Songs in the queue for Spotify Playlist review

I’m approaching a year as a Spotify playlist curator, having started the Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist in May of 2018. While the playlist has amassed 107 followers in the time it’s been active, I don’t know how many of those “followers” actually listen. I’ve already talked about that downside of Spotify though, so I’ll move on.

The Underexposed playlist is at 137 songs, it’ll keep growing as time goes by, as will the Softer Side of Indie 2019 playlist as I cross songs that fit the angle I’m going for with that list.

How do I find the songs, though? While I’ve crossed some posted on Reddit’s Indie music community (which have tended to fit the Softer Side 2019 playlist most often), the majority of the songs I’ve posted on the Underexposed playlist have come from my listening to Lonely Oak Radio and other indie stations (Only Rock Radio, Catorweb, and Indie Star Radio primarily). When I cross a song that might fit the bill of the playlist, I put the name of the song and the artist into a txt file queue of songs to potentially add after review.

The queue file has a list that sometimes tops 70 songs. I can be picky-choosy in what tracks I listen to and review. The saying goes, what is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet? Yeah, well, a name draws in a song that uses a common title doesn’t draw me in. Negatively-titled songs or artists also tend to make me skip over them. They stay in the queue but I check out other songs first.

Picky-choosy. It might seem like a negative but that’s how it tends to be when you have a choice of what to click on or what angle you take when you have things to address.

What I’m going to do here is a little odd and pointless. While I’ve posted song lists before (for Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 lists), I’m going to post the active queue for my Soft Rock/Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary (independent artist) playlists. I do not intend to link to every song, I do not intend to update this list when I have reviewed the songs. I post this list in part for the sake of the artists; someone has heard your tunes and is considering putting the songs on a playlist on Spotify. so others can hear it

Of course, there’s also the chance some of these songs actually are exposed and have 1,000,000+ listens on Spotify and video-views on YouTube, it’s part of why I have to review these things! The tendance of what I cross, though, is many of the songs have less than 1,000 plays. Few have 10,000+, and I tend not to include songs with 100,000 plays or more (not that queued songs ever have that many).

While I say all this Spotify stuff, I also tend to review the songs via YouTube…where most of the songs haven’t been listened to. Some of the songs have music videos but the play-count is much lower than you’d expect (as popular songs in this day and age easily top 100 million views, indie videos for songs I cross tend to struggle to gain 100s of views, let alone thousands).

These are unsorted, non-reviewed. Most (if not all) should not include explicit lyrics – but I might be wrong on that (it’s another aspect of my playlist curetting – no explicit songs get included). In some cases, the queued track will prove to be unavailable on Spotify (not every artist is on there after all). There’s also the scant chance some of these are actually already on the list; I do willingly include multiple songs by an artist or band, so it’s a simple slip-up if the track is listed on here and already on the song lists.

I will also willingly take submissions. I am not looking to add hip-hop or EDM. or “chill beats”, nor Christian, Gospel or foreign-language tracks.

As of March 31, 2019, the review queue is 60 songs:

• W Ed Harris – Tell Me Ma
• W Ed Harris – A Time Ago
• W Ed Harris – Two Rivers
• Pete Merrigan – State of Grace
• Jimmy Lee Morris – Mandolin Dreams
• Watson Bradley – Tiger
• Worldview – Bad Faith
• [arguable] Lorenzo Gabanizza – Demons
• The Tearaways – Much Too Old To Feel This Young
• Riff Reign – Days Gone By
• Angus Powell – Monsters
• Ricky León – Hell’s Waiting Room
• Simon Stirling – Acorn
• UVTraveler – Annabel Lee
• Alan Garmonsway – Song for Sue
• Welsh Avenue – Germ Theory
• JoosTVD – Rottendance
• Brenda Loomis band – Dance Around The Fire
• Michael Crawford – From a Distance
• The Saw – Naughty N Nice
• Useless Dogs – Tired Young Cowboy
• Austin Colsn – Silence is Dangerous
• Mack Meadows – (You’re Never Gonna Find) Jeanie In A Bottle
• Velvet Starlings – Borrowed Time
• Kyle Johnson – My Little Girl
• Bo Hazard – Starting Tonight
• Et Tu Brucé – How Do You Ever?
• Kelly Kitner – Smoke and Mud
•  Cut Throat Francis – Hubert
• Shawn Nelson – Dreams In The Desert
• Belinda M – Chasing Fireflies
• Sundodger – Echoes
• Elizabeth Everts – It’s On Repeat
• Ghostly Beard – The Odds of Our Lives
• Red Dirt Skinners – Hey Crawford
• Steve Nicel – Heartache & Happiness
• Martin Lang – Billy’s Shuffle
• Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble – Stang’s Swang
• The Saw – Short Fuse
• Alessandro Bagagli – Shine a Light on the City Rock
• Louie Fleck – allow (Let Me)
• LIAMKINS – Check Up For Men
•  John Cubbin – Without you
• Under The Tongue – Everybody’s Scared
• Dieter van der Westen – Where I Belong
• Drift – Weightless
• Erin At Eleven – You’re Gone
• Indie Soull – ALIVE
• Rock Lane Blythe – slipping away
• KEROSENE STARS – By the Lake
• Michelle Wake – All Our Messes
• Midwest Soul Xchange – She Flies
• a strAnger – Song for deliverance
• w3detour – My Valley Girl
• 3 Rivers – 50s
• Plain as Ghosts – Character Witness
• The Wicked Ravens – 59 Summers
• The Superphone – love will find a way
• Andrew Taylor – Moon Child
• Burntfield – In The Air

In closing, I’d like to note that the playlists aren’t there for me to try to get popular… it’s for the sake o the artists. I’d like them to (potentially) get popular. It’s a tougher deal for independent musicians, but not impossible. Just very uncommon.