Trends: What Are They Good for? Absolutely Everything

Urska Jaksa

Feb 10, 2022

If creating music is all about intuition, then the business surrounding it is anything but. There are scenarios to be planned for, numbers to be met and budgets to be spent wisely. And it all has to work together. Borrowing a metaphor from my bio: bringing people together to sing as a group can either be a magical, soul-healing experience or a complete sh*tshow if done at random.

Thankfully, navigating the musicverse and evaluating plans got a bit easier with the emergence of the internet. Everything can be measured, so tracking the ever-fluid preferences and opportunities is not only possible – you can act on the findings almost immediately.

The rise of “moods”

Take popular Spotify playlists, for instance. Before 2020, there wasn’t much talk about “chill vibes”, “beats to study to” and similar audio “backgrounds”, apart from a couple of memes re-creating the image of the “lofi studying girl”. Then the quarantine hit, and in 2022 (a.k.a. what feels like 169 years later), “moods” are on everyone’s radar.

To a lot of people, the interest in specific moods and scenarios seemed to blast out of nowhere. But those who paid attention to channels such as TikTok or Twitch, or used data analytics to monitor multiple channels on the go, spotted the new trend much faster and acted on it. In terms of getting more streams (and revenue), creating “mood” tracks and playlists paid off for many artists. For example, in 2020, Spotify reported a staggering 1,400% increase in “work from home” playlists, while our data shows that 10 of the 50 fastest-growing Spotify playlists of 2021 were user-generated and focused on beats for working out, studying, partying, etc.

Learn to work the trends like a pro

To recap: noticing trends pays off. If you want to implement them into your 2022 strategy, we have you covered. Double covered, actually.

First, our annual address forecasts the eight key trends for 2022, which has the industry talking.

👉 Download the “2022 State of Music” for free.

Second, we're holding a free online session with two expert strategists on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. They'll show you how to put the music trends for 2022 to work and craft winning marketing strategies (they've done it for stars such as Pink Floyd and Snoop Dogg). It’s a great opportunity to pick their brain with your own questions. I’ll be on the panel as well, if you’d like to address any data findings from our report.

👉 Reserve your webinar spot.

See you there!