Warm wishes to you and your family this holiday season. 😀

★ SPOTlight

⭐️ Audio is incidental: Why Spotify wants to become a creator ecosystem

Per MIDiA’s ‘2025 Predictions’ report, as hypo-attention increases, the efficacy of digital advertising declines. The more content there is, and the more that content asks for attention, the harder it is to get consumers to pay attention to any one piece of content for long enough to convert that consumer. In other words, the harder it becomes to get consumers straight to the bottom of the marketing funnel to purchase or consume something being marketed to them.

⭐️ Spotify Shares the Scoop of 2024 Music Trends

2024 is by far the most sonically diverse year, according to Spotify. These are the genres that have drawn millions of listeners this year.

⭐️ The Most Streamed Album on Spotify, for Each of the Last 10 Years

The graphic visualizes the top-streamed albums on Spotify from 2014 to 2023 using data from Spotify, Complex, Wikipedia, and Visual Capitalist estimates.

⭐️ Spotify leads US digital audio competition by more than 50 million listeners

Almost three in 10 people in the US (30.3%) are Spotify listeners, per our September 2024 forecast, and that share will slowly grow through the end of our forecast period in 2028.

⭐️ Spotify VP of markets & subscriptions, Gustav Gyllenhammar: “What would it take to build a service that is loved by a billion subscribers globally?”

Gyllenhammar talks about moving Spotify from 6 million subscribers to over 250 million in 11 years, how societal attitudes to all forms of subscription are changing, why free will remain critical to Spotify’s subscriber growth potential, where making free better will actually make Premium more desirable, and where the free/Premium tension is become more nuanced based on where in the world the audience is.

⭐️ How Spotify won over media planners using... Excel spreadsheets

Spotify is so much more than an audio platform. It has visual ads… it’s interactive, collaborative and highly engaging and its ROI goes way beyond numbers on a spreadsheet. To break through, we had to find a way to hack the RFP process and change the conversation… showing media planners and the entire marketing industry why Spotify Advertising goes beyond just plain digital audio.

🗣 Podcasts

• Is Spotify’s new monetisation model unlocking the power of video in podcasting?

▶️ Playlists

• Wham again? How Spotify and Apple killed the Christmas Number One

🎧 Streams

• Mariah Carey Breaks Records With 2 Billion Spotify Streams

• Simple Minds’ 'Don’t You (Forget About Me)' Joins Spotify Billions Club

• The Mamas & The Papas’ 'California Dreamin’' Joins Spotify’s Billions Club

• KISS Classic Joined Spotify's Billions Club After Surpassing 1 Billion Streams

• Spotify Wrapped: a slave to the algorithm?

• Drum & bass streams increased 94% in the past three years, Spotify reports

• Spotify's Top 10 most-streamed holiday tracks of all time revealed

🖌 Design

• Reinvention and evolution: Inside the design of Spotify Wrapped 2024

💡 Tips & Tricks

• How To Activate Your Musical Memories With Spotify

• My top 5 tips to make more of your Spotify playlists – and trust me, I'm a playlist obsessive

• 22 Spotify Secrets to Level Up Your Listening and Stream Like a Pro

• 5 Spotify Premium Hacks You Need To Know

🔥 News

• Spotify fires back at Drake: streaming platform says it has “no economic incentive for users to stream ‘Not Like Us’ over any of Drake’s tracks.”

• Spotify Uses "Ghost Artists" to Minimize Royalty Payouts, New Report Alleges

• Woman Makes Spotify-Inspired 'Crying Wrapped' to Log Emotions Over 2024

• 'Bragging without the selfie' – the rise of Spotify Wrapped and copycats

🎵 New Adventure

Christmas on the Bayou Vin Bruce

Please Come Home for Christmas Belton Richard

To Be Without You Ryan Adams

Leave Me (Like You Found Me) Wilco

Hello I Love You Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart

A Spoonful Weighs a Ton - 2017 Remaster The Flaming Lips

Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye The Black Crowes

Taurian Matador Grover Washington, Jr.

Just the Two of Us Grover Washington, Jr.

Company - Original Broadway Cast: Barcelona Stephen Sondheim, Dean Jones, Susan Browning, Harold Hastings

Lo Flame Kenny Drew

🎵 Have a Spotify playlist you’d like spotlighted? Let’s talk. Email: jeff.spotifynewsletter@gmail.com

📧 If you have a question, idea, or request for sponsorship info, please email me at jeff.spotifynewsletter@gmail.com.