Going Beyond the Playlist: Tastemakers as Changemakers

We are now at the point in the internet age where Bill Gates is right: content is king. However, we also need to acknowledge another quote from the same man: “For the internet to thrive, content providers must be paid for their work.”

There’s a clear-cut roadmap for that in the music industry. In order for musicians to thrive, we need to surface their talents first. As we discover, curate, and share quality content, we also create a fair platform where everybody wins.

This is where Inmusik comes in, as a community of tastemakers that let real talent shine.

Beyond the Playlist

Playlists have shaped the way we consume music in this streaming era. Whenever we create a playlist on a streaming platform, we have two purposes in mind: to listen to the music that we love and discover music that will match our taste.

Spotify, arguably the world’s largest streaming platform, has positioned itself to be the all-knowing app that collates collections that will cater to every individual’s taste. This gave rise to platform-curated playlists, which tells us which songs would be best for every utility possible. The result is a playlist for every activity that you can think of, through “self-driving” technologies.

However, we still hit the skip button. There’s something missing in what’s presented to us as “choice”. What we are missing on the onslaught of automated playlists and algorithm-based releases is this: context.

We believe that music should remain as universal storytelling. We understand music as it is because it binds us to the people that create them — this is how we tell that a track that we listen to is right in its timing with our experiences. Moreover, creators lose control over their work when the personal context is lost.

As a community of creators and listeners, this erasure is removing our identities and the severing of our connection to the industry that we want to see thrive, reducing us to a mere statistic on a platform. As the music business become increasingly obsessed with data, algorithm filtering out the narrative of our own experiences has become the norm.

We’re drowning in quantity, but we’re not getting the quality we expect. It’s time to change that. We can refuse to be integers in this streaming race that is obsessed with charting and play counts.

This is the part where we leave the popular playlisting model if we want a better world for artists and demand quality repertoire development. This is the part where we engage the industry the way we are supposed to as a vibrant ecosystem where all types of music and artists can flourish.

We start by demanding and advocating for good taste.

Undiscovered Quality Music Will Rise

In order to surface true talent, we are going to build conversation pieces that will help different types of audiences find the music that truly appeals to them. This will also allow content creators to discover the strength of their work, along with areas where they can improve.

For music listeners, this is a new venue where they can discover and support great music through the help of contextualized curating. For musicians and labels, this is the place where they can find a meaningful connection with a targeted audience that is ready to invest in what they do and remain to be in control of their art.

Connections, for us, remains the strongest impact that artists can create whenever they release a piece of work. When we think about disrupting the future and discovering new revenue models for a vibrant ecosystem, we believe that artists and curators can create a long-lasting infrastructure where listeners can find each other and form a bond. In the long run, making great content surface is less about top-down promotional content, the type that we see in existing platforms.

Where we will thrive is forming a self-organizing community where labels and music tastemakers serve as facilitators for finding content and bringing in the rights that will allow good music to become successful in the market. This serves an important purpose: creating a long-lasting, self-sustaining platform that can churn out endless possibilities in creating markets and revenue streams.

Surfacing Quality

Our vision is clear: we want to listen to and promote good music, and our core strength lies in a true partnership between listeners and content creators. What we aim to become is the largest aggregate of quality content where a song’s artistry is the main topic of the conversation.

What brings listeners to discover artists are the tastemakers — music curators who actively seek good music and tell the world about every discovery. Tastemakers make people aware of what is going on in the industry and put context on the data that are visible in trends. More importantly, tastemakers are also tribe makers, helping music listeners find the right soundtrack for their identities.

This is where tastemakers become conduits of change — compared to the traditional platforms available, Inmusik aims to find the perfect balance of major label releases and the independent sound. We understand that in order for quality music to rise above the noise, we need gatekeepers to facilitate discovery.

Here’s the reason behind it: most of what we listen to today can belong to tomorrow’s niches, and there is a big chance that the niche sounds we listen to now can be consumed by the risk-averse market and can be a direct line to revenue. This means that the niche sounds that remains untapped may just become tomorrow’s hits.

Keep the Inmusik Story Going

Content rules this space we inhabit, and we are building a vibrant ecosystem where we can tell better stories through songs. As we all strive for a better music industry, we call on the best storytellers out there — the ones that truly break out quality hits that deserve the airwaves.

As a community, we have come to an understanding that good music and artistry should be popularized. We urge everyone to tell stories about great songs and revolutionary artists to a community that is ready to listen. Your audience is already gathered here, and it is growing globally.

You, the curator and purveyor of taste, is the beginning of change.