(Credits: Far Out / Press)
We all know just how difficult it is to fight through the deluge of curated playlists and algorithm-focused recommendations on Spotify as a fledgling artist, and the obstacles that genuinely talented creators are faced with in the modern age seem only to get more and more restrictive as the days go by.
With an increase in AI-generated songs and artists slipping through a lacklustre filtration system and receiving undue promotion for their torrents of machine-learned slop, genuine artistry seems much harder to come by in the modern era.
As artists continue to fight the good fight against this stain on the industry, many still get stuck in a position where it feels impossible to wriggle their way up the ladder. The number of stunningly good bands and songwriters with under 1,000 monthly listeners feels not only disappointing but an exceedingly unjust reward for painstaking effort to create something that is genuinely praiseworthy.
This is why we’re taking it upon ourselves to dredge the depths of the streaming platform and highlight five acts that currently sit beneath this threshold but deserve far more attention for their impressive and industrious approaches to songcraft. In all of these cases, they’ve released new material in the last two months as of the time of posting, but haven’t received the plaudits from the wider audiences they ought to be attracting.
Of course, it might seem like an unusual or inopportune time to be directing people towards Spotify, given their ties to the military-industrial complex that is currently playing an active role in genocide, and while some established acts have taken it upon themselves to remove themselves from the platform, this isn’t necessarily the greatest option for an act that is still fighting to gain traction. Spotify may only pay artists a pittance per stream, but as a means of exposure, there still aren’t many better or more ethical ways to broadcast to a broader audience if you haven’t already got one in place.
The list below is not written in advocacy of Spotify as a platform but as a means of recommending acts that deserve more attention. If you’re a fan of what you hear, consider other means of supporting the acts where possible. Live music, physical media, and merchandise should all continue to exist; multi-billion-dollar corporations should not.
Five interesting acts with under 1,000 monthly Spotify listeners:
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