Tag: spotify playlists
Poll: Does listening to Spotify Playlists lead you to buy music?
I posted a poll on Twitter on my Music Twitter account, it’ll be running until the evening of May 9th. It’s aimed at Spotify users, asking a bit about habit:
It certainly feels like networking – indie music promotion on Twitter
I love how networking can go and what it can show you – about yourself and your colleagues.
Read MoreSongs 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.
Read MoreSpotify playlists and the follower flaw
There’s a downside to me trying to push indie music on Spotify. It’s not the fact I spend time trying to find tunes through radio streams and online sites curate the playlists accordingly, it’s not when people approach me with music – sometimes fitting, sometimes not – to consider for the lists. It’s the common habit with Spotify that people might follow a playlist, it doesn’t mean the people actually listen.
Read MoreSoft rock, easy listening, adult contemporary and the Tampa Bay music scene
With the growing and growing and growing and growing nature of the Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist on Spotify and me crossing work on the Music Tampa Bay playlists that embody the underexposed moniker and yet are also aging with some artists missing in general from social media, I’ve been compelled to start a new soft rock/adult contemporary playlist.
This isn’t open to all and any musicians; this is open to artists in the Tampa Bay metropolitan region. The Lighter Side of Tampa Bay currently has only nine musicians on it, but a number of songs from each:
- Ed Woltil
- Four Star Riot
- Fowler’s Bluff
- Gypsy Star
- Rebecca Zapen
- Robert Andrew
- RosewoodCreek
- Steve Dockendorf
- Swearingen & Kelli
There are more groups and artists in the region with worthy content than this. This is, in part, why I’m posting on my blog: Hey! Tampa Bay musicians with calmer tunes! Share’em with me and potential listeners online please!
You might want to listen to the list as-is to get an idea of the sound I’m going for. I don’t know if hip-hop would mix in, or a bass/beat heavy dance/pop number with wailing vocals. Explicit content is also frowned upon. Seriously, I’m not calling it “The Lighter Side of Tampa Bay” because of the sun.
Feel free to suggest artists or songs to me through comments or directly to me through the site contact form. I’ve also got a music-specific Twitter account or my Facebook page where I can be reached at.
Introducing The Softer Side of Indie 2019 Spotify playlist
I’m running a playlist on Spotify trying to highlight soft rock and easy listening by indie artists that aren’t well known. The UnderexposedSoft Rock and Easy Listening playlist is just shy of 6 hours in length as of this writing and the sound holds consistent with some songs going a little stronger than others. That’s been soft rock radio for decades though, hasn’t it?
That playlist compiles songs from over recent years of the indie and small label variety. I’m announcing a new playlist that will focus squarely on 2019.
While the intent is to take a variety of songs and offer them to the public for listening – and that’s a catch: actually having people listening to the playlist — one thing I’m not looking for is the “chill beats” sound with drumming/rhythm-section driven. I’m looking for the more traditional sound of music. I’m also not looking to add a multitude of foreign languages; if what you have isn’t in English, it’s not appropriate to submit it as a song.
I’m also not looking for songs with explicit lyrics. Think of it as a general-audience appeal I’m going for here, not the 18+ year old adult segments who accept that stuff.
I’m posting the playlist itself below. It’ll remain barren or mostly empty for I-don’t-know.
If you want to submit a track for consideration, please use the contact form. Make sure the subject reads “Softer Side 2019 Submission”. If you’re on Facebook, you may also try contacting me through the Johnny Fonts Facebook page.
“The Playlist Exchange” is a promotional avenue for content on Spotify
Just a heads up for musical artists who are looking to promote their tunes on Spotify as well as for people running niche playlists who want to promote that list, there’s a place for that.
The Spotify Community is a message forum area devoted to the Spotify platform, covering a lot of areas of the field including playlists. The Playlist Exchange is the specific forum in the community where playlists are promoted and curators look for new songs to add to their lists. Many music genres get covered, but so do many niche areas such as topics, moods, musical arrangements and what have you.
Mind you, the Exchange may be an avenue for promotion but it doesn’t guarantee songs getting added to playlists or people actually following a playlist you post. I’ve submitted music by little known groups to playlists (songs by artists I am not associated with, I’m just a fan of) and got passed over while I’ve also posted my Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening list with little gain.
Marketing is a chore. The Playlist Exchange is simply a potential contributor to goal achievement.
A new Spotify playlist of Tampa Bay musicians and music
In spring of 2017, I took to the task of taking aMusic Tampa Bay Top 100 list of 2016 post was an attempt at exposure for the artists and their work that went further than the hyper-local radio broadcasts and its online music stream.
I’m taking things a step further though I don’t know if this will lead more people to check out this music or what. I’ve created a Spotify playlist of the 2016 Music Tampa Bay Top 100 list.
In trying to aid the exposure of the artists and their music, I don’t know if it did the job so much. Let’s see if a Spotify playlist can help things along.
From my experience researching three different Top 100 lists, I’ve learned it’s a tradition for not all the songs to be available through online streaming. In this case, only 57 of the Top 100 songs from the listing were available… They represent a mix of music genres: Rock, Reggae, R&B, Folk, Pop and Country. The performers herald from the Tampa Bay and west central Florida area and while their sound may be taken as unique, they are all very much of the genres they are derived from in music.
I have intentions of also posting the 2017 Top 100 list and perhaps ones that came before it too. That’ll come in time. Right now, first things first and the 2016 list is here.
Underexposed indie soft rock and easy listening playlist on Spotify
This is an ongoing playlist build of songs by indie musicians that are unknown or not widely known of in pop culture. It’s also a variety of music – pop and rock of a more casual variety – that doesn’t get the kind of exposure it once did in music.
Click above to go to the playlist. If you are an indie musician who would like one of your own tunes considered for the list — either leave a comment or contact me and send a link to your work. You have to be listed on Spotify to get included on this list (though another version of the playlist is on YouTube).
How should "Underexposed"songs be seen on Spotify?
A pop playlist of “relaxing, easy favorites” on Spotify
“Relaxing, easy favorites… with less talk!” That radio pitch from how-many stations in collaboration or owned by the same company? Maybe I’m wrong on that, but “Warm 107 FM” / “Warm 107.3 FM”, “Warm 94.9 FM” all pushed he same type of easy-listening, or a toned-down variety of music from the past few years or longer. It wasn’t that distant to the past that the stations trekked from what I remember… except in rare events for shock or approval. Seeing I’m referencing stuff I heard on the airwaves in the 80’s and 90’s, basically those throw-back numbers were from the 60’s… if they happened at all.
A few years ago I started putting together a personal playlist on my iTunes that mixed together a number of songs that weren’t rockers, or necessarily pop… Then again, some are legendary (Yesterday by the Beatles, Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, Hotel California by the Eagles). The song list grew as I remembered certain tunes from the past as well as picked up some indie songs by way of listening to Lonely Oak Radio.
That’s led to a playlist of 224 songs spanning a total of 13 hours and 49 minutes. Not all of them perfectly fit the motif of “relaxing, easy favorites” but that’s the title of the playlist. And my own recreation of it is available on Spotify.
The Spotify list doesn’t perfectly recreate things as I’ve taken certain songs off my personal list, I was unable to add others (such as Paul McCartney’s (I Want To) Come Home, Michael Stipe’s mixed-group performance of U2’s One, as well as others). It’s still 182 songs in length…
I could see people arguing “relaxing” does not describe performances by the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s (stuck in silence (for the rest of my life) and not mess with music that I miss. Who knows? The point is – the playlist is public on Spotify and maybe you’ll be interested in looking into it or – gasp! – listening.
