Truly Independent

Getting your music on a curated steaming playlist seems like an impossible feat for truly Independent bands. I’m beginning to wonder just how gatekeepers select songs to put through. If streaming services, and curators don’t want to add independent bands to a curated main stream playlist, then why not make an official truly Independent playlist for independent, and DIY artists? I have given this some thought… I’ve heard some pretty awful music on curated playlists, and I can’t help but wonder why they were added to the playlist. What qualifies a song to be added to a playlist by a “professional” curator. Is a curator in some cases required to stick to certain rules when choosing what to add and what to reject when a song is submitted, or do they have the freedom to add whatever they want. What would the drawback for the streaming service if they added an official playlist that featured truly independent music? Would having a DIY, unsigned playlist be a disservice to the major labels on the platform? Of course, there are many independent playlists to be found, but these are from what I can find made by streaming service listeners, not staff curators. There are so many amazing songs by independent bands that would do very well on an editorial playlist curated by a streaming giant. Occasionally you’ll hear of an independent band blowing up, and getting an unusual amount of exposure but this is far and few between. Let’s break things down to and take a look at some of the reasons as to why things are this way, and how the industry would change if truly independent artists were added to major playlists. To be continued…

I think that it may have more to do with who owns the songs than anything else. After all, if independent songs were to get traction on an official playlist, then it could result in less revenue for the majors, and streaming service owners. Here’s an interesting quote from an article I read. “They’re obsessed with expanding their market share and making sure they don’t lose any market share to independent artists.” You can read the full article at this link- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/05/tiktok-is-upending-the-music-industry-and-spotify-may-be-next.html

“Gone are the days of musicians waiting for a gatekeeper” – A quote from the book “Get more fans, The DIY Guide to the New Music Business”. While the for-mentioned quote may be somewhat true, there are fewer gates, but there are still “gatekeepers”. The good news is that not everyone is trying to open the gates they are keeping. There may be a gate, but there are no walls that the gate is protecting, it’s all wide open, and virtually unlimited space on the giant network of computers that is the “Internet”.

To further demonstrate my point, I’ll share a few examples of how streaming services compare to one another when it comes to fan exposure and positive feedback from listeners. The first example is Jango Radio. Getting airplay on Jango Radio is easy, and has been a fantastic experience for me. I began using Jango for airplay many years ago and I didn’t immediately recognize the massive exposure, and benefit it would have on not only getting exposure for my music, but also the motivation if has given me to produce more music knowing that people are really listening, relating, and enjoying my work. Here are some screen prints from my Jango Radio page where listeners have left some very nice comments after listening.

If it’s possible to receive so many positive comments about my music on Jango Radio, and listeners are enjoying the music then why aren’t the songs performing nearly as well on Spotify… There are a few reasons for this, and very interesting thought fuel for research on how algorithms used by Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and other streaming music services actually work.

My experience with Jango Radio proves to me that there are people out there that are willing to give independent music a listen. Pure Evergreen has over 300 fans that have opted in to follow my profile. It shows that if you can get your music in front of new listeners, a surprising number of people will enjoy it and even follow you on their favorite streaming platform. If my music can get such an amazing response on Jango Radio then I would bet that it would perform the same way on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services. I’m not talking about getting millions of streams on Spotify. Opening the “gates” for independent bands would allow them to build a following and make a living doing something they love. I have heard the term “gatekeeper” many times. I wanted to believe that the playing field has been leveled but this is not yet the case. DIY bands do have more promotion options than ever before but there are still roadblocks in place that limit fan reach. What would happen to the major labels if independent bands were allowed in.

I asked for some help with the math on this from someone that is much better at it than I am and here are the estimates. On Jango Radio my songs were streamed 18,152 times total during my paid streaming campaign and out of the 18,152 streams 328 listeners became fans. That is approximately a 1.8% fan conversion rate. I would say that this isn’t a great conversion rate in a stand alone example but given the following estimation when this ratio is applied to other streaming services it shows the possibilities that the future could hold for DIY musicians increasing their change for success in the music streaming world. Here are my thoughts… At the time of this post Jango Radio has 6 million active monthly users and Spotify has 433 million active users. If you took the ratio above and applied to Spotify you would have an estimated 1,299,000 streams and 21650 new Spotify followers. I felt it was best to take into account the size difference of the two streaming services when coming up with the estimates. Of course it is possible that the same amount of streams on Spotify would result in the same amount of listeners (328 fans) would become followers on Spotify. I think it’s more exciting to think of in the context of ratio and imagine the possibilities and opportunities that independent bands would have if music streaming services were more DIY musician friendly.

As the Internet expands new music streaming providers emerge along with new ways to enjoy music. How will streaming music consumption change with the coming of the Metaverse… If bands can get 328 people to become a fan with 18,152 streams then I think the same or better could be achieved on services like Spotify. It seems that major record labels still have the upper hand but in the meantime while we wait for the music industry to change and level out there is always Jango Radio as well as other artist friendly Internet radio services like Pandora Radio. Pandora is another streaming radio service that is incredibly supportive and allows artists a bit further into their ecosystem and algorithm. Their option to feature a specific track for a set amount of time has given huge exposure to many of my tracks sometimes give them thousands of spins. I still get more monthly plays on Pandora Radio than I do on Spotify and this is without any effort or marketing aside from putting the link in my blog posts to some of the stations and tracks. There has been enough station adds and song likes on Pandora Radio that it seems that my tracks have been allowed to pass through the gate and enter a very small part of the Pandora streaming algorithm. I will be starting a new featured track campaign on Pandora later this month and after the featured track promotion term ends I will share the results here in a separate blog post.

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