Since I am planning to release my music at the end of the project, I created a questionnaire asking my peers which platform they use to stream music.
As you can see, majority of them said they listen to music through Spotify.
Spotify
By the end of 2021 Spotify had over 406 million active users. And with over 60,000 tracks being added to the platform daily, the competition for new artists is tougher than ever. (Houghton, 2021) The easiest way to get your music listened to on Spotify is through playlists. However, it can still be very tough to get onto the big playlists, and could work out to be quite expensive. Obviously this isn’t ideal, nor budget friendly for a small, independent artist.
Apple Music
Since its launch in 2015, Apple Music has accumulated over 98 million users (as of 2021). The app is automatically downloaded onto any apple device, and currently has over 70 million songs available to stream. Apple Music is the second most used streaming platform, even with numbers that are so far behind Spotify. (Espósito, 2022)
In order to start getting streams on Apple Music, artists usually will have to pay to have their music advertised. Again, this isn’t exactly ideal for an upcoming artist, as it can often become quite costly.
soundcloud
SoundCloud is a great platform for independent artists. “Millions of creators use SoundCloud as a way to distribute music, demos and beats, with producers, singers and everything in-between collaborating on the platform. Many artists used the platform as a first step in their career, including Post Malone who uploaded White Iverson in 2015, which became a viral hit.”
In 2020, SoundCloud had over 25 million music creators registered onto the platform, with over 200 million tracks available to stream. In order to get our music noticed on SoundCloud, it is suggested that you interact with other creators producing similar music, so eventually they look for your music and so do their fans.
(Dhillon, 2022)
Tidal
Founded by Jay-Z, Tidal is a fast growing streaming platform for new music. Its number of subscribers reached over 4.2 million after gaining 1.2 million subscribers in just one week after the release of Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’.
One thing which sets Tidal apart from streaming platforms such as Spotify, is its exclusive releases. Artists such as Drake have been releasing their albums on there a week early in comparison to other streaming platforms. This makes the service more appealing for new users.
(Langridge, 2016)
youtube music
YouTube surpassed 50 million subscribers by the end of 2021, however, this figure includes both YouTube music and YouTube premium memberships. The company also claims to have over 2 billion users consuming music monthly. (Aswad, 2021)