset of Daniel Ek’s vision of the music listening future. He believes that the experience of listening to music will become more individualised and connected. It will be, for instance, possible to link the music festivals you went to with the music you’re hearing when you’re back home. Another future improvement could be the ability to navigate through playlists and albums by bodily movements thanks to sensors built into our clothing. A less distant future possibility would be switching automatically between the speakers of our smartphones and of our home entertainment system when entering/leaving the house, thanks to automatic recognisition of the home Wi-Fi system.

Daniel Ek’s future of music listening is heavily anticipated and starts off with Spotify’s ‘Follow’ tab, while the possibilities remain endless.

More at CNET.