FEATURE Contact: Dylan Hanson Days: (905) 220-5573 Evenings: (905) 336-9277 [email protected] HOW SPOTIFY CHANGED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY TORONTO – March 25, 2020 – The music industry has always been an evolving and changing landscape. Throughout the years artists have changed how they create albums and release their music. Spotify and streaming have had the biggest impact on the industry since cassettes and cd’s became popular in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Surprise album drops have become an exciting and new way to market albums and artists since Spotify become the dominant force in the industry. Some of the biggest musical artists such as Beyoncé, Drake and Taylor Swift have all used this brand-new method. This has proved to be successful as it creates a heavy buzz on social media and makes everyone aware about the new music. Spotify has also changed how accessible music should be. Before streaming fans would have to choose to spend their money on certain artists or favourite albums, now you can pay under $20 a month for an unlimited music library. Spotify is currently available in over 30 countries and has over 1.2 million artists in their library. -more- For music diehards, Spotify has various tools to help you find new music or underground artists. Spotify curate’s user specific Discover Weekly playlists based on the users listening history to help recommend new artists. They also have genre specific playlists such as RapCaviar and Metal Essentials that anyone can check out and browse the newest and most trending songs. Playlists have become one of the most popular ways to listen to music. This has changed how artists release their music. More and more artists are releasing multiple singles a year to keep their fans happy and to be featured on these Spotify playlists. One of the most popular features that music fans around the world enjoy is the end of the year wrapped. Spotify creates a report for every user that shows data such as your most listened to artists, amount of songs you played, and the total amount of hours spent listening to music. It also includes a 100-song playlist specific to each user with their favourite songs. Spotify has also allowed artists to have more musical expression than ever before. The Spotify Singles series allows up and coming artists to release a live extended play recorded in Spotify’s brand-new studio. Artists that have taken apart of this include Selena Gomez, Lumineers and Greta Van Fleet. Streaming and Spotify have forever changed the way we look at music and how the artists we love create their music. Music is now more accessible than it ever has been and continues to be successful in new ways. If you love music, download Spotify right now. -30- .