Universal Music Group announced Thursday (March 28) that its artists will soon be able to tease unreleased music on Spotify.
Sharing snippets of unreleased songs on social media was one of the most popular methods of promotion for artists during the TikTok era (sometimes to the chagrin of songwriters). In many cases, artists they're not even finished writing the song they tease. However, fan enthusiasm can make these pieces of music go viral anyway, especially on TikTok, sending artists scrambling to write another verse, record a full song, and release it as soon as possible—hopefully in an enthusiastic reception.
Universal Music Group's announcement is notable because it comes as the company's standoff with TikTok nears the end of its second month. Official UMG event registrations are not currently available in the app. (The same goes for many, but not all, songs that feature contributions from UMPG songwriters.) While most UMG artists continue to use the app as a social tool to communicate with their fans, their ability to promote music on TikTok is very limited.
Spotify song teases represent a possible alternative to these acts. “We are excited to expand our relationship with Spotify through the introduction of new content offerings and partnerships that will bring deeper 'social music' experiences to the platform,” UMG president and CEO Lucian Grainge he said in a statement.
Founder and CEO of Spotify Daniel Ek added that “upcoming features will put more power in the hands of artists and their teams to help them express themselves authentically, effectively promote their work, and better monetize their art.”
UMG did not say when its artists could start sharing pre-release clips on the platform. It's also unclear to what extent Spotify users will actively hunt down pre-release music on the streaming service — a lot they prefer more passive forms of engagement.
TikTok, by contrast, excels at attracting those who see fandom as a participatory sport – they want to comment on unreleased demos and make their own remixes. And especially for younger listeners, the app is often a popular source of music discovery.
Media Research I found out that TikTok is the second largest music discovery guide for Gen Z after YouTube. US TikTokers “are nearly twice as likely to discover music on short-form video platforms as the average user of social or social video platforms,” according to a Luminate study released in November.
Spotify is then where many of these listeners go and listen to full songs they found on TikTok. To make this process even more seamless, TikTok introduced a new feature last year that allows users to quickly save music they find on the platform to Spotify and other streaming services.
Still, Spotify executives were eager to tout the streamer's ability to self-drive discovery. “There's a disconnect between where music is teased and where music is actually broadcast.” Sulinna OngSpotify's global editorial chief said at the company's stream On event in 2023. “The most powerful moment to reach fans is when they've chosen to engage with music, like when they open Spotify.”
At the same event, co-chairman of Spotify Gustav Soderstrom said that “Spotify recommendations drive nearly half of user traffic.” “Every time your music is played on a playlist like Release Radar, you get, on average, three times more streams from that listener over the next six months,” he added. “And when a listener decides to follow you, they listen to, on average, five times more of your music.” This recommendation system sets Spotify apart from platforms that offer “only a fleeting moment of viral fame.”
UMG also announced Thursday that its publishing arm has signed a deal with Spotify so the platform can share music videos on Spotify's US music videos that went into beta for premium users in 11 countries — but not the US — earlier in March. At that time, Charlie HellmanSpotify's vice president and head of music product, called videos “an important part of so many artists' toolkits.
“It's only natural for them to live in the same place that more than half a billion people choose to listen to music,” Hellman added in a statement.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/streaming/universal-music-spotify-tease-unreleased-music-videos-1235643422/