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How To Get Your Music In Spotifys New Original Shows

How To Get Your Music In Spotify’s New ‘Original Shows’

Spotify launches new audio experience combining podcasting and songs. Here’s our guide to getting your music featured.

Written by Leni - November 3, 2020

Ever wondered why there’s so little music being played in podcasts?

This is because most podcasting distributors don’t have a way to process music royalties, which means that there’s no proper way to pay artists. On top of that, most podcaster distributors actually reject episodes featuring too long snippets of music, since it can be considered copyright infringement. 

Enter a streaming service that is now also a podcasting service!

Spotify and Anchor have teamed up to help creators unlock the full potential of audio by bringing the worlds of music and talk together in a new creation called Shows with Music.

The new game-changing service gives creators the ability to combine talk segments with full length music tracks from Spotify’s catalogue of over 65 million songs. The tool is available right now for Anchor users in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.Closeup of Spotify app

When users create a show with music, their audience gets to experience a brand new format that not only lets them hear your words and the music you share, but also lets them like, favourite or save tracks, add to playlists, and explore the artists that inspired your shows. 

The best part? Artists and songwriters are compensated for every single stream of their song that is featured in a music show on Spotify, just like they would be if it was streamed on the music streaming platform. Spotify Premium listeners will hear full tracks as part of these shows, and those with the Free tier will hear 30-second music previews.

To hype the launch, Spotify have released seven of their own Spotify Original Music Shows that use the feature. Each show explores a different aspect of music, from the stories and inspiration behind a song to the listening trends of a decade or genre. Our favorites are 10 Songs that Made Me, 60 Songs that Explain the 90s and Halleloo Happy Hour with DJ Shangela

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Want to add music to your podcast?

If you’re a podcaster and want to add music to your show, jump into Anchor’s Music tool (available in their app or on the web), search for any song you want to include from Spotify and add it to your episode. Add your talk segments and you’re set. 

Are you a music maker? Here’s our tips for getting podcast creators to feature your music. 

  • Share your music direct with the podcaster: Sharing your tracks directly with podcasters in the same niche as your music is an effective way for podcast creators to notice your music.

    Identify the podcasters you want to target and the places they are spending time engaging with their community or with artists. It might be in their podcast’s Facebook group, via comments/DM on their Instagram profile or via Twitter. 

  • Are you a lo-fi artist? Hit up the guys at Palette Talks, a lo-fi hiphop/chillhop podcast, where host Jason Nathanael finds out the stories behind creatives involved in the lo-fi music scene.

  • Make rock/alternative? Get your music in front of Allison Hagendorf, Global Head of Rock at Spotify and host of Rock This with Allison Hagendorf, a weekly show celebrating all things Rock & Alternative culture, featuring one of a kind interviews and highlighting music for your favorite and emerging artists. Pitch your music to her via Instagram DM via @allihagendorf or Twitter

  • Insider tip: Do your research before reaching out to podcasters. Make sure you know the vibe of their show — like what type of artists they’ve profiled in the past, topics covered and genre of music they like to talk about. Add a personal touch when you reach out to them, like commenting on a past episode that you enjoyed.  

Pitch your music to blog curators 

Music podcasters usually discover new tracks on blogs and spend a lot of time trawling through them for interesting new artists. There are a number of handy tools that can help get your music featured on the best blogs, like Hype Machine, which automatically aggregates the best blogs around the world for you to contact based on popularity, and Submithub which offers a tool for bumping your music over to blogs in exchange for feedback. 

Ready to level up your independent music career? Sign up for Amuse Pro to release your music to all the major music stores and streaming platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, plus get access to a heap of extra features like fastlane releases, VIP support and automatic royalty splits. 

P.S Don’t miss Locally Produced, it’s our music podcast with a twist. Every two weeks the Amuse team showcase three great songs from around the world and play them for each other. Tune in!