How can we restore music’s status as social glue in the age of streaming?

The case for a passive discovery mechanism for friends’ playlists on Spotify.

This article started with a tweet on a Saturday evening. Simply put: I wish I had a better interface to discover playlists that are popular among my friends.

Mark Newman rightfully pointed out that Spotify doesn’t show much interest in surfacing user-created playlists. As a matter of fact, they have even been deemphasising them over the years. Instead they opt for sending people to their own playlists. And their priority makes sense. They have to compete with giants like Apple, Google, Amazon: companies that have money to waste, while Spotify has money to raise.

Streaming is going mainstream

I’m sure to most of us it feels like it’s mainstream already. Hear me out.

Spotify, and other streaming services, are now focusing on consumers beyond the early adopter. These are people that are happy listening to the hits from the radio. These are people that like predictable music experiences. And they’re the bulk of the market.

In order to successfully compete for them, streaming services have to deliver very consistent streaming experiences to these people. This comes in the form of speed, functionality, but also content and programming.

User-created playlists fall outside of Spotify‘s editorial guidelines and metrics that they set for their editors, so it makes it unpredictable. Then again, features like Discover Weekly carry some inherent unpredictability with them: it’s what makes them fun and addictive.

The metrics that a feature like this probably needs to deliver on would look like:

  • Amount of time spent listening to music on Spotify in a specified timeframe (the feature should not lead to less playback);
  • Some kind of retention metric (should lead to a more engaging product, with less people stopping to use it).

Spotify’s friend activity & navigation

I like seeing what my friends are listening to in the right hand bar. Occasionally, but hardly ever, I click on something someone is listening to, and musically stalk my friend.

The reason why I hardly ever tune into my friends that way, and why I think it’s probably not an often-used feature, is because you tend to see it when you’re already listening to something. It’s not really positioned inside the product as a starting point; it’s more of a distraction.

Starting points, in Spotify, are either search or are presented in the left-hand menu. They are your playlists, or the other navigation points, such as podcasts, browse, and Daily Mix.

The prominent placing of Your Daily Mix stands out to me. I find the feature a bit dull and repetitive, but perhaps that’s because I’m on the end of the user spectrum that explores more than returns to the same music. The point is: Spotify gives prominence to an algorithm that generates 5 daily playlists for users. It’s somewhat unpredictable, compared to what they feature in Browse, but it tries to get people into a daily habit, and its prominent placing suggests that this may be working.

What should also be noted is that none of these navigation items include anything social, despite the entire right-hand bar being dedicated to it.

Browse is boring

I’m always disappointed when I open the Browse tab. I never really see anything surprising and I keep seeing the same things over and over, despite not engaging with them.

There are so many super interesting playlists on search, particularly those by third parties, and I need a way to surface them without finding out on curators’ websites, social media, by using search, or by visiting artist profiles.

Your Daily Friend Mix

So, back to my original tweet, and the requirements for getting a social feature to work well:

  • Should lead to people regularly coming back;
  • Should lead to increased playback (or at least no decrease).

What are the constraints?

  • Not enough friends to meaningfully populate an area;
  • Friends don’t listen to playlists;
  • Friends only listen to the same playlists as you;
  • Friends’ tastes are too dissimilar.

The first issue here is already tackled by the way Spotify handles Discover Weekly and its Daily Mixes: if they don’t have enough data on you, they won’t present these features to you. So in short: if there’s not enough useful data to present meaningful results to you, the feature should not be shown.

However for many users there would be meaningful data, so how to make sure that the suggested content is also meaningful?

The UX of recommendations is a big topic, but in simple terms, there should be thresholds and ceilings on similarity:

  • Recommended content should not have a similarity higher than 90% to user’s collection;
  • Recommended content should not have a similarity lower than 10% to user’s collection & listening history.

The recommended content can be playlists made by friends, or ones that friends regularly listen to and / or are subscribed to. The percentages are made-up, and there are a lot more things you could factor in, but this way you make sure that:

  1. Content in the section is interesting, because you’ll discover something new;
  2. And it’s not too random or too far from your taste, so you’ll always find something you’d want to listen to while opening the section.

If that’s taken care of, then people will keep coming back. Why?

