The editorial playlist as container technology: on Spotify and the logistical role of digital music packages

Abstract

This article explores the role of editorial playlists in Spotify's streaming economy. In particular, it approaches Spotify's playlists as container technologiesi.e. technical solutions that assemble, preserve, and transport music objects and thereby uphold logistical operations within the music industry. Such an approach seeks to complement previous research concerning playlists, which has often analyzed their emotional and affective dimensions but paid less attention to how playlists enhance calculative, mathematical, and logistical retail flows within the online music economy. On the one hand, the article considers how playlistslike containers in generalmaterialize principles of modularization and automation in ways that enhance control and remote oversight. On the other hand, it discusses how the playlist is far from a perfected means of measurement and control, and sometimes acts as an unruly transport device. Ultimately, the article shows how the playlist format occupies an uneasy position between order and disorder within the digital music economy which has not yet been fully accounted for in the context of music-oriented media studies.

From selling songs to engineering experiences: exploring the competitive strategies of music streaming platforms

“…Until recently, helping users navigate the 'paradox of choice' was an effective source of differentiation (Barna 2017). But due to platform parity we argue that much like exclusive releases, the extensive provision and promotion of basic forms of curation has eroded its value as a mechanism for attracting and engaging consumers, challenging existing accounts about its value as a source of differentiation (Morris and Powers 2015, Bhaskar 2016, Eriksson 2020.…”

“…More recently, and through the creation of editorially-curated playlists and individual tracks, album and artist recommendations, music streaming platforms have extended this practice to their digital platforms to help users overcome choice overload. All of the leading music streaming firms provide some forms of curation, including editorially-curated and personalised playlists and recommendations, such as Spotify's 'New Music Friday' playlist and Apple Music's 'New Music Mix' (Barna 2017, Eriksson et al 2019, Eriksson 2020. Despite the long history of curation in the music marketplace, Drott (2018a) highlights that music streaming platforms have successfully recast abundance as a problem and fabricated a need for assistance for which they claim to be uniquely positioned to resolve.…”

“…Data collection is not only important for powering personalisation, but also the advertising businesses of music streaming platforms (Prey 2016, Drott 2018b, Eriksson et al 2019, Meier and Manzerolle 2019, Eriksson 2020). Spotify and Deezer provide a free, ad-supported tier that is used to cultivate brand loyalty and in turn convert ad-supported users into more lucrative paying subscribers.…”

“…The platform studies literature has identified the practice of curationthe strategic selection, presentation and arrangement of information, goods, services, and peopleas central to how digital platforms generate value for themselves and their multiple users (Van Dijck 2013, Morris and Powers 2015, Barna 2017, Srnicek 2017, Jansson and Hracs 2018, Prey 2018, Drott 2018a, Webster 2019b, Eriksson 2020. By deciding what is valuable or relevant to a given situation and what is not, Bhaskar (2016) asserts that curation is reducing complexity, saving time, reducing cognitive burdens, filtering for quality and overcoming 'choice overload,' a bi-product of having abundant access to goods and services in the platform economy.…”

“…Working through the case of recorded music, where digital platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, have come to dominate how music is circulated and consumed (Morris and Powers 2015, Webster 2019a, Eriksson 2020, this paper addresses these gaps. Recorded music is a highly illustrative case for the study of platform competition because competition between platforms is intense.…”