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Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

stevebenjamins.com

111–120 of 288 posts

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy with just a simple Incognito mode. Not so much that I'm embarrassed about listening to some things, as I am "I wonder what that sounds like" but don't want my recommendations poisoned.

This exists. It's called "Private listening". https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/how-to...

As opposed to public listening? This whole feature is named after a Freudian slip.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#112
post #95

> Plus I think asking listeners to listen to a full-length album don’t make sense in our attention-starved world. Asking listeners to listen to a single song might just be a more realistic ask. This is why I love listening to albums, because it flies in the face of throwaway/hyper-consumable media. Spotify, with its algorithmic playlists and singles focus, bolsters the throwaway consumption of music, but many artists…

> with its algorithmic playlists and singles focus, bolsters the throwaway consumption of music What is "throwaway" music? Personally, I tend to listen to genre-focused playlists I curate over time, and often in "radio" mode (so algorithms select similar music). When I find something new I really like, I add it to my playlist. Rarely do I find anything I actively dislike, but there's lots of stuff that I don't add bu…

By throwaway I mean music that is extremely popular for a short moment in time (measured in months or weeks) and then becomes irrelevant as the next hit single comes out. I don't mean throwaway in terms of musical preference or taste.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Spotify would do well to allow users to set a label of some sort on their listening. Like, there are times when you listen to your music for yourself in the car, and there are times when your phone is being used to power the speakers at a gathering. I don't know what the internals of the system looks like, but it seems like allowing users to maintain different profiles would be simple.

An incognito mode sounds like a pretty easy idea, have a switch that turns it on and none of your listening gets added to your personal data

I havent' checked but does Private Listening mode do that? Or is that just for other users not to see what you're listening to ?

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#114
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more reason why I prefer Google Play. The recommendations are based off a single station. If you start a new station it starts from scratch.

Am I the only one that received an email from Google telling me that Google Play music was going to close soon and that I should transfer my playlists?

Same here. Youtube Music is the replacement and it seems to have the same content and the same bugs, just a different design (which I personally find a bit less intuitive but I might be biased) and a new name. You can even upload your own music to YouTube Music now the same way it was possible with Google Music before. It's just Google making a new product to replace a previous one again instead of fixing/improving what they already have...

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#115

It's an interesting article, but the essential information is buried in the middle: In my experience, it’s only when I get on an editorial playlist that my songs get heavily featured on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly. So how do you get on editorial playlists? I sincerely have no clue. I've been on editorial playlists 16 times but I have no idea how to replicate that. I find that this is true of many of th…

yep, if this were reproducible, we wouldn't be reading about it in a blog.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#116

It's an interesting article, but the essential information is buried in the middle: In my experience, it’s only when I get on an editorial playlist that my songs get heavily featured on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly. So how do you get on editorial playlists? I sincerely have no clue. I've been on editorial playlists 16 times but I have no idea how to replicate that. I find that this is true of many of th…

Great point. And speaking from insider knowledge, I can tell you that there are consultants you can pay anywhere from a little bit up to thousands per month who will get you tested/placed on different editorial playlists. The more you can get on, and the longer you can stay on them (there is no guarantee of staying on, they only keep you on if you gain traction), the more success you will have.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#117

It's an interesting article, but the essential information is buried in the middle: In my experience, it’s only when I get on an editorial playlist that my songs get heavily featured on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly. So how do you get on editorial playlists? I sincerely have no clue. I've been on editorial playlists 16 times but I have no idea how to replicate that. I find that this is true of many of th…

I mean, it's the same thing with startup advice.

"We did X, Y, Z. Oh and we also got lucky".

It's not that X, Y, Z is necessarily bad advice, just that obviously nobody really knows how to be successful with anything. The closest you get is to know things that improve/decrease your odds.

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#118

65,000 listeners a month – $800 in revenue. 1.23 cents per listener per month. That works out to 14.7 cents per year. To earn a modest $50,000, you would need ~360,000 monthly listeners. This doesn't seem sustainable without outside sources of revenue.

He's doing this part time. A full-time music producer could easily make more/better music, especially if she is not touring. For perspective, an electronic artist I admire, Zhu, was once producing an entire song every single week. There is, however, no substitute for 'talent.'

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#119
Note that this is all applies only to easy listening music suitable for the background (I checked the author's playlist at the end). Not something emotionally intense or overly energetic that demands your full attention. Spotify is optimizing for muzak, and artists who thrive in this ecosystem are muzak.

I could (and soon will) go deeper to prove my point, but Liz Pelly already did a lion-hearted job covering the problems with streaming platforms and Spotify specifically — they have a catastrophic effect on music.[1]

Spotify is the No. 1 enemy of music culture and artistic expression.

[1] https://lizpelly.com/writing

Re: Carving out a niche as a small artist on Spotify

#120
post #34

Spotify's discovery playlist is a double edged sword. My account is permanently screwed because I decided to listen to a lot of rain sounds when going to sleep for a few months while I had a puppy. Now ALL I get for recommendations are calm sounds. I don't actually listen to these during the day, I want my old stuff. I hate it and want to reset the discovery playlist, but seems I have no way of doing so aside from ge…

Youtube suffers from the same bias in their algorithm. I bet it's just a bias setting or a single falloff that would help things. It reminds me of Cronenberg's "The Fly" where Brundle had to teach his teleporting pod to reproduce living tissue rather than interpret it.

YouTube however lets you create multiple (sub)accounts that you can easily switch to. Just create one for "sleeping", one for "animals", "news" etc.

This is what's perhaps missing from Spotify, an easy way to namespace your account activity.

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