Because it’s super fun to discover how your taste overlaps with friends, or to discover new music with friends. I also think such a feature would work better for Spotify‘s demographic than the more active one-on-one music sharing type of functionality (that Spotify removed recently).

Spotify needs a passive way to connect with music through friends

The messaging functionality that Spotify removed showed low engagement. That’s because music one-on-one recommendations are demanding on both sides. Instead, what has shown to work best on big streaming platforms, are lean back experiences. Discover Weekly is an example of that: it’s focused on the result, rather than the action. The action for discovery is exploration: with Discover Weekly, it’s Spotify‘s albums that do most of the exploring for the user.

That’s what the social side of the service needs. The Friend Activity feed is boring. It hardly ever shows something I’d like to listen to, but I do know my friends listen to music I’d be interested in…

What I need is a section that I can go to when I’m looking for something new to listen to, and then shows friends as social proof for that content. It allows me to connect to friends in new ways. Perhaps even strike up a conversation with them on Facebook Messenger.

Which would pair well with Spotify‘s strategy to drive more engagement through Messenger.

How to get me to talk about your startup

Tips for pitching newsletter curators. 

1.5 year ago, I started my newsletter to encourage more innovation in music. It has allowed me to shine a spotlight on people, startups, and music companies that are doing fascinating things. I’m really flattered that so many people have signed on and always have something positive to say.

However, I’m not a journalist, and it was never my aim to set up my newsletter as a journalistic medium. My day job as Product Director of IDAGIO, where we’re reinventing streaming for classical music, has me so occupied that it’s often hard to find enough time to put out my newsletter. Many weeks, I get up a few hours early on Monday morning to make sure I get the newsletter done before work starts. I wouldn’t have it any other way: I love what I’m doing.

This means that the typical way you’d approach a journalist really doesn’t work for me.

Don’t send me press releases

Press releases have annoying structures to read and you never really learn much more than what could fit into a tweet. I could never really be bothered with reading them, but now that I’m busier, it really takes some strong willpower to read it. I can only muster that willpower for:

  • Friends / acquaintances;
  • Companies I follow because I love what they’re doing;
  • Bizarre / unique / remarkable announcements.

Nearly no announcement falls into that last category.

Secondly, press releases don’t correspond with the format of articles I do, so it’s a nightmare to incorporate a press release announcement into an article, and I definitely won’t like a press release from my newsletter (with some very rare exceptions).

Don’t pitch curators with press releases.

Don’t let your publicist do the work

This may work for some journalistic publications, but I’m trying to do something different, so I prefer to hear straight from a founder, product person, or someone who’s involved in strategic decision-making.

I try my best to make my newsletter inspiring, thoughtful, and something that people can learn from… PR statements that are signed off on rarely correspond with those criteria.

Oh, and by the way: if you’re working with an agency, check in with them every now and then. There’s one that has been particularly persistent in sending press releases to me, even after I asked him to stop because I’m not interested in the startup’s domain (and he said he would). Then he resumed 2 months later, and just keeps spamming. This does not make me think better about your startup, and kind of makes me want to avoid you altogether, because I don’t feel like dealing with a pushy company culture.

Do write about what you’re doing

The BEST way to get into my newsletter is by writing an article about what you’re doing. However, it can’t be a press release or an announcement, it has to be something like a Medium post that people can learn from. Here are some examples:

These are valuable to my readers, and they’re valuable to me.

Simply: make sure people can learn something from what you’re doing. Don’t sell too hard.

Do get in touch with me directly

Back when I was still doing MUSIC x TECH X FUTURE full-time, I opened all communication channels, including a message for new subscribers to my email to tell me what they’re up to. I also highly encourage replies to my newsletters with feedback, since it guides me in my decision making for upcoming weeks. I also love a good conversation or thought-provoking comment, despite not having as much time to engage with everything anymore.

(by the way, if you want to strike up an interesting conversation, you can also jump into the community: MxTxF Backstage — no self-promo please :)).

I try to reply to every email I get… if I don’t, it’s often because I saw your email, considered it important to get a proper response, saved it for later, and then forgot… so don’t be shy & send a reminder.

