SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/631812
3 0 S X S W o r l d | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 | S X S W. C O M or music lovers who came of age in the 1970s and '80s, mixtapes weren't just a novelty, they were a prime mode of communication. With use of a turntable needle and cassette deck's pause button, one could turn friends on to new music, fashion romantic missives, emphasize one's superior musical taste or just experiment with aesthetics, dynamics and segues. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and now playlists, mixtapes' direct descendants, have become a phenomenon within the music industry. Transforming the way music is collected, delivered, received and experienced, this once-quaint-concept-turned-big-business is challenging age-old music memes, while aligning the deeply personal with the futuristically technological. In fact, playlisters are now emerging as shrewd music historians, tastemakers of the new, and everything in between. They've gained so much traction that album sales and radio ratings are fading by comparison; playlists, presenting tracks recorded 10 minutes ago all the way back to the Victrola era, are the new albums. "I think playlists are popular because they democratize the taste- maker experience," declares Justin Boland, Pandora's hip-hop and R&B curator. "Everybody enjoys being a DJ, and creating a playlist gives you the opportunity to share the music you love while defining your personal tastes. It's like making an ultimate mixtape for all your friends at the same time." "For artists," adds Megan West, Content Relations Director for SoundCloud, "being selected for a playlist means acceptance and visibility to an audience—the 'stamp of approval' from whoever is curating it. It's a way to stand out from the rest of the millions of tracks an individual is sorting through. Playlists can be an incredible way to break through to a new audience, especially for developing artists." Still, as a collision of art and capitalism with high-dollar stakes and musicians with limited leverage, the revolution is not all roses, and actually raises as many issues as it resolves. These include the way royalties are calculated, the impact on indies versus major-label acts; algorithmically-produced playlist value versus fan-curated versions; and two biggies: fair monetary treatment of artists and the potential for payola. On-demand services—Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Deezer, Google Play Music, YouTube Music Key, Amazon Prime Music, TIDAL and Apple Music, among others—compete for playlist preeminence, each with vast music libraries and different specialties. With millions at stake, they're seeking differentiation, leverage, and to help listeners sift through endless choices. SoundCloud, for example, is excellent at tracking new and underground artists, while Rhapsody works well with home stereo systems and offers MP3 purchases. In the case of Pandora, founded in 2000 and claiming 250 million registered users, they are a "consumer-oriented music discovery service," employing, in part, the age-old mixtape concept. "Our playlists are customized for each listener," explains Pandora's Boland. "They are initially curated by our musicologist team, which is accented by the music genome, and then personalized by listener thumb data (what you like, and don't like). We also work with artists and brands to create playlists of the songs they love." Soundcloud, sporting a 100-million-track library, also leans on artists' playlisting—electronic wunderkind Skrillex and rapper Diplo are on-board. "We don't have an editorial team creating playlists," states West. "As a result, we've seen artists acting as curators, uti- lizing playlisting and reposting—tools available to everyone on SoundCloud—to build communities of fans ..." Spotify is the current playlist king, but also attracts the most criti- cism. By applying profiles, algorithms, scoring and other metrics to its immense data, the service maps out endless listening experiences. In an article for theverge.com, Matthew Ogle, Spotify product man- ager, attested that playlists beget playlists: "The answer [to playlist creation] was staring us in the face: Playlists, since the beginning, have been more or less the basic currency of Spotify. Users have made more than two billion of them." "I think the parallels between radio airplay and playlist plays are only going to increase," observes Kurt Lane, anchor at Hardland Management, which manages bands such as Gossip and 2016 SXSW showcasing artist Yuck. "You'll see more and more playlist 'pluggers' within labels and as stand-alone third-party services. That's most obvious in the case of Apple Music, where there's a concerted effort to launch legitimate online radio stations and spread priority songs across key playlists on the platform." "At the end of the day," adds Lane, "the curator holds all the cards when it comes to adding an artist to a playlist. All that you can do as an artist, manager or label is pitch your song to the most relevant outlets and hope it connects. One artist I work with, Saintseneca, had their first three singles added to the Spotify New Music Friday playlist, which had a carry-on effect of other key playlists adding the songs. That results in hundreds of thousands of plays over the course of a few weeks … With playlisting, you can see momentum build in a way that mirrors viral meme behavior." There is no doubt that the playlist door has opened wide. "People will continue to look to brands, blogs, curators, DJs, tastemakers, radio hosts and music nerds with good taste to sift through every- thing," notes Boland. "It's easier to have someone else pick the best of the best for you to listen to at the perfect time. It's like having a musical sommelier." T Justin Boland will be part of "The Art of Creating the Perfect Playlist" panel at the SXSW Music Conference. For details on all conference programming, visit sxsw.com/music. Music Playlists Gain Traction and Influence by luke Torn F J u s t in B ola n d M I C H A E L B A C A