Playlists and Music Discovery | Spotify for Artists Masterclass 

Just want to say to everyone putting their music out there that you guys are successful even if you don't get placed on any editorial playlists or have a pile of streams, followers or monthly listeners. You guys are putting your music out there for the world to hear and that is not always easy to do. Making a song is difficult in itself. Don't let things like this knock you down. We all know Spotify is just a business and that's it. We all know how Spotify really works. Just keep doing what you do and don't worry about the numbers. Create what you want to hear and don't be afraid to show your art and feelings.

13:12 This is a big reason why their pitching system is so flawed. Placements should be based on the literal songs, not these arbitrary social contexts. These editors are not actual musicians which makes them dependent on abstractions like "artist narratives." Honestly this explains why there is so much bad music being promoted on editorial playlists.

I’d love to believe Sulinna at 8:42, but considering how irresponsibly some of the playlists are curated, I’m skeptical. My video about Spotify’s “phonk” playlist goes into more detail about the issue. It deeply resonated with the phonk community, now sitting at over 3 million views and 200K likes, and even though the video was sent directly to the playlist editor by a Spotify employee, nothing ever changed. So I’m sure you can understand why I’m skeptical when Spotify’s editorial team claims to care about representing music culture. Please do better.

Thank you for the insight. The livestream was pre-recorded and like a mix of info and advertisment for spotify. When you make "Live Classes" I suggest that there is a possibility to interact with you and pose questions. Also I think 200 curators are not enough. Your at the ear of the needle. Your job brings highest responsibility because you can decide who can live from their music. You influence human fates! As an unknown Artist, I hope you can develope even better, neutral ways to evaluate good music. Best!

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Masterclass 02:23 - Editorial Playlists 03:51 - Personalized Streams 05:45 - Global Editorial Team 09:10 - Audience Representation 11:36 - Music Submission 14:29 - Artist Context 17:53 - Fan Base Building 19:16 - Playlist Curation 21:42 - Artist-Curated Playlists 22:39 - Playlist Pyramid 23:07 - Rover" by S1mba 24:31 - Fan Base Growth 26:26 - Music Discovery 29:17 - Emotional Context 30:45 - Editorial Milestones 32:12 - Fan Engagement 33:41 - Artist Insights 34:20 - Wrap Up: Avoid Third-Party Services 35:24 - Outro

Enjoyed it, quite a good masterclass guys, well done. Showed a lot of useful information, especially for the new and up-comming artists. Big love Spotify x

I just want to thank the team that put that Spotify Master Class, specially Bryan Johnson for working us through different section of the video, Sulinna , Yasmin that cover important aspect of playlist, and Joel exemple of the artist s1mba show the possible from the impossible realisation of climbing the the top of the pyramid ecosystem.

Thank you so much for this! Means the world to the artist community 💛💛

Thanks for the great tips! Love, The metal band that will be playing mainstages all over the world in a year after being added to various Spotify playlists 😀

The people in charge of editorial playlists seem like soulless clones.

I'm glad I was part of this masterclass.

Amazing. Who would have thought an established artist since 40 years that get a song on a super popular Netflix series would get more plays?! Complete surprise at the Spotify office, let’s look into this and write a blog post about our unlikely findings.

Thanks for the in-depth masterclass, S4A! :)

Thanks Spotify! Can’t wait for the music wrap!

I think it is pretty reasonable to "consider" artistic dimensions of the creator as nominating a song in a curated playlist. But, at the end of the day, people go to Spotify for listening music - not for visual or other types of content. As some of the fellows mentioned here, I also think that 95% of the reason being playlisted must be solely about the music itself.

Was very insightful, will definitely bring the ‘description-pitching’into practice. 💿💿💿

As someone who has done research, pretty much all artists on the playlists are represented by label support. Being a small artist with good songs isn’t always enough to get noticed.

This masterclass gave me more insights on how to go with the music after am done cooking it. Thank you

Thanks for this Masterclass, all very interesting and well presented 🙂

Super grateful for this! Awesome information in here! 🔥💯

Good advice here for all around, not just on Spotify. Nice!

Thanks for doing this video! So helpful!!!

Thank you for putting this together.

We are not a French band, and it literally says we're based in Florida on our bio. But for whatever reason, a 'human' on their editorial team placed us on a French Noise playlist that describes itself as the "French scene makes some noise!" We have the word 'noise' in our name... that's about it. I've contacted Spotify several times about this placement, as I think it's a disservice to actual noise bands from France that would be more deserving of that spot. They claim there's nothing they can do about it, and we've been on there for nearly two years. Le sigh.

The entire playlist scene is based on how who has more clout or not. Tis why i use apple music. Never cared much for Spotify. Even if u pay to get playlisted, you may get thousands of plays, most "listeners" dont stick around after that first (and last) play.

Master class ! Much luv 🙏🏼

Great vid, very insightful. This is a whole new game to learn.

Love this! Thank you 💜🙏🏾

Thank you Spotify! Great informative video ❤

So my new single came out today. 'confidence' didn't make a Spotify playlist. I'm hoping my 600+ followers help force it onto an algorithm playlist. Thanks for the video.

Thank you For This MasterClass

Thanks for the Insights !

Thanks for the insight, very informative!