One thing I don’t really have much time for nowadays is doing Skype calls. I don’t really enjoy calling, and they really cut into my free time, since I have to make arrangements to be at home. I go to a lot of events (next up: BIME & Slush Music + Slush), so catch me at one of those if you’d like to chat in person — and please don’t turn that meeting into a sales pitch.

Do everything you can to make it really easy for me to include you

Make a Medium post. Make sure it’s well-written. Familiarize yourself with the newsletter, what I write about, and what I’ve written about before. Make sure your post fits well into this context. And send it over with a brief intro.

The things I look for are:

  1. Does this introduce a new perspective?
  2. Can my readers learn from this?
  3. Have I read something like this before?
  4. Does this have an innovative angle?
  5. Is this something I would write about?

I consider #5 even when just featuring someone else’s writing in my newsletter.

Who I write about

I write about the people that are top of mind. People I run into in conferences a lot. People that have been long-time followers of my newsletters. Companies that I think are innovative and doing interesting things.

It’s rare that I will immediately write about something I discover. In many cases, I’ll be following something for many months before I write about it. This has a lot to do with my writing process.

If I get up at 5.30 in the morning on Monday and start writing, I’m going to write about what’s top of mind. I’m going to use examples to explain topics that are top of mind. The things that are top of mind are things I feel strongly about; things that I either love or hate (and I don’t write about the latter, because I want the newsletter to be uplifting and motivating — no time to deal with what we don’t like, when we can achieve so much success by focusing on the positive).

Concluding

All in all, it’s pretty simple: write something that I can easily feature, get in touch directly over email or Twitter, and make sure it’s something people on my newsletter will learn from.

This goes for every newsletter out there, and for every conference curator too by the way.

READ MORE: Moving up the music curation food chain

Oh, and one more thing, since I realized I may be opening some content floodgates here: make sure your writing is timely and timeless. I only put 10 links into each newsletter (3 per category + 1 fun link). If your piece gets outdated 1 or 2 weeks later, I’ll never be able to feature it. Even then: if I think most of the newsletter subscribers will have read it already, I tend not to feature. Tough choices.

I love hearing about innovation in music & love being part of this community.

Keep me up to date!

Why playlists should be part of your social media strategy

The emphasis of playlist strategy is usually placed on how artists can get their music on popular curated playlists. Let’s discuss the long-term value of artists stepping into the curator role themselves.

In the context of this article, when referring to playlist strategy, I mean playlists that you create.

For most of the readers of this article, the two most important places for developing a cohesive playlist strategy are YouTube and Spotify (and maybe Soundcloud). They’re the places with the highest amount of traffic and search queries.

Objectives

You’re going to be using your playlists to achieve 3 things:

  • To get discovered by (potential) new fans;
  • To establish a habit for fans that keeps them connected to you;
  • To create regular engaging content for your socials to help you stay top of mind for fans.

Discovery. Habit. Top of mind.

Building your playlists

Let’s address objective 1 first: getting your music discovered. This is the main concern for most artists. Before anything, your music has to be good. If people are not sharing your music, it’s probably not that great. This needs to be your #1 concern and priority. If people are not sharing your music, go work on your sound instead of marketing something that people don’t care about.

Keep reading if you’re actually at a level where your music gets traffic through friend recommendations.

You’re ready to get your music discovered.

Variety

Take a couple of your best tracks. For each of these tracks, create a playlist. Add tracks from similar artists, artists that inspire you, anything that is somehow logically related to your music.

Understand that a lot of users will start playing your playlist and then switch to background listening. The logical relation has to be there, even when people are focusing on a different tab in their browser, or have moved on to another activity away from the computer.

For the music you select, the most important criterium is that it has to be music that people actually search for.

People will type search queries, and you need to create the best chance that they will land on your playlist. Think carefully the first few times you make these playlists. Over time, you’ll find the best way to do it and the amount of effort required will decrease.

Do not place your track at the top. People need somewhat familiar content to get into a playlist. Place it somewhere in the middle.

Remember the listener’s perspective: this is not about your music — this is about their experience. If you provide them with a good experience, they’ll listen to your music. If you don’t, they won’t. Simple.

