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Now Streaming on a Device Near You: New Music Playlists

Can’t find it on Spotify? The major streaming services are expanding their catalogs, but they’ll never amass the treasure trove of contemporary American music that New Music USA has coming in the door every day. Tune in and explore!

Written By

Eddy Ficklin

A little while ago, New Music USA quietly released a new feature to our web platform. In case we were too quiet, here’s a little write-up for you. Go ahead and take a look. I’ll be here when you get back.

NMUSA playlists

You might be wondering, why’d they do that? In the age of Apple Music and Spotify and the like, why do the same thing? Well, it comes down to variety. Since you’re reading this, I’m guessing your tastes include more—much more—than Taylor Swift and Adele. While the major streaming services are expanding their catalogs, they’ll never amass the treasure trove of contemporary American music that we have coming in the door every day. And these gems come to us in the form of project grants. With a current count of 295 projects receiving our support and actively using our platform, we’re sure to have something you haven’t heard before—and won’t hear anywhere else.

But wait, you might now wonder, how do I get in on this action? Make a profile and showcase some of your music on it (more about that below). Then make a playlist of your own and other’s pieces and start sharing far and wide on the social media of your choice. Getting a project grant is a competitive process (the next deadline is April 4, 2016), but anybody can register, make a profile, and start a playlist.

Now you might be dreading the thought of finding the mp3s of your music and uploading them again to yet another service. (Almost as bad as having to burn CDs for every last thing. Remember those days?) Well, we thought about that, too. You can certainly upload mp3s of your music into our care for sharing with the world. However, if you’ve got media already on Soundcloud, Vimeo, or YouTube, our playlist player will also happily support anything from these three services that you add to your profile.

Like all good platforms, we’re continually evolving. Using the web as our digital engagement machine allows us to adapt—and adapt quickly. With feedback from our users (yes, dear reader, that means you!), we can make this feature better and better all the time. New Music USA is dedicated to creating more opportunities for artists, and that can be more than just cash or featuring you in articles. We can harness the power of software to create a dynamic platform that supports an ever growing community of creators connecting with fans.