Rock This: How Spotify is Making an Effort to Promote New Rock Acts
“Rock Is Dead” is a phrase that has been said time and time again. In my previous article I wrote about how this statement in recent years has been largely influenced by the pre-eminence of modern capitalism and its potential ability to determine the very fate of music. In that article, I pointed out how the modern corporate music industry will not give any new rock acts a chance. In this article, I will show how one major fixture in the music industry appears to be challenging this conclusion.
In my previous article I did mention that in the last ten years or so there were a few notable modern rock acts that seemed to get a decent amount of mainstream attention, such as Greta Van Fleet, Ghost, and King Gizzard. I’ve been following these bands for several years now, and they have all gained a hefty mainstream following, yet not enough to settle the debate of whether or not rock is “dead” — and all the deep pessimism about the commercial future of the genre that comes with it.
When I listened to the aforementioned bands on Spotify, I found that I was recommended to a number of other modern bands with a similar sound; groups such as White Reaper, Dorothy, Badflower, Royal Blood, among others. I soon found that these bands were featured on public rock playlists created by Spotify, many of which consisted of similar contemporary rock acts. It’s definitely intriguing that Spotify itself, the most popular music streaming app and a large part of the modern capitalist music industry, is promoting modern rock bands as up-and-coming.
The most popular of Spotify’s modern rock playlists is “Rock This”, which has ramped up over 4.7 million likes. For comparison, Spotify’s “Pumped Pop” playlist has around 1.4 million likes. “Party Hits”, a compilation playlist of hip-hop and pop songs by extremely successful Top 40 artists such as Beyonce, Doja Cat, and Lil Nas X, has around 4.3 million likes; that’s around 400 thousand less likes than “Rock This”. Another one of Spotify’s playlists, “Rock Solid”, which prides itself as featuring “New rock classics and essential cuts”, has over 1.5 million likes. Meanwhile, the playlist “Rock Hard” has nearly 1 million likes. “Rock Me Up”, a workout playlist of contemporary rock and alternative songs, has around 615 thousand likes.
So, clearly it can be seen that up-and-coming rock acts are being promoted by a corporate music industry giant. Clearly the audience is there and listening. So why aren’t more people talking about this? Why won’t the rest of the music industry bigwigs take this into account? Why, instead of telling people to check out the newest rock acts on Spotify, are people arguing on whether or not the genre is alive or dead? Why does pessimism reign supreme?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.