Consistency & regularity

You’re going to pick a day of the week and every week you’re going to update your playlist on that day. If your playlists delight your listeners, they’ll check back every week on that day (that’s why Spotify’s Discover Weekly feature is so important to them).

This means you let people create a habit around your playlists. And while all other content of the playlists might change every week, you’ll have at least one of your tracks in there. So, the habit implies that returning listeners will listen to you every week.

It’s an elegant way to make sure fans don’t miss out on new music through their cluttered Facebook and Twitter feeds and inboxes.

Bi-weekly is also ok. Monthly is a maybe. Anything irregular is a big no. Either you execute this strategy, or you don’t. This particular strategy only works when applied consistently and with fixed regularity.

YouTube vs Spotify

YouTube and Spotify require their own approaches. They’re very different services, that drive very different types of music listening behaviours, bookmarking, etc.

For YouTube, I’d focus on making an ever-growing set of playlists from your main channel where you also post your music videos. It might net you subscribers, too.

This means every YouTube playlist becomes a finished product. Keep them short: roughly 10 tracks. Every week, you’ll create a new playlist with new content, and one of your tracks in there. Share it on your socials: some nice new content for fans.

For Spotify, you’re going to do something different. They’ve actually demoted user-generated playlists in search results, so it’s a bit harder to get found now. So, instead, you’re going to turn it into a tool to connect with your fans and familiarize them with your music taste.

Your Spotify playlists should be longer. 30 tracks or more. Think of them more as radio stations that are refreshed every week. Your followers check in, tune into the new content and also reconnect to your music (like the Diplo & Friends playlist).

User stories

I want to explain a concept from product management called ‘user stories’ — they’re used to describe certain things people expect from or want to be able to do with a product or service. They’re a useful way to not lose sight of what’s important to the people you’re making something for. What’s important to you, is not always what’s important to your target audience.

For your fans

Let’s think from the perspective of fans. And let’s define fan as someone who has shared your music with someone else. Facebook likes don’t count. We’re talking about the people who care enough about your music to share it with others. 

Let’s think of some of the reasons why they might be interested in your playlist:

  • “I want to learn more about the music that inspires this artist.”
  • “I’ve already heard everything by this artist, but I want more!” 
  • “I wonder what other music this DJ / producer plays besides his own tracks.”

As people get more familiar with your playlists, they may start to develop some more specific expectations, such as “I want to know about the freshest new releases this artist curates” or “I just need some great party music” and they associate your playlists with that.

Focus on the bullet pointed user stories first. You need to get people in, and then get them to form a habit. There are a lot of people creating good playlists for more specific purposes, but the advantage of the bullet pointed items is that they’re all focused on you — and nobody does you like you.

For people who don’t know you

This gets more tricky, because there are so many reasons why someone might land on your playlist. Think about what kind of music you’re curating. What are people trying to achieve when they’re searching for that type of music? A lot of them are going to land on your playlist by looking for an artist other than you, Four Tet for example.

  • “I want to listen to Four Tet.”
    • Yup – some people will just click the first playlist they see if it includes Four Tet and they spot the cover art.
  • “I want to listen to music like Four Tet.”
  • “I just want to put on some chill out music and not think about it.”
  • “I want to listen to a playlist that includes music like Four Tet.”
  • “I’m curious about discovering more music like Four Tet.”

Although similar, these are different motivations that correspond with different behaviour types. It also means people will judge the quality of your playlist differently (quality is defined as to whether it scratches the person’s itch).

Long term effects

If you do well, your music might actually become associated with the other acts you include in your playlists. This means algorithms will add it to the ‘play next’ queue on YouTube, to ‘similar artists’ on Spotify, or even have you appear in the Discover Weekly of people who listen to a lot of music like that.

Your playlist may become a brand on its own: something artists try to get their music featured in. This means you’re able to shine a light on great artists you feel are not getting enough recognition. Then there will be the people who follow you on playlists, but not on other socials. These may be actual fans (people who share your music) or just people who are into the music you curate.

Playlists are a social medium in their own right. Treat them like that.

Walking on stairs

Moving up the music curation food chain

Time for a quick lesson in free publicity. The increase of easy access to information and entertainment, combined with the democratisation of creation thereof, have led to the need for curation.

