Storywriting music playlist full#

Storywriting music playlist full#

According to deVine, “The revenue generated from that random Tarentel track is several hundred percent greater than the amount of money that band ever made.”īen Seretan-who, full disclosure, is a friend of mine-has been releasing albums that run the gamut from large-scale drone composition to anthemic guitar rock for about a decade. Their most popular songs have Spotify play counts in the tens of thousands, with one exception: “ Open Letter to Hummingbirds,” a drifting ambient-adjacent instrumental from a relatively obscure 2007 EP, which recently exploded in popularity after showing up on a focus-oriented playlist, collecting nearly 3 million plays. He offers the example of Tarentel, a post-rock band that released a few records with Temporary Residence in the late 1990s and 2000s before fizzling out. The money generated from so-called mood playlists, in some cases, is higher than any other source of income from a given release, he says. As the founder of the experimental music label Temporary Residence Ltd., he’s released several Basinski albums over the last decade, including a reissue of Melancholia in 2014, when on-demand streaming was still a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S.

Jeremy deVine can attest to the mysterious power of playlists, too. “But people who may not even know who I am, who want some kind of solace and find it on one of those playlists: It’s amazing.” Plus, he adds, after having to cancel two planned world tours due to the pandemic, “every little bit of income helps.” “It’s funny, ironic in a way, and kind of sad,” he says. The album’s other 13 tracks average around 800,000 plays each.īasinski, who has been making music with tape loops since the late 1970s, is mildly puzzled, but ultimately sanguine, that millions of listeners might encounter his work for the first time as a sleep aid or mood booster. “Melancholia II” is Basinski’s most popular piece on Spotify, with more than 10.6 million plays. It is clear that these playlists are significantly contributing to their tracks’ streaming success.

On the “Apply Yourself” playlist, Basinski’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” a montage of ominous bell tones and howling negative space, becomes an unlikely anthem for buckling down and writing some emails. 80 on “Songs for Sleeping,” a five-and-a-half-hour playlist created by and hosted on Spotify, accompanied by an image of a child tucked under white covers and a promise to “send you to sweet, sweet slumber.” It is one of many pieces of ambient music, including several by Basinski, that have reached large listenerships after placements on popular playlists like this one, billed as utilitarian aids for relaxing, or focusing, or meditating, or caring for your houseplants.