As much as musicians don’t like to be classified under one sound, their songs have similarities that are best expressed in easily digestible playlists. We’ve focused on playlisting for the past 6 months, yet we’re still trying to figure out what works best.
There doesn’t seem to be any guide out there, so thanks to SF MusicTech we got off our ass and did it ourself. Or at least the start of something.
This article doesn’t focus so much on the art of playlisting, but rather how best to research and set up your playlists. We use SoundCloud as the platform, but it can be easily applied anywhere else.
Where you spend your time listening online is the first thing to think about. SoundCloud has been the only one to prove itself as a consistently fresh resource for music, at least for us, if you build a ‘feed’ by following your favorite artists & listeners with similar tastes – not too different from Twitter (for music).
It’s important to be liberal at first when deciding to follow someone or not. You want to be following at least a few hundred people, so you’re catching a wide variety of new releases daily.
Equally as important, although being a little less liberal with it, is unfollowing people. What you’re not listening to is just as important as what you are and there is no time to follow people who post & repost a bunch of shit everyday (unless it’s good shit).
The more you listen, the better your resources will get and the better you’ll be at playlisting.
I try to listen to anywhere from 30 to 100 new songs a day and ‘Like’ anything on SoundCloud that sounds decent – you want to be liberal with Liking too. I keep the Like section on SoundCloud as a running playlist of what I’ve recently found until I get the song into a specific playlist or two (or none).
Start to get songs into playlists as soon as possible. To come up with new playlist ideas, look for reoccurring styles & themes in the music you like. The more you listen to a song, the more you’ll know where it should go and if you could make a new playlist out of it.
‘Begin Again’ is a movie about an A&R guy from some made up music label that’s down on his luck and can’t find any good musicians to sign. In the opening(ish) scene, he starts listening to music submissions that were sent to the label, but throws a hissy fit after hearing six songs or so.
It’s going to take well over six songs, or six hundred, to find a really good song, let alone artist.
Playlists can be any length, but generally shoot for around an hour. This means you should have at least 15 songs or more to start with, but account for losing 10 to 50 percent when picking for the final version.
I actually try to have 30 songs in my first draft, but you can actively search if you have less. Here are the best places to do so:
Once you feel you have enough songs, it’s time to narrow down and sort your playlist. This is all based on preference, but you’ll get better with practice. Here are a few helpful reminders:
Put as much effort in the look of the playlist as you did at picking the songs.
Had to end with a playlist. I originally made Electro Relaxations for this article, but the playlist got priority and came out a few weeks ago. I felt like chill music would suit better for a wider audience.