As an artist, you want to get your music noticed by curators, so it gets spread around further. But how do you get them to give a damn?

 

Curators follow curators

How do you think curators get their content? They follow other curators. It can be the DJ getting selected tracks from a trusted label rep, or a blogger learning about new releases through a mailinglist.

The easiest way to get noticed by top curators, is making sure you get noticed by smaller curators.

You have to be consistent about it. People have to see your name a few times before recognising you. Only then will they start giving a damn. How you do this depends on the category of music curation.

It will take time. It can be a year if you work hard at it – or even longer. If you don’t work hard at it, it will never happen, unless you hire someone that already has the network.

 

The categories of music curation

The actual dynamics differ from category to category, but the basic jest is that you start small and try to move up the curation food chain. Follow the curators who you want to be noticed by closely, so that you can figure out where they get their music from.

Some domains to think of:

  • Radio airplay: start with local and genre-specific, and slowly work your way up. This is probably the slowest process of all, since nationwide airtime is highly valued.
  • Genre-specific publications: there are dozens of decent publications and blogs per genre, perhaps a bit less for younger genres.
  • Location-specific publications: can even be location/genre-specific, like a local rock magazine.
  • Channel curators: think YouTube, Soundcloud.
  • Theme publications: these are similar to genre publications, but generally broader. Might also report on fashion, or a certain set of genres and sounds that can be loosely grouped together.
  • Live DJs.
  • Playlist curators.

There are plenty of other areas to explore, but if you’ve never really thought about this topic, then these are a good place to start.

 

The music business is a network business

You have to build your connections. Start with the more approachable curators. You can find them at events or in online communities like Facebook groups or Reddit. Your music might be really, really good, but when you hit the inbox of a curator, chances are it’s going to look like just another promo. They might not even listen to it.

Be creative about it, like these guys who wanted to get noticed by a prominent DJ in their genre:

If you’re intent on being able to arrange your own publicity, then check out the books Made to Stick and Contagious. They’re great books for learning how to construct strong stories to communicate ideas.

And a little hack: get a free Hubspot account, so you can see when people open your emails and whether they’ve clicked your links. It will help you to determine where you’re succeeding or failing, and adjust accordingly.

Our changing relationship with music and its new practical function

back in my day music players

Music executives need to understand how shifting context and function have changed music consumers and their expectations.

Guest contribution by Thiago R. Pinto.
Portuguese version.

Part I

So, the music industry has changed. If you haven’t been living in a cave for the past 15 years you probably noticed. For those who need to catch up, here are the 3 main points that summarize it:

  • increased access to the means of production;
  • increased access to information;
  • democratization of distribution channels.

But some things remain unchanged by this digital revolution. Royalties distribution, for example. The correct distribution of copyright royalties is still a headache for composers, musicians and labels. Despite music having been practically dematerialised and living on networks where everything is trackable. Companies like Kobalt are trying to change this game, but we still have a long way to go until we get this right. This is an issue that deserves its own article, so I’ll leave it for now.

Among the lasting habits that have been practically untouched along these 15 years, my personal highlight goes to a mantra I hear in every conference, article and talk about music. It goes something like this: people’s emotional/behavioural relationship with music hasn’t changed. We still love music the way we always did.

Part II

A couple of weeks ago I was reading a report published by Vevo where in its introduction Erick Huggers, Vevo’s CEO, once again repeats the mantra:

vevo report

Well, I don’t know where Huggers and others are looking, but I can’t believe that they still don’t see something that it’s in everyone’s face. This relationship has changed! C-H-A-N-G-E-D. I would write it upside down if I could.

Before we move on with the subject, I just want to make one thing clear: yes, music still moves crowds of people. Yes, it is more listened than ever. And yes, artists still have a lot of influence. However that doesn’t mean people still relate to music the same way they used to.

Probably there is no other cultural activity that is so universal, that permeates, affects and shapes human behaviour as much as music, said Alan P. Merriam in The Anthropology of Music. However, music’s own definition evokes a variety of philosophical, cultural and even political questions. Musicologists suggest that its definition is directly related to the social context and function of certain behaviours in a particular culture. In my opinion, these two words — context and function — define a fundamental element, so many times forgotten, of the discussion: the formation of our musical preferences.

