Since I took over the playlists project, I haven’t stopped making myself that question.
As you know we welcome every artist to submit their tracks to the iMusician playlists, no matter the distro they’re working with. Our curators listen to these songs and take their picks but my question is: is this the way it should be?
Would anybody follow and actively listen to a playlist made up of purely independent artists that have stumbled upon our humble playlists?
Do our playlists have growth potential as they are now so the featured artists can really reach a wider audience?
Some of our curators have then started in our playlist updates to include “bigger” artists of their personal taste that have not submitted through the form but that are relevant to the playlist and that can potentially drive more listens to the playlist. By “bigger” I don’t mean mainstream artists, just those who are reaching relevant success in their niche (iMusician lives in the indie world, as you know ;)). Who wouldn’t want to be featured alongside the artists they admire?
Having said that, I wanted to share with you some tips we loosely stick to when curating our playlists:
Title
The playlist title is as important as the tracks contained as it should grab the listeners attention and make them curious about the content. It should have the following features:
Be descriptive and creative
Set clear expectations
Fit into 100 characters
Description
Here we have more space to tell the story of the playlist but also to use smart and relevant keywords. Length is 300 characters.
Be creative and use keywords that you think are relevant for the playlist
Take a look at similar playlists and the keywords they use
Search for Instagram hashtags and suggested hashtags to get inspired
Run a keyword research on Google using the auto-suggestion feature
Use Google trends to decide which wording is better in comparison to others
Song Convention
A good mix of the curator’s discoveries (songs submitted through the form) and their own personal picks from other artists as genre experts.
Now I throw this to you: What makes a good playlist for you? Which features do make you follow it and listen to their tracks?
Let’s exchange ideas and create the best playlists ever!
For me it’s important that we have a mix of experienced artists and newcomers in the playlist.
Everyone should get a chance and be added to a playlist. This motivates the artists to keep going and going.
I can mention an example related to me. When I saw that you can submit your songs for different playlists, that motivated me. Then I submitted my best singles. I was hoping that one of the singles would be added. Unfortunately, no single was added. This puts you in a bad mood because you were hoping for so many positive things.
Make sure to find a good balance that everyone is happy with. Not only artists who have a lot of views or success. Then the newcomers realize that they have no chance of being included in the playlists. Also give smaller artists the chance. Each of us makes great songs that would certainly fit into one of the playlists, even if the curator has a different taste.
I especially want to mention @Andi@A2D both have playlists where they added tracks from the community. We support each other. That had a positive influence on my music.
Hi everyone,
yes, I think in a first moment, the greatest potential listeners are the featured artists themselves and the curators, me for example, I listen to the playlists I’m featured on and to the playlists I make and this helps the playlists emerge through the algorythms that place a playlist further to the top or at the end of a list when people search for music, same for the artists or songs. And I can tell, the more often and by more people a playlist is streamed the bigger is the chance it will be found.
And curating a playlist has also to do with wanting to promote the featured artists. The more similar the artists are for what regards followers and streams more than style the more the algo links them. We wouldn’t be linked to really famous artists (like millions of monthly listeners) even if we were on all of their playlists because of the algo. So it is not important to have muuuch bigger artists than the featured artists in a playlist, I’m not sure if it might even be worse.
We could also say that indie playlists are about making unknown artists visible to and through a likeminded audience!
I know, we all think we publish a song and boom we are discovered, then we realize, ok, that’s not how it works, you need to get on a playlist, then again the same and so on. Whilst it would be easy to break the chain by just starting to listen to the playlists. We just need to create playlists for people who want to listen to them because they are featured and like the style and also listen to them ourselves and then the true game begins that we thought would begin by itself but it won’t until we understand that we, curators and artists, in the first place need to do what we expect our fans and followers to do: listen. And finally, obviously, spread the word, friends, family, fans, fellow musicians, our instagram groups and so on.
You can find maybe a better description and examples of this concept also here The truth about playlist adds and how to get quality placements
And here is a bonus tip: put your own songs on your playlists if and when you can, elseway you’ll never know how many people are listening, you could have 1000s of likes through submission process and few streams or just 100 likes and tons of streams through featured artists, yourself and invited listeners and keep spreading and believe me you would want to know that
very best, Andi (the andi & meicheng project)
After reading the experienced answers of the artists @cantheproducer and @Andi some items
a playlist must have a clear target audiences, objectives & mood
as many has you have the best it is. Why not letting artists managing your playlists on deezer if you are limited in resouces ? It could be interesting to all the parties
are you checking stats of which songs is streamed in your great playlists to give them a chance to stay a little more on the billboard ?
Agree! Although it also depends on the concept of the playlist. As for our curated playlists, we don’t like to include mainstream artists and we focus on new talents that could be of the interest of our community. Sometimes we also pick more established artists (though keeping their indie spirit) to make them more attractive and try to push streams for the rest.
I agree but this strongly depends on the taste of the curator and the sound they want for their playlist.
For which playlists did you submit? It’s very important that you first get familiar with the sound of the playlist and consider if your track would fit there. A strong and convincing pitch also helps the curator find the way for your submission!
As for our playlists, we only take into account the music! If we like what we’re listening and fits our playlist, we just feature it. I don’t think any of us takes the time to check the artist/song stats.
I hope my answer can help understand better how our playlists work!
We’re now busy setting a new portal that will allow our curators to listen and select submissions easily. I’ll keep you posted on this as I’d like to recruit new curators among our artists
I’m not sure this could be done… or am I missing something here?
thank you for your answers. I looked at the playlists beforehand and then listened to a few songs. I submitted about 6-7 songs. Mostly EDM tracks for the i’M Electronic playlist.
No submission was accepted. And I won’t do that anymore, no matter what should change. If I don’t reach the curator’s taste, you don’t have to submit anything. I even designed my production in a variety of ways to maybe get a chance. Unfortunately unsuccessful. These sentences show how frustrated I am
But the main problem, as described above, is that we don’t reach the curatos with our songs because we don’t meet the taste.
That’s why I’m also very happy that @Andi and @A2D have their playlists and add songs from the community, because e.g. I reach the taste of both with my songs, but not those of iMusician.
