Spotify App Playlist Pitches, Google Play Shutting Down, Anghami Playlist Tool Coming Soon

Welcome to the first edition of this newsletter. This is meant to be a regular, quick summary of music industry news that is relevant for artists, especially for those of you that are DIY or do most of the work yourselves. As always, I’ll try to get to the point fast and cut out anything that is unnecessary, so you can get back to doing the things you love.

Spotify for Artists - Pitch Music Directly from the Mobile App

Artists can now pitch upcoming music for playlist consideration directly from the Spotify for Artists mobile app. It's worth noting that this option will only be available for future releases and may take a few days to appear after your song has been uploaded via your distributor or label.

Spotify has also released a large number of additional genres to choose from when submitting music. Previously, artists with a niche genre found it tough to find an exact match when submitting. While there is currently a mind blowing 5,215 genre-shaped distinctions on Spotify at time of writing, not all will be available on the submission form. (Sorry for those of you releasing Bro-Step or Pirate Metal.)

Google Play Music - Still Shutting Down

Google continues to play things very safe. (See what I did there?) The music service has been "shutting down" for years and users have now been given a final date after which their user data will be deleted. Fear not, however. If you’re still relying on Google to play music, you can transfer your data over to YouTube music with a nifty tool that Google has provided.

For those of you that like to live on the edge, the final cutoff date is February 24, 2021.

Anghami for Artists - Playlist Pitching Coming Soon

The Anghami for Artists mobile app now shows an exciting feature that is "coming soon" for playlist pitching. While there is no more detail yet, it's a great reason for artists to sign up and claim access now so they can be first in line as soon as this feature becomes available. Keep in mind that when Spotify first launched their editorial playlist submission tool, one in every seven tracks (roughly) was being added to an editorial playlist as a result. It's definitely worth signing up and being one of the first when this is available.

That’s all for this round! My goal is to help artists at any level have a greater knowledge and understanding of all aspects of the music industry relevant to their career. Now you can get back to making that music. If this newsletter helps you, please feel free to share it around and follow my profile for future editions.