I need the playlist. but I NEED that Marketing Campaign!!! this was good info to know

Been realeasing music consistently for over 2 years. Someday, you guys shall playlist me :) Not losing my hope, let's go!

I've never seen an unsigned artist on any big playlist.

Thanks for the insight

This was truly insightful thank u

thanks for the info guys!

Since when I started using Spotify I get to understand music more and it also impacted my knowledge on how to go about music and it moments. I always say it the platform Spotify and staff are just the best. They just too know what they are doing. God bless 🙌 keep the good work.. I can't do without Spotify now. Just the best.

Really helpful ❤

I am trying everything that was said. I hope i will succeed one day. 🙏🎵

Thx for the tips SFA team!

So, so amazing and insightful! Spotify do such a good job of continuing to level the playing field for independent artists :) Thank you Spotify for Artists!

Thank You So Much

Much love Spotify 🥀

Sbonge 🙌🏾

thanks for sharing.

How the hell do they only have 200 curators worldwide?

Very informative

how can I pitch my song if its already released on Spotify?

success together 💯

The way that it is set up, that you only submit "unreleased" music to their playlists, seems unreasonable. It is hard to determine when any of my releases will get released, often it is very quick, within a week of submitting it through distrokid. I just had to submit a request to distrokid to pull my latest release from stores, because spotify didn't release it to my verified artist profile, but to a blank Neai Tuppi profile, on spotify. Every other store was fine, but spotify incorrectly filed it.

Nice 🔥

How do you go about pitching an Artist's first release? Can you access Spotify for Artists before your first release? Thanks!

good stuff

10:20 this guy tells you exactly what to put in your description!!! the only problem is: there's no space!!! I can't both tell you what the song is about AND follow his advice cause there's no room to do so

oh wow! i didn't know that songs were placed higher/lower even on the same playlist depending on your listening habits that's interesting. If you pitch a song to spotify is it **guaranteed** to be heard? or do they get to much music to listen to everything?

🖤

I was lucky to watch this live ! Thanks for the insight 👍

I watched live yesterday afternoon. It was very informative and engaging. I learned a lot

Hi, why the Spotify for artists don't lemmy write the steps of the pitch, i put next un second steps and the button of next is dissable, i'd put where i come from and where i am now.. Can You help me please? Alfonso pialo profile

How long does it take to find my name on the page to claim my artist name after I upload my first song through OneRPM? Thanks in advance!

Y’all don’t show no love to the underground

my new song KIMIYA has been added to a bunch of massive playlists! my song now has over 250 saves. thanks spotify

Amazing content..very important stuff

Saw this live and already applying READY 4 WAR - FLAMEINKZ 🔥🔥🔥🇸🇻🇺🇸

TikTok's new music app will disrupt Spotify's monopoly.

now this is epic

Been on several of these edotorials myslef. But still have questions about how it works 🤔

I watched it live. Got an email notification. "Make It Out The Great" by Powderr is dropping on Spotify December 25th 2022. It's the best single off my upcoming debut album.

As a German rap artist its obvious that all the playlist spots are reserved for major label artists. there are literally NO indie rap artists in it. Don't pretend! just do better

Anyone thinking they are going to make the editorial playlists in a genuine way is delusional. These playlists just depend on having clout. Hence why the playlists are full of junk

thaughtful

How come the songs in the video Get no credit? No mention or anything?

Paying is out the question to do this we have over 50 artist on our own platform and they say that the data being collected needs to be re paid out to the creatives for scrapping there info and reselling it on marketing backend.

First

Jodnyl bet

Useful...but it tells me that if you make genre-defying, hard-to-label, music you have no chance of getting on a playlist. It's all still very genre-based despite talk of moods etc.

Like, like, like, like, like....... seems these folks have caught the "Like" disease......How many times can you use the word " like" inappropriately in a sentence. Very distracting. Also it's a shame that no musicians seem to be in this team.

Basically they saying they will put you in playlist if you are already famous tiktoker and also willing to spend thousands on marketing 😂😂😂

Spotify has no interest in helping independent artists, all their playlists are just mainstream artists driven by the major labels. I have been running my own label for a few years now, I have been pitching and not once have I made it to a Spotify playlist. haha

Good information but to make people sign up in advance for a specific time and then to find it is a prerecorded video with no audience interaction, Q&A, etc is somewhat deceptive and disappointing. As someone just getting started, trying to get heard and playlisted, I was expecting more. There are more useful videos than this that you don't have to sign up for.

what is said between 7:42 and 8:42 is so far from the truth, its impossible yall have experts but fail miserably making curated playlists or Eurobeat would be 90% of the regular EDM curated playlist and that's just an example its not even all of the issues with the edm curated playlists or other genres by that matter

Why prioritize renowned artists when authenticity and credibility seem to take a backseat? It's perplexing when we consider that independent artists struggle to garner even 300 views across all their short-form video platforms Moreover, platforms like TikTok have muddled the notion of credibility by sometimes misusing borrowed credibility, especially when they transform video into a trendy commodity. Instead of looking out for our audio and UGC.

if each of the 200 Editors listened to 20 seconds of each song, they could each review 300 songs in about 2 hrs. 300 songs X 200 editors = 60k songs a day 😉 You're welcome

Thank you for this🌟⭐️🧝🏻‍♀️🎵🎶🤍As an Artist it is nice to know that we are so thoughtfully chosen for Playlists🥰