How a DJ Mix on Spotify & Apple Music helped Mango Alley increase plays by over 1000%
Getting playlisted on Spotify (and Apple Music) is one of the main ways music labels (and artists) try to increase their plays and exposure. For many indie electronic labels, playlist support is a difficult lottery to win. But now, thanks to DJ mixes, there’s a new way to massively (and authentically) increase your paid plays on streaming services without relying on official playlist curators.
Phase 1 of Proton’s DJ Mix distribution beta launched in October 2018, open to the 1300+ independent electronic music labels powered by our platform. One of the first music labels to test drive the beta was Mango Alley.
In October 2018, We Are All Astronauts worked with Mango Alley to release a DJ mix on Spotify and on Apple Music featuring music from the label. Only 6 months later, the mix successfully boosted plays for the tracks featured in the mix by over 1000%. This is a game changer for electronic music labels.
How is that possible?
As a music label, Mango Alley often releases melodic and progressive house/techno that is primarily aimed for DJ sets. Unmixed, these tracks often struggle to find an audience on streaming platforms because of their long intros & outros. These long intros & outros help DJs mix the track into their sets, but make the unmixed track less interesting to casual fans on streaming platforms. These tracks are meant to be heard in the mix, not unmixed.
Enter We Are All Astronauts, a core artist on Mango Alley that has frequently contributed to the label for years. On Spotify, there are 27,000 monthly listeners and 6,400 fans that follow We Are All Astronauts. That following on Spotify translated into traffic for the DJ mix, effectively a mixed playlist curated by an artist they care about.
And they kept listening.
What’s nice about listening to DJ mixes on Spotify & Apple Music: the listener can see every track and artist featured in the mix. It helps artists in the mix get discovered, and it’s overall a much better listening experience for fans that care about what the DJ is playing —
Since October, the mix on its own has been generating on average over 100 plays per day. While that might not seem like a lot, it’s a game changer for indie electronic music labels that struggle to find any kind of monetized streaming audience for their unmixed tracks. Keep in mind, this is over 100 plays per day on just 1 mix . Imagine how many more plays (and earnings) electronic music labels and artists would achieve as more DJs feature their music in mixes on Spotify?
Below is a graph showing traffic to the mix since October. It’s been constant — this means electronic music labels can start creating long lasting, ongoing revenue from their catalog by working with DJs to release more Proton mixes.
And everyone gets paid.
Unlike DJ mixes on SoundCloud, the mixes Proton releases on Spotify and Apple Music are earning royalties for the DJ, the music label, and every featured artist in the mix. On top of that, the amount the label and artists earn are exactly the same per play as the unmixed, original release. This means the artist and label don’t earn less money per play when a DJ spins their track in the mix. It’s like getting playlisted, except now labels and DJs have that curation power in their hands.
—
Learn more about Proton’s DJ mix distribution to Spotify & Apple Music by reading our other blog posts on Medium.
Right now, Proton is in Phase 1 of our beta — and it’s only open to music labels powered and distributed by Proton. Care to join us?
