The Playlist Pyramid: How Music Moves Through Spotify's Playlist Ecosystem

Landing on the right playlist at the right time can help new listeners discover your music, but no two songs follow the same path to popularity. Each of Spotify's editorial playlists is part of a connected ecosystem that’s curated by human expertise and informed by data - leading music on a unique journey to ears all over the world. Take a look at how it all works as we follow releases from S1mba, CHAI, and Empire artist Fireboy DML and see how each made its way up through the editorial playlist ecosystem.
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[@fearlessgambino]

Why does Spotify only help and push music already listened to by thousands of people instead of pushing the new artists and give someone like me, with a small reach, the ability to get a bigger reach.

[@leierlord]

because its business. they can make more money from people who already have a few listeners.

[@TBiz81]

Because their playlisting is algorithmically driven. Algorithms run on data. Data is generated when your song is streamed. The more a song is streamed the more data the more the algorithm can push it. Those first few hundred/thousand streams need to come from your promotional efforts to set this chain-reaction in motion. Otherwise how is the algo going to know that your song exists & that people like like?

[@pmishraofficial]

So the success of the track is in a way dependent on the Subjective opinion of the editors? Would this not be heavily biased based on their taste in music, especially for music that's ahead of its time?

[@koppy82]

They choose people with specific tastes for each playlist. So they pick someone who loves LoFi HipHop for a few LoFi HipHop playlists

[@pmishraofficial]

In that case the selection again is bound by the genres defined. Music that's a fusion will not reach its audience with this approach.

[@TBiz81]

the success of a track is based on the tastes & opinions of the listeners, not the editors. if people like your track they will play it more, the algo will notice and then understand what type of person likes your music. only then can it recommend your music to new people based on it's understanding of who likes it.

[@JadesOfficial]

love this channel

[@ListenToGlobal]

love your music

[@AerialBender]

What can you do if an EDITOR accidentally adds your song to WRONG playlist? On-line Spotify for Artists chat tells me that nothing can be done!

[@RedMaskoffical]

Hopefully one day.. I keep pitching

[@Benjaminstorset]

great stuff

[@guitarlancer]

Nice!

[@ExploreWithMR]

Thank you!

[@MikeMoonnight]

😍😍😍

[@djblackkbeat]

Nicely done ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

[@TheiPadTube777]

Cool😮

[@gracegb25]

To good of animation

[@608trayce]

Nice

[@AnthonyCarrier]

Thanks for the tutorials Spotify staff...

[@secretarchivesofthevatican]

We have a track that's had just under 170,000 streams on an editorial playlist so far but has not found its way up any mythical pyramid. I don't know any other artist who has experience the pyramid described either. Despite your talk of multi-genre playlists, the multi-genres referred to seem to actually always be mere variations of mainstream pop genres. Nothing rare or small, nothing niche or hard to define. I hate the way that all the artists you feature in any of your promotional or instruction videos are ALWAYS both fairly mainstream genre-wise and also very successful. How about showing us some exemplars who are super niche-genre or, even better, non-genre artists? Rather than showing us people who went from several thousand followers and streams to huge numbers, perhaps show us people who went from zero followers to a few thousand. That would be of way more practical use to most smaller artists.

[@koppy82]

It would be cool if you guys didn't add fake artists to most of your lists and would allow new / smaller artists to get a spot

[@Mojacaine]

In Google Ads I trust 🙃

[@deansy]

Thank you for posting this it is eternally appreciated :)

[@TaranRichards]

Awesome

[@rodrigodellamorapata]

ola

[@rocketstart]

dude im stil bewildered at how the channel got verified on youtube with less that 50k subs 0.0

[@LMKBOYY]

Hi