Submit to these spotify playlists in 2021
An individual, recently furloughed, is forced to work from home. No longer at the mercy of the office radio, they scroll Spotify, exercising their new found freedom. Chill hip hop beats to study and work from home to? Dont mind if I do. The speaker jumps into life, and their ears are blessed with the sound ofan aspiring artist. An artistwhosrealised playlists are the new line ups, curators are the new gigorganisers,and the audiences are bigger than ever.
Is your music ready to reach thousands?
Having a song featured on a Spotify playlist is an amazing way to quickly rack up streams, gainhuge exposure and earn some of that much elusive revenue. With official and unofficial playlist curators being reciprocal to submissions, thesedaysindependent or DIY artists can now take more control of their releases, saving time and money avoiding the traditional route. Althoughyoucan still pay a PR expert to utilise their contacts and pitch your music to playlists on your behalf.
But be warned, not all playlists are created equal. Many PR companies or experts may offer exposure to hundreds of curators in exchange for a fee, although bear in mind many of these playlists may offer very little plays, the pitches may be lacklustre or the PRmay have a poor relationship with the curators. Avoid being lured in with the quantity, a few strong pitches by a capable, well connected professional to a few high listener traffic playlists will garner the best results.
Before money changes hands or time is wasted, its always worth keeping budgetin mind andwhetherthe money could be better spent elsewhereonyour musicproject. As a general rule of thumb, one thousand Spotify streams will earn the artist between two and four pounds, sokeep this in mind when deciding on how much to spend on PR. A new valuable service which can help gauge if a playlist is worthwhile is Is ItAGood Playlist?, Is It a Good Playlist [IIGP] uses analytics and data gathered from across streaming platforms to summarise the performance of a playlist. Does it have a lot of monthly listeners? Do songs generally perform well on it? Or is it full of payola songs, using fake listeners, with an unresponsive editor? IIGP is a great resource for researching the right playlists for you.
Toptips for maximising your playlist success
- Ensure your Spotify and social media profiles are up to date, with wellwritten bios andhigh-resolutionimages. When emailing your pitch, remember to personalise where possible and include a press kit.
- Manage finances. Doing DIY PR can run into the thousands, so always keep track of spending to make sure youre using your money wisely.
- Stay organised, remember who youve already messaged and record where the track is being played and by whom.
- A track can only be pitched to mostSpotifyplaylistsat least 7 days prior to its release.
Spotify do their best to de-mystify the process and here,Spotify Q&A, answer various questions on the subject. Its well worth a read for further research or to learn more on how the editors work. Below is a list of curated Spotify playlists which take submissions to get you started.
Spotify Playlists
Indie Mono
Genre: Everything judged by merit
Sound Plate
Genre: A wide range of individually curated playlists
Musicto
Genre:Multiple playlists categorised on moods rather than genres
For The LoveOfBands
Genre: Indie/alternative/guitar
Spotify
Genre: Anything and everything
Submit Hub
Genre: A variety, dependent on individual curators
Soave Records
Genre: Electronic/House/Pop
Daily Playlists
Genre: Everything andanything
MySphera
Genre:Pretty much anything you can think of
VGMAndR
Genre: New Music
SongPickr
Genre: Warm,vintage,organic
This-List [Rock-Out]
Genre: Rock [although more genresare covered on the site]
Drop Track
Genre: Various
I-musician
Genre: Everything, even niche styles like neo-classical or K-pop
Analog Collective
Genre:Helps independent artists, supplying free and paid for playlists of all genres
Howard Zhu
Genre: Pop/RnB/Club
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