The changes in the way we build our tastes and preferences are the things that should be analyzed, so that we can understand why today music has a new function and also why we can no longer blindly support ourselves on arguments like the one above by Huggers, especially if it is presented in an music industry context. To understand context, function and how today these issues have altered people’s relationship with music, we must go back in time.

Part III

Music always had context and function. In the early days, when we were still just tribes, music used to have spiritual functions. Variety didn’t exist, neither was music entertainment. One’s tribe music was all that there was to listen to and it was directly related to celebration of the tribe’s beliefs. In other words, music was attached to religion. In this context, forget about music preference. People will listen to what the Chief says.

We evolved into more complex societies where we began to be divided into social classes. There were the nobles, the bourgeois, and the clergy. Then came everyone else. At this time the culture each one of these groups had access to, was a fundamental tool for social distinction. For the rich there were good instruments, good musicians, and concert halls. There was classical music. For the rest there were rudimentary instruments, self-taught musicians and taverns. There was folk music. In that context, musical preference was a status symbol and it showed to which social class one belonged.

2 hippies at a festival
Music had a fundamental roll in the formation of the hippie culture, being a tool for the creation of a collective identity.

During the 20th century the development of consumer societies gave new meaning to all goods produced. Especially after World War II, we started living in a society where for the first time supply was greater than demand. At this point there were a great number of companies offering very similar products and services. The technical differentiation between these goods gave space to brand personality construction and so we began consuming products not only for their quality but also because we identify with them. We started to use consumption as a way to build individual and collective identities.

In this process, cultural goods — specially music — were extremely important. Musical preference was a key element in defining ones personality, particularly among the youth. It was what defined which group a person belonged to, which ideology he or she followed, and in what values he or she believed in, independent of what was his or hers social-economical background. In that context, music preference was about identity.

Part IV

We arrived at the beginning of the 21st century and all these functions — spiritual, social and identity building — still exist. The difference is that now they’ve lost strength and no longer are the pillars that define our musical preference. The 3 key elements of the digital revolution (access to the means of production, access to information and democratization of distribution channels) created a new context to music consumption having a direct impact in the way new generations are building their musical preferences.

Never before in history have we had access to so much music, for such a low cost and at such a high speed. The access difficulty, which in my opinion was a key element in keeping our preferences so narrow, was eliminated from the equation. At 15 (in 1998) I had a proud collection of roughly 100 CDs as a result of the musical choices I made. Today a teenager with the same age has access to humanity’s music library only a few clicks away.

Part V

The platforms in which we consume music have also changed. The introduction of the iPod started transforming music consumption into a private experience which allowed people to try out new music genres without worrying about their social image.

Listening to music on the metro
Music consumption habits were strongly impacted by the introduction of digital portable devices and headphones.

Through the ease of access and popularization of new platforms, music started being ubiquitous. The frontiers to experimentation were then opened and brought new tastes and the permission for listeners to break up the social identity chains of each genre allowing the free flow between a variety of different styles of music. It was the beginning of the process that freed music from its function as an identity building tool. At this point a new function for music emerges: the practical function.

Part VI

Music started to be used according to the activities and tasks that listeners were performing during their daily routines. Like this, music preference that before was an almost immutable passion built through context, today looks like a chameleon changing from moment to moment.

We are living the age of “I love this music, but at the right moment”, we see the creation of a generation of eclectics that use music in very practical ways, a generation where the mood related to an activity is more important than genre. Need to study? Downtempo or classical. Going to the gym? EDM or hip-hop. Time for cooking? Indie folk or jazz. Going to a party? Techno or trap. In other words, the experience is not in the music itself, but in what we do while while listening to it. In this context it is interesting to realize how we can look at today’s music services with new eyes. Last.fm is a great example.

Last.fm was one of the first social networks to use music to establish connections between users based on their music preferences. It identifies all tracks and the related artists played by its users and utilizes this data to build a personal music history. The initial goal was that from this list of most played artists the user’s musical preferences would arouse. If a person listens to Beethoven, Mozart and Bach a lot then classical music must be his or her preference.

