🔵 How Spotify's editorial stranglehold is coming unstuck

Perhaps AI isn't the answer after all?

After writing in the last issue about a growing sense that people are looking for more qualitative connection with music in 2024, I found it timely to read Business Insider's article (below) outlining how engagement with Spotify's playlists has declined since it removed most of its human editorial.

The likes of RapCaviar used to be a key driver in the success of an artist. Inclusion in that was the modern equivalent of hitting the A-list at radio. It guaranteed incredible streaming numbers, and many a career was arguably launched from it.

Not any more, it seems. Engagement is down, by as much as 60% in some cases according to the article, meaning the influence these playlists wielded is evaporating.

What this highlights to me is how much human-led curation has been put to the sword, and how much we, as humans, as listeners, as music lovers, want to find qualitative recommendation from, well, another human being.

Whilst contemplating this situation, my colleague Tom pointed out what I feel is the crux of the issue. TikTok has become the platform for algorithmic recommendation. The general sentiment among anyone I know is that TikTok, more than YouTube, and certainly more than Instagram et al, is phenomenally good at recommending things to you.

The crucial difference, however, is that TikTok is not recommending you music. It is recommending you curators.

And that, to me, is why TikTok continues to steal so much value and attention from the likes of Instagram, YouTube and yes, even Spotify: it is simply much, much better at delivering recommendations you will respond to positively.

I suppose an irony here is that there is still an algorithm at play. However what TikTok seems to understand is that connecting you with other humans is far, far more valuable than simply connecting you with content.

The strategic error Spotify arguably made was to cut curators out of its platform altogether. Remember when Spotify's desktop app could run apps within it? The likes of Pitchfork, The Guardian, Hype Machine and others all had apps within the platform that existed to recommend you playlists. They were incredible too, forming a perfect bridge between the on-site editorial of those websites, to the direct point of consumption.

First Spotify removed those apps. Then it removed the people driving the editorial control. Tuma Basa’s exit to YouTube may have been a factor there, as he was almost as big as the RapCaviar playlist he had been editing at one point. For Spotify, one assumes that was unacceptable; no one should be bigger than the playlist itself.

By removing the human input around editorial, things have become just that little bit more bland. Those curveballs that exist because someone simply thinks you should hear this song, even if it bears no thematic relation to its neighbours on the playlist, are the first things to disappear. After that, it can all just get a little tired.

Personally, I see this as a positive thing, though it may not look like it at first. To me Spotify has played all the hands it has and ultimately, it has delivered essentially something about one step up from commercial radio. It is not, however, the qualitative point of connection that people used to have when sitting down to listen to an album in full, for example. That meaning, that context around a song that sees you invest so much into it, has all been stripped out.

This is why TikTok proves such a threat, even to Spotify. It has an algorithm ready to connect you with curators who in turn are recommending all manner of music to you. It also has viral content and other matter (including Peloton workouts, see below) which will also connect you to other music you might not have heard before.

All the while, TikTok has also been working on its own music platform. Most recently it also updated its platform to provide direct links out to other DSPs. I could only see that move as a means to gain market insight: who its users currently had accounts with.

If - though really more likely when - TikTok launches its own music platform, I would think Spotify for one should be concerned. Apple Music, for what its worth, always valued curation a lot more, and when Spotify was getting rid of the human curators, Apple was doubling down on them. Between that fact and the small detail of it being owned by the world’s largest tech company, I’d argue Apple Music has little to worry about.

For Spotify though, it is yet more erosion on the platform. It used to be an app all about music, with rich apps on the platform connecting you to all manner of releases you hadn’t heard of. Then it removed them and owned editorial outright, squeezing out all third parties. Then it added podcasts, claiming it was now an audio platform, not a music one. Now it has added audiobooks. Amid all of that, it has also doubled down on removing human curators and replacing them with algorithms.

Is this the experience music fans will value? I remain sceptical, and per last week’s article, I feel that qualitative connection will be something users look for more and more.

Where this all leaves Spotify remains to be seen.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “In The Afterworld” by Om Unit & TM404. I’d somehow missed this album before now despite being a fan of Om Unit’s work, and it’s an absolute delight. This is acid-infused ambience with breakbeats, making it really reminiscent of vintage Future Sound of London, Fila Brazilia, early Warp-era IDM, even The Orb and Global Communication at points. A real treat - were I still a clubber, this would 100% be the comedown music afterwards. Highly recommended!

📖 reading The Long Player Vol. 2, by Aly Gilani. This is the second volume of Aly compiling his writing (normally posted on Instagram) of the music he’s playing that day. The end result is a zine you can pick up, open to any page and find inspiration in. I love it, and hope he keeps doing this every year. They’re a delight.

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You voted, we listened: Network Notes is now twice weekly

Thanks to everyone who voted in our readers poll last week regarding the frequency of Network Notes publication.

