Spotify has launched the inaugural edition of their serialized playlist “Noteable Releases.” The new playlist is the latest addition of the DSP’s Noteable initiative, designed to highlight the songwriters behind the world’s greatest hits and will act as a quasi-New Music Friday for the publishing world, sharing the hottest new tracks (and its songwriters) every Friday.
To kick off its first week, Spotify’s Songwriter and Publishing Relations team hand-picked key power players from across genres and disciplines, like Finneas O’Connell, Jack Antonoff, Autumn Rowe, Zaytoven, and Madi Yanofsky, to introduce their featured creations on the playlist, using Spotify Clips.
For Jules Parker, the head of Spotify’s songwriter & publishing relations team, the Noteable Releases playlist is part of the team’s goal to “provide more context” and education, and to also inspire new pathways to music discovery. “This playlist is somewhere you can go to discover the behind the scenes creators that you may not otherwise have known, and hopefully, use it to find music in a new and interesting way,” adds Michelle Fantus, songwriter & publishing relations manager.
Creating thoughtful and effective opportunities to spotlight publishing talents has long been a pain point for digital service providers like Spotify and its competitors in the streaming space. Although the Swedish company led as the first audio-only streaming service to implement public credits in 2018, Spotify’s Noteable initiative, which launched in February of this year, has vastly expanded the company’s efforts to highlight songwriters. New features include the Noteable hub itself, social media education, “Written By” playlists for producers and writers, and “Created By Women,” a serialized playlist under the Noteable umbrella, featuring women behind the music.
The trick with building Noteable as a successful initiative is trying to appease the desires of both regular consumers and industry folks at the same time. “We want to be able to program these things in a way that makes sense to not just industry, but consumers and listeners who might not even be aware of what a songwriter really is,” says Parker. Other challenges? “It’s also the most creative and the most technical side of the industry all at once,” he explains, “there’s so many talented people out there to highlight too.”
Though this balancing act will be ongoing for those working on the ever-expanding universe of Spotify’s Noteable, its new Noteable Releases playlist proves to be a step towards inclusion for songwriters on the platform and an educational resource for its users.
This week’s inaugural tracklist includes: “Happier Than Ever” by Billie Eilish, “Stop Making This Hurt” by Bleachers, “Talk Big” by Michi, “back to back” by Wrable and Duncan Laurence, “I Need You” by Jon Batiste, and more.
Moving forward, the songwriter & publishing relations team says to expect “a lot of writing camps” to take place as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. There will also be greater emphasis on scaling pre-existing tools for songwriters and producer and growing the presence of behind the scenes music makers across all Spotify initiatives. “We want to make sure, in whatever we are doing, there’s an element of songwriter, producer, publisher in there,” explains Parker.
Check out the playlist here.
