Locating Power in Platformization: Music Streaming Playlists and Curatorial Power

Abstract

Where does the “power” of platformization reside? As is widely recognized, platforms are matchmakers which interface between different markets or “sides.” This article analyzes platform power dynamics through three of the most important markets that Spotify—the leading audio streaming platform—is embedded within: the music market; the advertising market; and the finance market. It does so through the lens of the playlist. Playlists can be seen as a central example of how platforms like Spotify employ curation or “curatorial power” to mediate markets in the attempt to advance their own interests. At the same time, playlists are an outcome of the conflicting pressures and tensions between these markets. As such, they provide a lens through which to view broader structural dynamics within the platform economy. As this case study of Spotify demonstrates, platform “power” is an always unstable and shifting outcome of the ongoing attempt to coordinate between various markets and actors.

Music Platforms and the Optimization of Culture

“…The optimization, in this case, is taking place at the sonic level and given that sounds are more subjective and less easy to quantify, as the debates over Spotify-core suggest, the optimization is subtle enough that it not only persists on the platform, but thrives through inclusion on playlists and recommendations. As Prey’s (2020) research confirms, artists are increasingly orienting their music making strategies toward sounds they think will succeed on the platform, or toward inclusion on playlists that are seen are influential nodes in musical discovery.…”

“…The examples earlier, and those that follow, show that musicians and producers, as they have always done, are adjusting their practices to the platforms and environments in which their music appears, circulates, and plays. As Robert Prey’s (2020) research about how artists orient their music toward inclusion on featured playlists shows, musicians, producers, and other stakeholders are learning the rules of music distribution in an era of digital consumption and trying to optimize their songwriting and song production practices accordingly. While the concept of phonograph effects reminds us that platform effects are not necessarily new, it also points us to a time when it seemed easier to separate music (and musical cultures) from the deluge of data and information we now call content.…”

East Asian pop music idol production and the emergence of data fandom in China

“…Retail sales and radio listening charts became based on larger quantities of data (and not small samples) and less dependent upon individual compilers (du Gay and Negus, 1994). The information about consumers accumulated and acquired by retailers and radio networks in the 1990s prefigured the data collected through charts of digital downloads and streams in the first half of the 21st century (Prey, forthcoming). These are the latest in a history of ranked lists offering a visualization of the music market; a league table that orients the creative practices of musicians, business decisions made by industry executives and the listening choices of audiences (Anand and Peterson, 2000; Hakanen, 1998).…”

Views from the boundaries

“…Th ere is nothing signifi cantly diff erent in this, however, there is a change in perception among label managers that the current gatekeepers diff er from the old traditional gatekeepers as regards accessibility. Th is resonates with Prey (2020), who reported interviews with industry veterans describing today's relationship between the streaming services and the record labels as formal and opaque -compared to previously.…”

“…Two particular issues were referred to and discussed in the interviews: (1) access to playlists, and (2) the role of algorithms. Obviously, these issues are connected; playlists have a central role in how we discover and listen to music (Bonini & Gandini, 2019;Hagen, 2015;Kjus, 2016), and algorithms increasingly determine the performance of a song (Morgan, 2020;Prey, 2020;Prey et al, 2020). Th e two forces aff ect one another, and both issues aff ect plurality and diversity.…”