How to Get Your Music on Official Spotify Playlists!

I found out some awesome news! My new single, “Skin & Bones” was added to a large Spotify playlist ( Folk & Friends with >120,000 monthly listeners) on its release date of March 1st, 2019. This is particularly exciting because it is my first time ever being added to an official Spotify playlist, and all of my music is released independently without support from a label, publisher, or industry connection. My goal with this post is not only to tell you how stoked I am that my song was added to a platform where a lot of people can hear it from all over the world, but to explain how you can do the same thing for your music releases.

As a new artist, the first thing you want to do is release at least one song, and there are plenty of ways to do so. I release music through the platform - TuneCore (https://web.tunecore.com/login) and it costs about $11.99 to release a “single” for a year, which includes uploads on major platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Deezer, iHeart Radio, and many more within about a week. Tunecore also acts as a bank account for streaming and purchase royalties.

So how do you apply for playlists??? Once you have your single from your engineer, studio, or wherever you had it recorded, submit your song to Tunecore and have your release date set for 3-4 weeks (or more) from when it is uploaded. After your song has been sent to, and accepted by your streaming platform you want to head straight over to Spotify for Artists (https://artists.spotify.com/) and “claim your artist profile” to get started. Spotify for Artists is where you will find all of your logistics and it is also where you will apply for submission to Spotify playlists. THIS CAN ONLY BE DONE WITH UNRELEASED MUSIC - this is why you want to have your song uploaded way before you plan on releasing it. This gives the editors over at Spotify some time to consider placing your song, and placing it in a suitable category.

Why is this something you should focus on? It can increase your monthly listener base by a crazy amount! Within the week of being uploaded to Spotify’s “Folk & Friends” playlist my monthly listener base went from 20 to just over 2,000 and received 3,000 plays in one week! This is crazy exposure that would be very hard to generate organically from friends and family and a small fan base.

So what do you want to do?
Record your song
Upload it to Tunecore
Wait for it to go “live” on all your streaming platforms
Claim your artist profile from Spotify for Artists
Submit your single to the Spotify Playlist application on Spotify for Artists
Wait to see if it is accepted and submitted to a playlist! (you will only see this when your song is released)

*Pictures available below for some reference