Spotify Playlists You Need To Know

Today, a huge part of being successful as an indie artist is getting their music onto well-known playlists. Spotify is arguably the biggest in the business when it comes to these playlists. In this blog, we’re going to dig deeper into the kinds of Spotify playlists and what role and purpose each of them plays in music marketing and helping an artist’s audience grow.

Majorly, there are 3 types of Spotify Playlists: Spotify Algorithmic Playlists, Spotify Editorial Playlists, and Listener Playlists. Let’s dive in.

1. Spotify Algorithmic Playlists

Spotify Algorithmic Playlists are those Spotify playlists that are created automatically for each user on Spotify. This is done by monitoring each user’s listening habits and analyzing this information to curate these super personalized playlists. Here are a few important algorithmic playlists:

Discover Weekly

Discover Weekly is a weekly updated algorithmic playlist which is personalized and unique for every user of Spotify. Each Monday, this playlist offers 30 songs to each Spotify user that they’ve never heard before. The songs in this playlist can be anything ranging from unheard songs from an artist you enjoy to music from artists similar to the ones you enjoy.

Release Radar

Release Radar is a bit more straightforward. Each Friday, this playlist curates new releases from the artists that you listen to and enjoy. 

Daily Mix

The Daily Mix is a set of up to 6 playlists that Spotify curates, designed to provide comfortable and familiar music. It is inspired by your favourite music according to your Spotify activity. It is different from the Discover Weekly playlist because the Daily Mix emphasizes more on familiarity and less on discovery. 

On Repeat

 The On Repeat playlist only contains the tracks that you’ve been playing the most over the past month. This playlist keeps auto-updating itself.

Repeat Rewind

Repeat Rewind, on the other hand, is a way to reminisce about your favorite songs from the near past by including the songs that you used to have on repeat from over a month ago. 

How These Playlists Can Help Grow Your Audience on Spotify:

Spotify algorithmic playlists have an insanely high reach. These are highly targeted towards listeners who are almost certain to love your music. This can bring about a shockingly huge number of streams, especially for talented artists in less popular genres. Spotify users that regularly listen to playlists like Discover Weekly and Release Radar are generally likely to be “active” listeners, who actively search for new music. These listeners, while fewer in number, are much more likely to turn into loyal fans.

2. Spotify Editorial Playlists

Spotify has a Shows & Editorial Team which curates the Spotify Editorial playlists for them. This team has music experts and genre specialists from around the world, specially hired by Spotify to curate playlists. 

These playlists typically have large followings and a lot of indie artists have these playlists to thank for suddenly skyrocketing their discovery. Many of these playlists are genre-specific – think “RapCaviar”, “Hot Country”, or “Rock This”. Others are more context-driven, such as “Songs to Sing in the Shower”, “Teen Party”, or “Relax & Unwind”.

The Editorial Team of Spotify will often test out new tracks on smaller “feeder” playlists. For example, tracks that perform well on a playlist like “New Noise” (289K followers) might be promoted to “Rock This” (4.3M followers); songs that gain traction on a playlist such as “Most Necessary” (1.8M followers) might eventually end up on “Rap Caviar” (10.3M followers).
 

How This Playlist Type Can Help Grow Your Audience on Spotify

Spotify Editorial Playlists enjoy the undeniable advantage, as far as number of followers is concerned. Most musicians are justifiably keen on getting a spot on these playlists, and for good reason: a placement on a major playlist like "Your Favorite Coffeehouse" or "Peaceful Piano" can translate into countless new audiences and streams. However, a big chunk of these streams can be "drive-by" streams. These listeners can often be more passive about their music listening habits; they’re less likely to turn into active, long-term fans. Note that Spotify for Artists allows you to submit your upcoming releases to Spotify’s editorial team, about 1-2 weeks before your release date. Make sure to do so!

3. Listener Playlists

User-generated playlists or listener playlists are those that are made and maintained by Spotify users themselves. These users can decide whether to make their playlists "secret" or "public". While many Spotify users curate playlists for their own enjoyment, numerous organizations, companies, celebrities etc. curate their own playlists, typically as an approach to expand their brand.

Let’s take a few examples.

• Stream Catcher

This is a group of expert curators that work with an ever growing network of Spotify curators and Youtube networks. The Stream Catcher A&R team spends close to an hour listening and evaluating every song which comes through, to help artists broaden their horizons and reach a wider and more global audience. 

• SubmitHub
  

Created by Jason Grishkoff (founder of the very popular blog IndieShuffle), on SubmitHub, you can pay bloggers, playlisters, radio programmers, Soundclouders and YouTubers to listen to your song for possible inclusion on their (hopefully) high-trafficked site/playlist/channel. 

How This Playlist Type Can Help Grow Your Audience on Spotify

User-generated playlists can at times draw in huge numbers of followers and can produce a significant number of listeners and streams for an emerging artist. They also have the potential to influence Spotify’s algorithmic playlists: whenever a user adds your track to their playlist, it provides data to Spotify about the type of music they like. With enough data, Spotify can then recommend that track to other users who have similar listening habits, resulting in long-term audience growth.

Getting on playlists is surely a great step that can help you get discovered, especially as a new artist. If you’re looking for more ideas in order to get more ears listening to your music, check out 10 Fresh Music Marketing Ideas.

We at GreaseRelease, have a bunch of curators on our network who are looking for new & exciting music to push on their massive playlists. If you make music and want to reach a wider audience, check out our submission platform and get a chance to reach millions of listeners! Submit your tracks now! 

 

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