The votes are in, and the winning option, with 44% of the vote, was twice weekly, each Tuesday and Thursday, hence this edition landing today (Tues). Coming second as an option was once per week, with 35% of the vote.

What we have taken from that is that 3x per week is too much, so we will move to the Tues/Thurs posting schedule from now on.

Thanks again for your feedback - it is much appreciated! 🙏🏻

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Stories from the Music Industry:

Music streaming service SoundCloud tunes up for sale

The owners of SoundCloud, one of the world's largest music streaming services, are preparing for a sale that could fetch in excess of $1bn. Sky News has learnt that Raine Group and Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean state investment fund, have begun interviewing investment banks about a prospective auction of the company.

👆🏻Hot take: this could become a pivotal moment if, for example, someone like BandLab buys SoundCloud. Given who owns it at present, I feel it has to sell to someone with more direct music interests - but that in turn narrows the field considerably. Tencent to purchase and integrate to TikTok? Stranger things have happened.

Spotify's Editorial Playlists Are Losing Influence Amid AI Expansion

Employees at different major labels say they’ve seen streams coming from RapCaviar drop anywhere from 30% to 50%. Other music executives say they’ve observed a similar shift impacting the reach of songs from other big playlists with streams dropping off by over 50% in just a year. One label says their streams from a popular dance-oriented playlist called Dance Hits dropped by around 60% compared to the previous year. Streams from another one called Mint fell off by 40%.

👆🏻Hot take: I feel this supports my points made in last week’s NN, namely that people are tiring of the DSP experience in general and may start looking elsewhere for more qualitative experiences. Perhaps an alternative outcome is companies building better recommendation platforms (akin to magazines), and plugs those into the likes of Spotify, such that the latter simply becomes a dumb pipe for the music itself.

Peloton's latest expansion is a workouts hub... on TikTok

The two companies have partnered for a #TikTokFitness hub on TikTok, to be populated by content created by Peloton. “Content will include select live Peloton classes with and without equipment required, original Instructor series, ongoing creator partnerships, Peloton class clips, and celebrity collaborations,” according to the fitness firm.

👆🏻Hot take: I can only view this as a good thing in the context of music, given Peloton uses music throughout its workouts, and TikTok is a proven breeding ground for tracks going viral etc.

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Stories from the Broader World of Tech:

‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says

“Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression – including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents – it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” said OpenAI in its submission

👆🏻Hot take: what galls me reading this is the degree to which OpenAI (and others) feel they have right to utilise copyrighted material for their own gain and ultimate profit. The answer doesn’t seem like rocket science: due respect and financial consideration needs to be shown to those whose work you are training platforms on - along with means for them to opt out if they so desire.

Sideloaded app stores are coming to iOS in the EU

“The main benefit of sideloading,” Testut tells me, “is that users will be able to download entirely new apps that have never been possible due to App Store restrictions, such as video game emulators, virtual machines, cloud-gaming services, [and] non-WebKit web browsers.” This means that iPhones and iPads will have the ability to become more flexible and computer-like than ever before.

👆🏻Hot take: I’m really curious to see how this might change the use of iPhones. As mentioned above, it could be amazing for things like game emulations etc. Equally though, it could potentially cause all manner of issues to the OS.

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Need something else to read? Here you go:

11 Tips for Anyone Who Doesn’t Know How to Relax

Is anyone relaxing these days?

👆🏻Hot take: I tend to be a little wary of self-help articles for the most part, but this one has some great advice. Sensible and achievable. Worth noting.

The 'wealth transfer' from baby boomers won't save Gen X and millennials

Experts say baby boomers will give more than $50 trillion to their heirs. But for many, health care costs will claim the bulk of that wealth.

👆🏻Hot take: what I found interesting here is that this obviously relates to the US perspective. For those of us in the UK, this will not be the case, leaving me wondering how that might shift the economy in general.

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Who am I and who are Motive Unknown?

I’m Darren and I’m the MD of Motive Unknown. I started the company back in 2011. Since then we’ve grown to a team of 20, representing some 25 indie labels in the marketing strategy space, as well as working with artists directly.

Our artist clients cover anything from top-tier pop (Spice Girls, Robbie Williams) through hip hop (Run The Jewels, Dessa), electronic (Underworld, Moby) and more. Our label clients take in Dirty Hit (The 1975, Beabadoobee) Partisan Records (IDLES, Fontaines DC), Domino Records (Arctic Monkeys, Wet Leg), Warp Records (Aphex Twin, Danny Brown), LuckyMe (Baauer, Hudson Mohawke), and Lex Records (MF DOOM, Eyedress) among others.

Recent recorded music clients to join the family include Because Music (Christine & The Queens, Shygirl), Dangerbird (Grandaddy, Slothrust) and London Records (Bananarama, Sugababes).

In addition to our recorded music division, we also have a hugely successful growth marketing division which has a strong focus on the music creation space. Our clients in this space include Beatport, Plugin Boutique, Loopmasters, UJAM, RoEx, Krotos, Rhodes and more.

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