But following the aforementioned argument, that music today has a practical function in people’s life, we can not accept this conclusion so fast. Classical music today is consumed a lot by people while they work and, in this case, we have to also consider that classical may not be their preference, but just the genre that follows her main daily activity: work. If the tasks we perform during the day are what are going to define what we will listen, and not our musical preference for a specific genre, than we can say that today, Last.fm does not present the musical preferences of its users, but a list of the activities they engage the most in.

While in Last.fm’s case we can consider that this data is generated “accidentally” as a service sub product, to Spotify the perception of the new practical function of music was fundamental to the development of its UX.

Spotify was one of the first major services to understand that to this new generation of listeners, the stars of streaming services are not songs and artists, but playlists and moods. Spotify’s user experience is built around these two elements, because the company understood that its users do not solely use the service for contemplation, but use music as a fuel for another activity. It was the first time I saw a service put together moods and genres side by side, presenting a perfect mirror for this profound change in music consumption behaviour.

By focusing on moods and playlists, Spotify helps its users to quickly find a perfect selection of music to whatever activity he or she is engaging in, without having the headache of searching through 30 million songs to find the perfect ones for the moment.

Spotify workout playlists

Spotify mood playlists
Spotify and its long list of mood and activity playlists.

Part VII

Now that we‘ve gone through the new practical function of music, how it changed the formation of our musical preferences, how it changed our relationship with music and finally how we can have a new look on services and business strategies, I want to go back to the focal point to this article which is the mantra “we still love music the same way we always did”. I’ll once again quote Vevo’s CEO Erick Huggers to present my counterpoints:

“Music creates transformative experiences. It has the power to connect people in personal and meaningful ways unlike any other medium.”

No, it is not music that creates the experience. Music is the background that helps to set the mood. The activity which people are engaging in is what connects people (with themselves or others). It is the Saturday lunch with friends, the picnic at the park, the music festival with 40.000 people in the middle of the desert.

“For music fans, it’s an essential part of how they live their day-to-day lives.”

I believe this statement is true only if we understand that music is an essential part of this new generation of listeners, because it gives the key to the activities they will engage in and not because — like in the past — it was used to build their personal and collective identities.

“Finding the songs and melodies that speak to them directly and reflect their unique personas isn’t so much a desire, but a need.”

Global Spotify Listener Loyalty by Genre
A Spotify chart presenting the most loyal fans by music genre. Knowing a little bit about metal it‘s obvious that its fans are the most loyal ones. What’s important to notice is how all the other genres are pretty even, showing that people are not attached to them.

Here is the big issue. Music for new generations is not about reflecting their unique personas, but a mirror of the activity he or she is performing. Music was once a question of loyalty and identity. Today it’s a good consumed according to moments. So the musical preferences of these listeners is much more flexible and no longer the reflection of their identities.

Part VIII

Whether this new perspective is something bad or good for music is not up to me (or especially to this article) to say. What is important here is that this revolution cannot be stopped. It is a continuous process of gradual transformation where the individual is in charge. It is a self regulating revolution where it is not up to industries and businesses to control it, but to really understand its culture, values, rules and players. We should not perceive this new listener from a conservative viewpoint or as an enemy to the music establishment. We should analyze it from an evolutionary standpoint where the listener is the transformation agent in a radical change in the social consumption relations.

Futurism is a science that usually gets its predictions wrong because it is done in large by people who look at technology and numbers (and because it is just damn hard to see what’s coming). Technology can change people’s behaviour, but only if it is the right time for it, in the right context. Numbers can sometimes be misleading. If you only look at the big numbers you might miss the small ones which are the real indicators of transformation. The real challenge in futurism is to predict how our behaviour is going to change. Borrowing from Tom Vanderbilt’s excellent article:

“When technology changes people, it is often not in the ways one might expect.”

Technology changed the way we listen to music and as a result we changed the way we feel about it. We should start considering that people are no longer loving music, but that they just like it. Or are even just using it. But what is more important is that only when we understand these changes, will the music industry be able to create services, products and business models that are in tune with this new listener.


This is a guest contribution by Thiago R. Pinto.Â