Beatseeker

How does Discover Weekly work? We speak with Music Hacker Hall of Fame inductee Paul Lamere, part of the team that created Spotify’s Discover Weekly service. Discovery Weekly automatically creates a playlist of 30 new songs for you to discover each week. We learn about its early roots in the Echo Nest platform, how it works today and some tips for listeners to optimize their own weekly discoveries.

We talk through the upsides and the downsides of computer-generated playlists. While it’s almost as is if we all  have our own personal music guru telling us what we should listen to next, how does a fresh new artist get a share of our attention and break onto the scene? How are biases introduced that skew playlists towards, say, male artists? Paul has a language for understanding our musical listening habits, like: ‘tilt’ (how much we lean into new vs. old familiar tracks) and ‘functional music’ (what we listen to passively while perhaps working, driving or cooking).

We discuss some of Paul’s music hacks including Boil the Frog, which lets you create a playlist of tracks that gradually takes you from one music style to another. You can try it yourself at: http://boilthefrog.playlistmachinery.com More of his musings and legendary music hacks can be found on his blog, Music Machinery http://musicmachinery.com

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 10 Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

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Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

We’ve come a long way from the days when we browsed the shelves of HMV and Sam Goody or asked the record store dude what albums to buy. Radio play and late night talk shows still connect artists to new fans, but these are quickly becoming the old way to find new stuff.

Beatseeker explores the changing world of music discovery. While there are plenty of podcasts about new music, Beatseeker digs into the ways people find new artists and their songs - and the ways they find us.

From record store gurus and the Hot 100 to today’s high-tech playlist algorithms and viral TikToks, Hosted by Matt McButter & Mike Weider, Beatseeker is in development, launching in 2021. Join us each week for in-depth discussions with artists, technologists and industry insiders as we explore the past, present and future of music discovery.