Not long after Artist Partner Group (APG) signed Odetari – who specializes in sleek, racing electronic tracks – last year, the label created a second Spotify profile for him. Odetari “often has two to three different record releases coming out a month,” explains Corey Calder, svp of marketing and creative services at APG. “If we had all of that on his page, it would feel cluttered and it would make it hard for his fans to follow and track it all.”
That means 'HYPNOTIC DATA – Slowed & Reverbed' and 'GMFU – Sped Up' live on a Spotify page called ODECORE, while the original hits will be found by anyone scrolling through Odetari's own Spotify profile. And this split artist identity is part of a growing trend where acts maintain a Spotify account for “official” releases, as well as a secondary account for alternative releases.
Odetari's collaborator 6arelyhuman puts remixes on Spotify called Sassy Scene. A Spotify account called Mei Mei The Bunny has only uploaded sped-up versions of Laufey's singles, four to date. Mark Ambor has a hit on “Belong Together”. His team uploaded the sped-up remix to Spotify via a separate account called Lucky Socks.
Even just a few years ago, creating alternate Spotify accounts for alternate versions of hit singles would have seemed overly redundant. But remixes and user edits have proliferated and become popular soundtracks on small-format video platforms like TikTok.
Listeners often don't care if the “slow and reverb” sound they find streaming is an official, monetized release for their favorite artist or a random upload — they just want to play the track that's stuck in their head. As a result, labels adapted by starting to release their own alternative work to cater to this segment of the population. If they're going to air “Belong Together (Sped Up)” anyway, it might as well be a money-making version for Ambor.
Streaming service Audiomack found that record label uploads of “manipulated songs” — official tracks sped up and slowed down, thrown up and down, muted and reverberated — spiked in late 2022. The number of these releases has continued to rise rapidly since then. climbing from under 1,000 a quarter to around 6,000 a quarter.
These remixes can thrive in their own streaming ecosystems. Universal Music Group has launched a Spotify account called Speed radio which only published accelerated versions of the label versions. accelerated night kernel did the same for singles from Warner Music Group.
The goal was “to create another growth mechanism and a new algorithmic pocket in streaming services that helps increase visibility and discovery,” says Nima Nasseri, a former UMG executive whose role included helping the company market remixes generated by users. As these Spotify pages gathered fans who enjoyed the sped-up sound, they allowed new remixes to reach a larger audience by standing on the shoulders of their predecessors.
A number of remix-focused side accounts feature clear links back to the mothership in a way that also helps raise awareness of the artist's main body of work—the songs ODECORE and Sassy Scene typically credit Odetari and 6rarelyhuman, respectively, as collaborators. Some of these alter-ego accounts, like Lucky Socks, maintain a degree of anonymity.
But both fill a demand: Anyone searching Spotify for a sped-up version of 6rarelyhuman's “Faster n Harder” finds the Sassy Scene version first. 6rarelyhuman selects works (and royalties) that might otherwise have gone to an enterprising artist.
ODECORE has an additional function, according to Calder: Ultimately, the goal is to turn it into a “sub-label” featuring music from artists signed to Odetari. “Ideally we'll already have a built-in audience,” says Calder. ODECORE currently has more than 430,000 followers on Spotify, according to Chartmetric. This team acts as a potential launchpad to help Odetari's future signings reach a wider audience.
“A lot of what we're doing internally at APG is creating multiple profiles for artists on social channels and we'll be running internal fan pages for our artists,” continues Calder. “We have these secondary and tertiary brands that are always in the background. And so we just applied the same thinking to a Spotify profile.”
For now, the main downside to releasing remixes under an alter ego is that they don't count on the success of the original Advertising sign diagrams. If artists release a remix under their own name, consumption of that new version also counts towards chart position. (As long as this is within 18 months of the release of the original track and the original is still a chart powerhouse.) That's why stars often release big-name remixes when they're in tight races for the top spot on the Hot 100. But if Ambor's alternative version of “Belong Together” is rendered in Lucky Socks, he doesn't get help from the extra consumption.
Ben Klein, president of Ambor's label Hundred Days Records, acknowledges that “commercially, it makes a lot more sense” to remix the same artist's work. But Ambor isn't competing for No. 1 — at least not yet, as the song has only reached No. 84 on the Hot 100 — and the group opted to release “Belong Together (Sped Up)” under a silly alternative name anyway or otherwise.
“We were really inspired by the Laufey team when we came up with the idea,” says Klein. “When Mark thinks about his profile, he wants it to be a representation of his music. An accelerated version is meant to be a fun, playful way for people to engage with the song on social media. It is not a direct connection to his art. And I think he just wanted to keep it special for that reason.”
Calder believes that “many more young artists” will take a similar approach in the future. As streaming platforms try to capitalize on the homemade remix eruption by adding their own audio manipulation tools, it's easy to imagine artists encouraging fans to mess with their songs by saying the most popular fan edit will be posted to an official account artist. Just no The official artist account.
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