Hello — Welcome to the latest edition of the Spotify Newsletter!

That’s right….. More DIY Spotify artwork on display. Actual artistic people are encouraged to send along their Spotify-inspired art to have it displayed on a future newsletter issue.

Here we are, yet another week loaded with solid news.

Perhaps the ‘biggest’ news was the debut of a new feature called ‘Exclude from your Taste Profile’. It lets you choose playlists that you don’t want affecting your personalized recommendations.

Users with kids who like to rock out to Sesame Street jams can now have the option to jettison those tunes from their personal playlists/algorithms.

Definitely a big win!

A big thanks to all the new subscribers for joining the Friday Spotify rundown, plus an extra big thanks to the longtime readers who continue to support the endeavour.

Have a nice day everybody! And a nice nice nice weekend!

★In the SPOTlight★

⭐️ Emerging Trend: The rise of the hyper-specific Spotify playlist

The rise of the hyper-specific listener playlist on Spotify is a poorly documented phenomenon. In this post, I’ll attempt to identify this trend and better define it.

⭐️ Spotify asked how to improve Artists, Album Pages & it’s not too late to tell them

Chris Stoneman, a product exec at Spotify, told the Twitterverse that his team “is spending lots of time right now on how we might improve the Artist & Album Pages” and asked, “What do you want to see?”

⭐️ Inside Spotify’s Star-Studded Best New Artist Party

The annual event remains the only place to see every best new artist nominee on one stage in one night.

⭐️ Spotify’s third-party billing option has now reached over 140 global markets

In its fourth-quarter earnings, Spotify announced today its User Choice Billing program has now expanded to more than 140 markets worldwide, allowing the streaming music service to reduce the commissions it pays to Google over Play Store purchases associated with its Android app.

⭐️ Drake Wants Artists to ‘Get Bonuses Like Athletes’ When They Reach Spotify Streaming Milestones

“We should get bonuses like athletes to motivate the future artists to be consistent and competitive,” he wrote in an Instagram Story resharing a graphic that looks to be from Spotify, but which the streamer does not appear to have shared on its official accounts. “So feel free to send me a LeBron sized cheque[,] I have enough dinner plates.”

🗣 Podcast Action 🗣

What Spotify’s podcast layoffs indicate about the changing audio market

🎧 The Playlist List 🎧

Spotify now lets you exclude certain playlists from its recommendations

Drake Reaches Major Spotify Milestone, Surpassing 75 Billion Streams

Set the Mood on Valentine’s Day With a Playlist Curated by Michael Bublé, a Blend With Your Soulmate, or the Top-Streamed Love Songs

😄 Mood-y 😄

Spotify Listeners’ Top Moods of 2023

→ Ek Update ←

Spotify’s founder helped develop an AI-powered body health scanner

💡 Tips & Tricks 💡

Master every type of advertising on Spotify

🖌 Design Notes 🖌

Shipping Spotify’s Culture: 5 Plugins (and 4 Principles) for Supercharging Developer Experience at Scale

Windows 11 adds Spotify to its widgets board

💰 Spotify Stock 💰

Why Spotify Is One of My Favorite Stocks

Spotify upgraded at Wells Fargo as company comes off 'margin probation'

🔥 Extra News 🔥

Burger King’s Infuriatingly Catchy ‘Whopper Whopper’ Song Is Now Available On Spotify

Songwriter Jin Jin Gets Collaborative at Spotify’s Riffs and Runs Sessions

DIY and non major/Merlin music now accounts for a quarter of Spotify streams

Spotify releases listening statistics for K-pop category

Spotify's 'Preferred Distributor' List Now Includes 23 Companies

Australian music quotas: Arts minister Tony Burke flags possible changes for streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music

Spotify MENA & South Asia MD Claudius Boller on Sparking Innovation

Online Piracy Still Plagues Music Industry, But Worse for Film & TV

Spotify Shifts Podcast Strategy After Layoffs

🎵 New Adventures 🎵

Oo La La La Cheap Trick

Ana Ng They Might Be Giants

Drown Son Volt

Never as Good as the First Time Sade

What About Love? Heart

No Aloha The Breeders

Selling The Drama Live

Mambo Sun T. Rex

Burt Bacharach, the songwriter behind some of the most iconic hits of the 20th century, has died at the age of 94.

The Sweetest Punch Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach

Wanting Things Burt Bacharach

Another Spring Will Rise Burt Bacharach

Do You Know the Way to San Jose Dionne Warwick

📧 Get in touch 📧

If you have a question, idea, request, or simply a desire to chat about Spotify, please email me at jeff.spotifynewsletter@gmail.com.

😀 Have a Nice Weekend! 😀