# Spotify playlists



## Celestial Aeon (Mar 22, 2018)

I've been dabbling around with the concept of gaining more visibility through Spotify playlists, both official and unofficial ones. It seems there is quite a lot of potential as some of the unofficial playlists can have 10,000 followers or more, which often are quite active. There are also new service popping up such as playlistpush which makes the system more straight forward, connecting curators and artists together and working as a middle man. There is also tool such as chartmetric which makes finding reasonable playlists quite easy.

I can recommend dabbling around with the concept and seeing how it will work for you, I have managed to raise my 2000 monthly followers to 25,000 in relatively short time with some scouting and making connections.


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## Polkasound (Mar 22, 2018)

Would you happen to be from Bulgaria? 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/23/bulgarian_spotify_scam/


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## Celestial Aeon (Mar 22, 2018)

Haha, I guess that is taking the potential of Spotify a few bridges too far 

But on the serious note, there are actual playlists and actual listeners that do find out new music on Spotify every day via high quality playlists with no scamming involved. I've been honestly surprised at how well it can work as a medium to get your music heard by new ears. The problem is that it's quite random how the whole curator thing works.


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## Celestial Aeon (Mar 22, 2018)

One thing I do have noticed is that there are quite a few "artists" that can have millions of plays with only 4-5 tunes published, all of which have been part of official Spotify playlists, but if you google for the artist, you can't find anything. It seems that these are probably "Spotify ghost artists", meaning that Spotify has probably ordered a few custom tunes from them, which they integrate in their biggest playlists, and all the play revenue "stay inside the house" so to speak. Clever and reasonable, but a bit funky


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## J-M (Mar 22, 2018)

I think I saw a video by Alex Moukala where he talked about this. Too bad I don't have Spotify, nor do I have any tracks there.


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## Daryl (Mar 22, 2018)

Spotify is an immoral organisation, and people who actually care about the industry should avoid it like the plague. In my opinion.


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## Celestial Aeon (Mar 22, 2018)

Hm, could you elaborate a bit? For an indie musician like myself that creates music in style that would never get me any radio play or record deal the prospect of being able to get hundreds of dollars per month from streaming is something that doesn't really feel immoral and a plague. At the moment Spotify is one of the best things I have as an artist.


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## Daryl (Mar 22, 2018)

Celestial Aeon said:


> Hm, could you elaborate a bit? For an indie musician like myself that creates music in style that would never get me any radio play or record deal the prospect of being able to get hundreds of dollars per month from streaming is something that doesn't really feel immoral and a plague. At the moment Spotify is one of the best things I have as an artist.


Read this for a start:

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide....-are-all-these-fake-artists-on-its-playlists/


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## MatFluor (Mar 22, 2018)

Celestial Aeon said:


> being able to get hundreds of dollars per month



in 2017, Spotify payed out a whooping $0.00397 per play - so keep hustling to get those 30k plays for $100  

See here: https://thetrichordist.com/2018/01/...arketshare-of-both-plays-and-overall-revenue/

Not wanting to derail here at all, just needed to react to that statement above.

EDIT: took the wrong number, and added the source for the small stat


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## Celestial Aeon (Mar 23, 2018)

I understand both of your points but still I think it like this:

- if my music is not on Spotify, what will I gain?
- if my music is on Spotify, what will I gain?

I agree that the way they do the business contains lots of shady details, but it doesn't really make those two questions any different. I still think it is worth it. Every new listener, every stream is just + for me.

I currently get over 100,000 monthly streams without any "hustling". Remember that it is all basically passive income.


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## Daryl (Mar 23, 2018)

Celestial Aeon said:


> I understand both of your points but still I think it like this:
> 
> - if my music is not on Spotify, what will I gain?
> - if my music is on Spotify, what will I gain?


I have no problem with that outlook. For me I stick to my principles, but then again, I can afford to do so...! It doesn't alter my opinion that Spotify is a shady organisation, designed to rip off the majority of artists/composers. At some point composers will have to take a stand against the race to the bottom.


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## gregh (Mar 23, 2018)

Celestial Aeon said:


> I've been dabbling around with the concept of gaining more visibility through Spotify playlists, both official and unofficial ones. It seems there is quite a lot of potential as some of the unofficial playlists can have 10,000 followers or more, which often are quite active. There are also new service popping up such as playlistpush which makes the system more straight forward, connecting curators and artists together and working as a middle man. There is also tool such as chartmetric which makes finding reasonable playlists quite easy.
> 
> I can recommend dabbling around with the concept and seeing how it will work for you, I have managed to raise my 2000 monthly followers to 25,000 in relatively short time with some scouting and making connections.



I dont understand what you have actually done with the playlists - is there a method you use to get on the playlists or are they open? Can you elaborate? I use Spotify as a listener a bit and like it and have put a few tracks up recently. But have no idea how the whole thing works. I think Spotify is much better than using Soundcloud for which the artist gets nothing


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## gregh (Mar 23, 2018)

Daryl said:


> Spotify is an immoral organisation, and people who actually care about the industry should avoid it like the plague. In my opinion.


what should people do instead? If you dont make trailer music and similar there are not a lot of alternatives


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## Celestial Aeon (Mar 23, 2018)

gregh said:


> I dont understand what you have actually done with the playlists - is there a method you use to get on the playlists or are they open? Can you elaborate? I use Spotify as a listener a bit and like it and have put a few tracks up recently. But have no idea how the whole thing works. I think Spotify is much better than using Soundcloud for which the artist gets nothing



Well the playlistpush is a paid service that submits tunes to playlist curators. I still am just running my first small campaign on it and not sure yet if it's worth it, but we'll see.

With charmetric my process is searching for artists that I know are really similar to my music and see what are their most followed playlists. Then look for playlists that state in their descriptions that contact me for suggestions etc. Usually these playlists are owned by persons who have linked their spotify with their facebook so it's clear how to find them.


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## gregh (Mar 23, 2018)

Celestial Aeon said:


> Well the playlistpush is a paid service that submits tunes to playlist curators. I still am just running my first small campaign on it and not sure yet if it's worth it, but we'll see.
> 
> With charmetric my process is searching for artists that I know are really similar to my music and see what are their most followed playlists. Then look for playlists that state in their descriptions that contact me for suggestions etc. Usually these playlists are owned by persons who have linked their spotify with their facebook so it's clear how to find them.


Thanks, I will try some of that myself once I get a few more tacks uploaded. Be interested to hear back about your playlistpush experience


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