Since 1999 I've posted music online in hopes that listeners like you would discover it and relate to the song's message and intent. Back then there was MP3.com.
Flash forward 24 years and Spotify is the go-to place to have your album tracks heard (or not). The music business now works from the bottom up more than ever before. Record companies used to pluck artists from obscurity and push their music to radio stations. Now, those same companies look at what is already a hit with listeners and then sign the makers of those already-proven hits.
With the help of a service called Groover, I was able to pitch a couple of my songs to a few discerning playlist curators on Spotify. Some of those playlisters added my tunes when they sensed a good fit.
| Playlist Title/Link | Curator | Song |
| All Monkey Gone To Heaven | Blue Orchid | Give Up the Ghost |
| Rock Acùstico | Internacional | As Melhores | Acoustic Rock | Unplugged | The Best | Grunge | Manga Rosa Playlists | Give Up the Ghost |
| Playlist | Showland Productions | Side Effects |
| Breathe The Music | Stellar Voices | Side Effects |
| Pop Squad | Tata Kim | Side Effects |
| Music for Monday | Jon Pinter | Cubicle |
If you listen to Spotify, please give these playlists a go and support all the artists you enjoy hearing.
How Groover Works
Groover connects artists to music curators - playlisters, journalists, radio hosts, and concert bookers. While it's strictly against Spotify policy (and artistic integrity standards) for playlist curators to sell guaranteed slots on their lists, there's another way. Artists can pay Groover to share their pitch with curators, who are then free to accept or reject the pitch. The curators make a cut of this money, incentivizing them to listen and provide feedback, not necessarily to use the music. You're not paying for placement; you're paying to advertise to the curators.
If an artist has a budget set aside for music promotion and wants to put some of their tracks in a position to be heard, they can give this a try.
It took two campaigns for me to start to see a noticeable increase in listeners. My songs don't always fit neatly in a given subgenre, so matching my music with the tastes of the right curators based on genre is a learning curve. The table above lists the curators who chose to include a song I pitched. Many of my other pitches ended up getting feedback that the song I sent was not exactly the genre they promote.
I hope I will continue to find my way to new listeners and deepen my connection with existing ones. My second Groover pitch got more results than my first; if I see this continue to improve, I'll stick with this as part of the process of promoting my new musical releases.
Spotify's library grows by about 80,000 songs a day. Standing out in that crowd to someone, for a moment, is a good start.
