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> In a world where it's easier and easier to create music, and distribute it, how do you discover music ? Through curators, podcasts etc. And those are managed

by bryans 5y ago

> In a world where it's easier and easier to create music, and distribute it, how do you discover music ? Through curators, podcasts etc. And those are managed by - you guessed it - labels. That's simply untrue. The vast majority of curating and playlisting is through bloggers or social media personalities and not through labels, so I'm not sure where you got that from.

basisword 5y ago
Who has access to those bloggers and social media personalities? Labels. Otherwise you're just sending your demo to a blog and hoping it might get listened to in the same way you would have sent it to a college radio staton 30 years ago.
- bryans 5y ago
  That's a conspiratorial and untrue claim. The most popular curated playlists (i.e. ones that aren't algorithmically produced by Spotify under the guise of curation) don't actually have label influence. Anyone can contact those curators directly, and if presented with something palatable, they will most likely put it in rotation. > Otherwise you're just sending your demo to a blog and hoping it might get listened to in the same way you would have sent it to a college radio staton 30 years ago. What do you think the record label is doing when they contact a curator or radio station? It's the exact same as if a musician had contact them. It's an email to a person, who makes a decision based on the content.
  - basisword 5y ago
    >> What do you think the record label is doing when they contact a curator or radio station? It's the exact same as if a musician had contact them. It's an email to a person, who makes a decision based on the content. It’s their job to have existing relationships with the bloggers, they aren’t just sending cold emails. And I’d they don’t have relationships they can built them thanks to the credibility they have naturally compared to Jim for some cool indie band sending random emails.
    - bryans 5y ago
      You're still inventing a scenario to fit your narrative without any actual knowledge of how it works. The overwhelming majority of curators do not care about record labels and will actually avoid them in favor of independent artists. There is not some magical ubiquitous collusion going on between the labels and curators of the world. So, what you're describing is nonsense.
colinmhayes 5y ago
> The vast majority of curating and playlisting is through bloggers or social media Not sure about this. Maybe for big music fans, but most casual listeners aren't reading music blogs. They're throwing on spotify playlists which allow artists to pay to get boosted. Guess what, it's the major label artists that can afford those payments. They're seeing that their favorite tiktoker made a video with some new band. Guess what, the tiktoker was paid by a label to use that music.
- bryans 5y ago
  You have entirely misunderstood the conversation and how playlisting works. We were already literally discussing Spotify playlists. The curators (bloggers and social media personalities) use their platform to solicit submissions, which they filter and then add to their Spotify playlist. Nobody said anything about Spotify listeners reading blogs to find music. You're also being very conspiratorial by pretending that all playlists and TikTok users are being paid to place music. It does exist, but is not even remotely as ubiquitous as you're pretending.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > curators (bloggers and social media personalities) use their platform to solicit submissions, which they filter and then add to their Spotify playlist This is a solid but niche market. There is no conspiracy. But distribution is hard. Getting a few thousand listeners is different from serving hundreds of millions.

by bryans 5y ago

basisword 5y ago

Who has access to those bloggers and social media personalities? Labels. Otherwise you're just sending your demo to a blog and hoping it might get listened to in the same way you would have sent it to a college radio staton 30 years ago.

bryans 5y ago
That's a conspiratorial and untrue claim. The most popular curated playlists (i.e. ones that aren't algorithmically produced by Spotify under the guise of curation) don't actually have label influence. Anyone can contact those curators directly, and if presented with something palatable, they will most likely put it in rotation. > Otherwise you're just sending your demo to a blog and hoping it might get listened to in the same way you would have sent it to a college radio staton 30 years ago. What do you think the record label is doing when they contact a curator or radio station? It's the exact same as if a musician had contact them. It's an email to a person, who makes a decision based on the content.
- basisword 5y ago
  >> What do you think the record label is doing when they contact a curator or radio station? It's the exact same as if a musician had contact them. It's an email to a person, who makes a decision based on the content. It’s their job to have existing relationships with the bloggers, they aren’t just sending cold emails. And I’d they don’t have relationships they can built them thanks to the credibility they have naturally compared to Jim for some cool indie band sending random emails.
  - bryans 5y ago
    You're still inventing a scenario to fit your narrative without any actual knowledge of how it works. The overwhelming majority of curators do not care about record labels and will actually avoid them in favor of independent artists. There is not some magical ubiquitous collusion going on between the labels and curators of the world. So, what you're describing is nonsense.

colinmhayes 5y ago

> The vast majority of curating and playlisting is through bloggers or social media Not sure about this. Maybe for big music fans, but most casual listeners aren't reading music blogs. They're throwing on spotify playlists which allow artists to pay to get boosted. Guess what, it's the major label artists that can afford those payments. They're seeing that their favorite tiktoker made a video with some new band. Guess what, the tiktoker was paid by a label to use that music.

bryans 5y ago
You have entirely misunderstood the conversation and how playlisting works. We were already literally discussing Spotify playlists. The curators (bloggers and social media personalities) use their platform to solicit submissions, which they filter and then add to their Spotify playlist. Nobody said anything about Spotify listeners reading blogs to find music. You're also being very conspiratorial by pretending that all playlists and TikTok users are being paid to place music. It does exist, but is not even remotely as ubiquitous as you're pretending.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > curators (bloggers and social media personalities) use their platform to solicit submissions, which they filter and then add to their Spotify playlist This is a solid but niche market. There is no conspiracy. But distribution is hard. Getting a few thousand listeners is different from serving hundreds of millions.