Why I Make Micro-Chop Playlists With 104 Instrumentals From 104 Producers
When I was interviewing Street Corner Music artist Juicy The Emissary in the spring of 2017 for a Micro-Chop article and an UGHH.com article on his project Attention Kmart Choppers, he said something that I often find myself thinking of. “There’s so many different reasons people listen to music,” he told me laugh. “Unfortunately, it’s rarely, ‘This is good.’ You can’t just promote something by saying, ‘Listen to this, it’s good.’”
Juicy may have been speaking about the need for producers to find a gimmick, theme, or at least a very novel approach to get people to pay attention to their work, but I think he tapped into something much more universal.
Human beings are inundated with art, articles, books, movies, music, pictures, podcasts, social media posts, TV, tweets, and every other form of art and media at unprecedented rates. You can’t just grab someone’s attention by being good. You need to be exceptional — at least sometimes — and every once in a while you need to present something to people that feels like it hasn’t been done before.
With this in mind, in November of 2017 I started to think about something I could do that was novel. I had just run a bunch of producer interviews the previous spring and summer on Micro-Chop, and while the feedback was mostly positive, the read rates and traffic for the site still wasn’t great. I realized that just running producer interviews and other Micro-Chop articles wasn’t enough. I had to find something new to give my readers.
“There’s so many different reasons people listen to music. Unfortunately, it’s rarely, ‘This is good.’ You can’t just promote something by saying, ‘Listen to this, it’s good.’”
— Juicy The Emissary
I remember thinking that there were so many good beats I was discovering at the time, it was almost overwhelming. I felt a bit sad that I’d never be able to interview all the producers who had moved me with their music. Then I thought of different ways to share as many amazing instrumentals from a wide variety of producers with my audience as possible.
I compiled a playlist with no specific number in mind, with the lone rule being that I could only include each producer once — in other words, each artist would only be allowed one cut on my playlist. Pretty soon the playlists ballooned to close to 100 songs by 100 different producers and I knew I had something pretty unique.
But 100 seemed like a boring and predictable number, so I added one more beat. Then I found three more that I wanted on there — finally stopping at 104. Once I was done picking the songs, I sequenced them by tempo and feeling to give the reader/listener an optimal listening experience.
Now for a a title. Without giving it too much thought, I came up with the name “Micro-Chopping 104 Jammin’ Ass Instrumentals”. Why did I come up with this name? I don’t know, because I’m weird and I thought it was kind of funny and I didn’t really expect much of an outcome from this project. Should I rename the playlists something different and more descriptive? Probably/maybe. I don’t know.
One of my friends since elementary school texted me to tell me the playlist had helped him stay calm while he spent several hours assembling a crib for his newborn.
Pretty soon the playlist was one of the most followed Micro-Chop playlists ever and people were messaging me and asking for Part 2. One of my friends since early elementary school texted me to tell me the playlist had helped him stay calm while he spent several hours assembling a crib for his newborn. I was really moved by some of the kind messages people sent about how much they liked it. In the time since the first “Micro-Chopping 104 Jammin’ Ass Instruments” playlist, which I put out in November of 2017, I’ve made a total of 5 playlists in the series. That’s 620 total instrumentals and countless hours of quality beats.
The hard truth is, the majority of the people who listen to these playlists probably won’t invest huge amounts of time into tracking down individual producers and discographies — but SOME will. I know because people have already messaged me about discovering a new favorite artist through one of these playlists. The playlists might not be perfect, they might lose their effectiveness some day, and they might reach a critical mass where folks just get sick of them. But for now, they’re a really great way for me to share a huge cache of high-quality instrumentals that I love with anyone will to take the time to listen.
At Micro-Chop, my number one goal is to get readers excited about the music I write about while opening their eyes and ears to new artists they’ve never heard of before. So far, these playlists seem to be doing more than their fair share in helping with this mission. I’ll keep making them for as long as people keep listening.
For your convenience, I’m going to embed all five playlist below. Please take a moment to check them out, give a clap if you’re on Medium, and follow if you use Spotify.
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