For a while, I’ve been using the same Spotify tricks to help boost my playlists and taste profile, including browsing its New Music Friday playlist to consulting my Daylist. But recently I’ve adopted new practices, and I’ve seen a big improvement.
Though I’m still toying with the idea of making the switch to Apple Music, I’m still enjoying exploring Spotify’s hidden gems, and I’m not done just yet. If you’re a playlist obsessive like me, these are the three new Spotify tricks I use that have helped me keep my playlists fresh and updated, as well as find new music.
1. Scour Spotify’s editorial playlists
I stand firm on the fact that Apple Music’s editorial team is a lot stronger than Spotify’s, but that’s not to say that Spotify’s editorial playlists are lackluster. They’re actually pretty useful if you ask me – you just need to know where to look.
For as long as I’ve been subscribed to Spotify, I’ve been force-fed its ‘Made for you’ playlists which – despite being designed to find new artists similar to ones on your radar – are incredibly repetitive. This is what sparked my hunt for specialist playlists I could actually rely on.
The first one that stood out to me is the All New, All Now playlist, a hotspot for the latest music releases of the past few weeks. While the New Music Friday playlist is updated more regularly, All New All Now is packed with deeper cuts and doesn’t just highlight charting artists.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg with Spotify-curated playlists, here’s a quick list of some of my favorites:
- Pop Rising
- Lorem
- The Indie List
- Riffs and Runs
- ALT NOW
2. Fresh gems, every Wednesday
One of the more recent sections I’ve come across in Spotify is ‘Fresh gems, every Wednesday’ in the New Releases hub, which highlights new music from independent artists and labels.
In addition to the broad Fresh Finds playlist, there’s an individual playlist for each genre including indie, dance, hip-hop, rock, jazz, and more. This is a useful way to come across rising artists, so you can say you were a fan from the start before they got popular.
3. Dabble in playlist art
When it comes to custom playlist art, there’s still a lot of room for improvement on Spotify’s part – which I’ve addressed very recently. In spite of this, it has a lot of potential to be even better.
For a while I’ve been staring at my blank playlist covers, wondering how to inject a bit of personality into my playlists without simply adding an image from my gallery and calling it a day. This is when I revisited custom art covers, and it’s done a solid job at summarizing the sound of my playlists – though I still need Spotify to fix its image and sticker limitations if it wants me to stick around.
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rowan.davies@futurenet.com (Rowan Davies)
