The truth about playlist adds and how to get quality placements

Share & Collaborate Music Promotion
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Hi everyone! we are the andi & meicheng project and wanted to talk about our experiences with playlists which we think are quite common.

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We all pitch our songs to playlist curators and some of us curate their own playlists. What mostly happens when our song is added to a playlist is, that despite the likes a playlist has, few people listen to them, some times not even the curators themselves nor the musicians added. But there are exceptions!

We want to suggest a different model and approach to make these exceptions grow, why should you open your playlists for submissions if you yourself don’t even want to listen to them and why would you want to be added to playlists which you wouldn’t listen to?

There is a simple way out of it and we want to encourage everyone to think about it: curators, listen to your own playlists, musicians, listen to the playlists you are added to! It is a win win game for everyone who participates!

With this in mind we have also created, together with some fellow musicians, a playlist for Indie Folk Rock and everyone participating commits to listen to it at least once a week, most do it even more often. We have found that this already helped us all a lot and we want to invite everyone to join us!

If you share the idea and like the music, this is the playlist: Spotify and here is how to contact us on insta: @theandiandmeichengproject

Let us know what you think about the idea and remember to listen to your own playlists and the playlists you’re added to, best, Andi & Meicheng

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Hey @Andi

You’re 100% right and love the passion I felt in your speech.
Would you be interested in curating a playlist in collaboration with iMusician? I know that our Playlists & Marketing Manager @antonioayora is always looking for passionate partners like you.

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@JJ_JJ wow! that would be an amazing experience!

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Our Quality vs. Quantity Appeal:

you might think of it as Listening, Submitting and Playlisting Hygiene, means: instead of spending money and time to submit to infinite playlists, invest your time in listening first to the playlists you want to submit to, do they fit your style? will you listen to them if you are added to? this way you will firstly reduce possible skips, secondly you will have a manageable number of playlists you can listen too and thirdly contribute in this way actively to spreading your song.
Same for playlisters: instead of publishing an infinite number of playlists, keep the number of your playlist low so you will still be able to listen to them, add songs you really will like to listen too and last not least: listen to your playlists, this encourages also other listeners and your playlists will be found much easier by people with the same taste. Playlists and songs on playlists to which no one listens too are not worth the time, money and passion you put into submitting to or creating them.
So the first step is making music, submitting it and, on the curator side, making a playlist and open it for submissions, the next small step that makes the real difference is: LISTEN TO YOUR PLAYLISTS AND THE PLAYLISTS YOU’RE ADDED TOO! :hugs:

so let us know what you think about it and what your experience is, all the best, Andi & Meicheng

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Hello everyone,

it’s a really good initiative. I’m already involved in that kind of initiative on AtomCollectorRecords. The artists registered on this playlist are also committed to listening to the playlist (for my part, I listen to it once a day, like most artists who are registered).
I put you the discord link (if it bothers, I will delete my post, there are no worries)

If this can help you;)

See you soon

M.A.N

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actually i’m JUST wondering wich is teh best strategy as a musician-composer.
any idea?

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hi @M.A.N , great! yeah, I also listen to our playlist at least once a day but not everyone has the time for it. It might be nice if you would add the link to your playlist, maybe someone might want to listen to it :v:

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Hi @MattiaBalboni , maybe you could tell us more about what you mean, like the best strategy for doing what exactly? But for what regards quality streams and placements and apart from the things said above, I think it is always nice to post the playlist adds and share them with your friends and fans, also reaching out to the curators and telling them what you like in particular in that playlists, hope I got your question well so far :blush:

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Thanks a lot Andi,

here is the link of the playlist. If you want to have your track on this one, just go to the discord, and ask at @lastravageopinion to put it :wink:

Have a nice day

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Great post, great topic - Have made this a featured post and pinned the converstion :slight_smile: thanks for your contributions @Andi @M.A.N @MattiaBalboni

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hi @SimonG , thanks a lot!! :smiley:

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hi @M.A.N yeah! I’ve listened to it and it’s great! I can only recommend it :smiley:

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Just to note - we’re putting some more weight behind our playlists (soon). Tagging @antonioayora to get involved in here :slight_smile:

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hi @SimonG that’s really good news!!!

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We wanted to add this thought about listening to songs on spotify and other streaming platforms regarding some kind of new streaming etiquette we would like to introduce to you, hoping y’all might find it usefull although it’s not strictly related to this topic:
As streaming platforms generally count 30+ seconds of listening as a stream we think it would be nice to avoid skipping or jumping to another track before of that. Not only it will not count as a stream which could be ok but the spotify algo, for example, will put a negative note on that song.
This also applies to playlist curators, we want to invite everybody to give the songs that apply to your playlist a chance. Even better if you listen to them for 90+ seconds or best to the whole song as some interesting things might occur after the first 30 seconds. And, we all know how easy it is to fall into this “decline mood” when we listen to dozens of songs that applied to our playlists. Listening to a song a little longer sometimes makes us be more objective and approve songs we might have declined after listening to them for just a few seconds.
So, let’s all give music a chance!!! :hugs:

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Hello,

I would be very interested to know how IMusician judges the submitted songs for a playlist. I had submitted many songs to various iMusician playlists in the past. Unfortunately, none of these have been added.

I would like to understand what I need to do better as an artist. Are the singles not good enough?

Thanks and have a nice weekend everyone :sunglasses:

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Hi @cantheproducer, maybe @JJ_JJ and @SimonG can help out more than me with this, but as far as I can see, it doesn’t have anything to with doing better as an artist but dipends on the personal taste of the curators and the style of the playlist and, obviously, those two put together. :blush:
Also, for what I had the chance to experience, playlists aren’t updated that frequently on iMusician, so it might be that your songs still have to be heard. Maybe we can hope to see some improvement here too as Simon announced some things are going to happen soon on the playlist front :wink:
Btw, what is the style of your music? can you post a link to it? I would be very interested to give it a listen.

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Hello @Andi ,

Thank you for your reply. I’m excited to see what’s to come :sunglasses: :+1:

For this year I’ve mainly specialized in summer songs.

Here is an example from last year:

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hey @cantheproducer, I’ve listened to your music, wow, it changed a lot over time! I, personally, like “Stories” a lot :v: just as an idea, you might want to update your artist profile on spotify, maybe add some pics and an artist pick. these little attentions can help to make a curator more interested in staying on your page and listening more to your music.

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