Canadian Musician - January / February 2020

CD Baby’s Kevin Breuner got t-shirts and cool stuff and then their Spotify code [on a sign]. So, if you want to get a copy of their record or follow them, it’s like, ‘Follow us and click the code.’ It’s a call to action. It’s the same thing that we’re finding on social media and that sort of thing where we’re having to ed- ucate people – click the code, follow us, like the song, etc.’” Is This All Worth It? their brand, so make sure that they feel like they’re in a partnership and don’t feel like they’re putting on your song and then you’re not doing anything with it. Directing people to where you are in the playlist and getting people to directly play from that playlist is really helpful. It’s one thing to just get on the playlist, but once you do, there is a lot of work to do.” “Also, from the perspective of the DSPs like Spotify and Apple, they love it when you sort of stroke their ego a little bit,” adds Marc Cremo- nese, label manager at Royal Moun- tain Records (Alvvays, Mac DeMarco, PUP) and an artist manager. “Add yourself to the backend on Spotify for Artists and Apple Music and Amazon when it comes. If you direct any social media posts to one or the other, or take out some social media ads and tag Spotify or Apple, they really love it because they’re all competing with each other and any traffic that you send them, they will show you love in return.” Another tool worth mentioning is Spotifycodes.com. It’ll create a unique QR code-type image (but nicer looking) that people can scan in the Spotify app to go to an artist’s profile or album. “I have an artist client called Featurette who are fantastic and they have their code printed at their merch table because they only release digitally,” says Kinghorn. “They’ve After all this, we’re still left with the ques- tion: does getting on playlists matter in the long run? Is all this time, investment, and effort worth it? Like much in life, the answer is: it depends. Remember, getting streams doesn’t necessarily equate to getting fans – especially on playlists. “The interesting thing is at CD Baby, because represent around 750,000 artists, we’ve seen a lot of artists doing very well on playlists that have made them money but made them zero fans. You think, ‘How can that happen?’ Well, APPLE MUSIC FOR ARTISTS the thing is, with the streaming world, you have to understand that people are listening to music very differently than they used to,” says Breuner. “People are listening to music by mood, by very broad genres, or by activity, and things like that. So, they are getting music fed to them that they may like, but they’re not neces- sarily becoming fans of those artists.” Remember the instrumental guitarist with 600,000 monthly listeners on Spo- tify who taught Breuner his strategy for getting on user-generated playlists? Well, Breuner adds, “His follower count was like 2,000 because he wasn’t making fans. He was on these playlists, he does a lot of covers and people liked his music, but it wasn’t creating fans. Now, he was making a nice pay cheque, but if he goes on tour, no one is going to show up.” “I don’t think it’s definitely a positive thing to get on playlists,” adds Cre- monese. “You know, you make some money and generate some streams, but I don’t think it’s necessarily make- or-break for your career. One of the artists we worked with this year, Orville Peck, got no Spotify playlisting for the first six months that he was signed to Royal Mountain, but it didn’t affect his overall trajectory to where he’s at today. Maybe that is an outlier, but I do think it’s possible to have it not really affect your career that much. Ultimately, what I notice in the analytics of Spotify and Apple Music is you tend to get followers from being on the road and making fans through that and that brings peo- ple back to the DSPs.” The nature of the playlist is a big fac- tor, too. For example, right now on Spo- tify, there are dozens of user-generated playlists with the term “studying music” in the title that have between 1,000 and 20,000 followers. The express purpose of these mellow, mostly-instrumental playlists is to not pay much attention to the music; nonetheless, they gener- ate a lot of streams, and if music is more a side-hustle and getting on these pas- sive-listening playlists and earning some money is what you’re after, there is nothing wrong with that. That said, there are playlists that do the op- posite; they tend to be genre-specific and seek out the best new music. These playlists attract active lis- teners who are motivated to find something new to love. These kinds of playlists really can create new fans, not just streams. “I think the one thing that has been annoying to me for the last year or so is people really think that if they get on a playlist, that it is going to solve their whole entire life. It’s like, ‘Oh, I got on the Viral 50 and my life is made!’ You have so many other things to be doing along with playlisting. As an artist, you need to be looking at your songwriting, how you’re releasing, your touring, your merch, how you’re interacting with your fans, your socials, and playlisting is a part of a whole system,” Kinghorn stresses in closing. “It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot about how you do a number of steps in a number of different ways.” Michael Raine is the Senior Editor of Canadian Musician Marc Cremonese of Royal Mountain Records C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N 41

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