REPORT: The role of playlisting in artist breakthrough moments on Spotify

This report was created by students of SMIX.LAB, a digital music business research centre at Popakademie Baden-Württemberg. Music Ally is their publishing partner for this original research, which uses Spotify data from a number of case studies to try to better understand the impact of playlisting on the “breakthrough moment” for some of 2021’s biggest newcomers. It’s designed to be useful reading for artists and marketers weighing up their approach to playlisting for emerging artists. Should you try to get your artist onto an editorial playlist, or many smaller third party playlists? And when picking those playlists should you aim for ones that would accommodate your music because of mood or genre – or something else? This report will hopefully help you make that decision with more certainty – and at the end of the report is a focussed set of takeaways and recommendations. We’re grateful to Popakademie students Amelie Lauer, Franziska Rapp, Leon Bauder, and Valerian Dilger for their work, and for the support of Digital Innovation project manager David Stammer.