No. Independent artists like myself are in a constant uphill battle against the platform’s editing team and algorithm. Spotify constantly pushing celebrity artists makes it incredibly difficult for indie artists to succeed in an already competitive market.
By Erika Gedgaudas
photo: Spotify for Artists
Spotify is the world’s leading music streaming platform, with a reported 551 million global users and a whopping $13 billion revenue as of June 2023. Every day, an estimated 100,000 tracks are uploaded to the platform (although that number has been debated, with some findings estimating around 20,000 and some a mere 1,000). With so much noise to break through, independent artists must use every resource in their arsenal to build a successful fanbase and grow their reach. However, as an indie artist myself who has struggled with promoting my own music, I often wonder how much Spotify caters to and assists indie artists in reaching their goals.
Spotify’s artist platform, Spotify for Artists (SFA), is a musician’s central resource for promotion and engagement through Spotify. Upon opening the home page, artists are greeted with statistics on their releases, links to SFA resources, and articles on the ins and outs of the music business. Through SFA, artists can pitch their songs to a team of playlist editors who control what lands on Spotify editorial playlists, many of which boast over a million followers (like Bedroom Pop, chill vibes, or undercurrents, to name a few). Landing a spot on an editorial playlist can push an otherwise unknown artist into the public eye.
Sample SFA Home Page / photo: Two Story Melody
In an interview with artist and independent label runner Caylub (Caleb Carnell), the musician cites SFA’s playlist pitch feature as the platform’s only benefit for independent artists. He says that because Spotify is the “dominating force in how people listen to music” the opportunity to be playlisted “is a big deal, because otherwise, there’d be no other way to possibly get on a playlist… people would just be releasing shit into the air.” I can corroborate this claim with my own experiences: when I first began releasing music on Spotify, the number of monthly listeners I had stagnated around 50 (which placed me among 80% of all other Spotify musicians averaging 50 monthly listeners or fewer). After two and a half years, I was placed on a Spotify editorial playlist that shot my monthly listeners up from around 50 to 1,800, a 3,600% increase. Not only this, but the song was the first of mine to reach 10,000 streams and I began garnering attention from more artists outside of my circle.
I was ecstatic to have been chosen for an editorial playlist, but it made me realize how recognized you have to be to even get a chance at a feature. In my case, the song in question was produced by labelmate RUNNER BOY who had previously landed multiple editorial playlists, meaning their audience reach was already greater than mine. Our song had also seen steady growth over the course of several weeks, due in part to constant promotion on both our ends (which we both agreed was mentally taxing). In other words, in order to receive the opportunity for growth, you have to already be growing. Despite their success, RUNNER BOY still says getting on an editorial playlist is “rare… a lot of independent artists” have to make do without “luck [or] a big label budget.”
This raises another concern—how does an independent artist widen their reach using Spotify’s tools if benefits are passed down to those who have already found success? Looking through the aforementioned editorial playlist Bedroom Pop, many artists featured are already widely known—Clairo, Kenny Beats, Men I Trust—and even those who haven’t yet achieved celebrity status average between 100,000 to over a million monthly listeners. Caylub says this kind of selection has created a “new way of listening to music” that incentivizes users to listen to what is already popular rather than seeking out deep cuts. Other platforms like YouTube or Soundcloud sprinkle lesser-known artists or channels into one’s algorithm based on genre or users’ taste, making it easy for listeners to expand their music selection (unlike Spotify, however, these platforms do not pay per stream). Spotify, however, doesn’t do so seemingly “because they know most everyone is just gonna listen to the new Drake album, so they just put that in front of you” (Caylub).
In the age of social media as a primary promotion tool, it often feels as though “Spotify expects artists to have a TikTok hit of a song just to make it onto some editorials” (RUNNER BOY). Because artists cannot rely on Spotify to promote their music fairly, they turn to apps like TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram to share their music, hoping their post will gain them any semblance of traction. In doing so, however, Spotify relies on a cycle of constant outside promotion in order to tout “indie” and “underground” labels for musicians that found luck elsewhere. Between production, release, and promotion, independent artists are becoming increasingly burnt out, and what was once the freedom to create becomes a burden to continue.
While playlist pitching is essentially a game of chance for independent artists, Spotify’s Discovery Mode feature increases the likelihood of participating musicians’ songs making their way into the Spotify algorithm. This means more opportunities for saves, follows, and growth. Rather than traditional marketing, which requires an upfront payment, discovery mode takes 30% of an artist’s revenue as “commission” from every stream generated by Discovery Mode. While this model works in theory,—especially for small artists who don’t have the means to pay hundreds of dollars for marketing campaigns—it becomes a bleak prospect when factoring in that a single Spotify stream makes an artist $0.003 - $0.005. Not only do artists take a cut to an already embarrassingly low payout, but they don’t even have a guarantee that their songs will gain traction—if a song doesn’t get enough saves or replays, it could be shuffled out of the algorithm completely. (Notice also below how a song must have been recently streamed via Spotify Radio or Autoplay in order to be eligible for Discovery Mode—yet another instance of having to already be growing to be offered an opportunity for growth).
Discovery Mode campaign FAQs / photo: Spotify for Artists
Spotify desperately needs an algorithmic overhaul if it hopes to keep independent artists on their platform. Discovery Mode and playlist pitching, while useful tools, are not enough to support artists who aren’t backed by traditional labels. By showcasing only artists who already have a wide audience, making music becomes less of an art form and more of a competition to see who can have the most monthly listeners, followers, and streams. Other “tools” for growth, like Release Radar, rely on existing fans’ engagement to create tangible impact, meaning Spotify shoulders even less responsibility in promoting independent artists. Rather than streaming acting as a form of discovery, it has become another replacement for radio.
Even when landing the playlist pitch lottery, getting an editorial spot can feel “like winning a Grammy” because “it signifies something, but also fuck the Grammys” (Caylub). The music business already takes luck to break into, and if Spotify creates more equitable processes for artists to receive recognition, more artists could rely on streaming as a jumping-off-point for success (“success” referring to a multitude of paths, whether that means being able to pay rent, having access to more resources, being able to collaborate with more artists, and others). Streaming services have a responsibility to promote as much music as they can to cater to their millions of users’ tastes, which necessitates pushing independent music as much as popular music. Improvements to the way songs are pitched for playlists, like having the option to submit to a specific playlist or editor would give artists more say in how their music is received. If SFA wants to remain a platform for artists, it must cater to all artists, not just the big ones.
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