What would happen if we started paying attention to those behind the proverbial curtain? Peeled back the layers of presentation and viewed music through a new lens? These are the questions that people like Jules Parker, the head of Spotify’s Songwriter Relations, have been asking.
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And what Parker and his team discovered is that by spotlighting songwriters, a new facet of the music industry emerges. Songwriters become more accessible and gain the recognition they deserve. Fans discover these songwriters and new music that they enjoy. Overall, the magic behind beloved songs becomes a little less mysterious and a little more fruitful when songwriters are at the forefront.
Today, Spotify is officially launching the entirety of their Songwriters Hub, and Jules Parker explained it all in an exclusive interview with American Songwriter.
“First off it’s actually for the music industry,” Parker said. “We want songwriters to be able to find new collaborations or discover who’s written and produced songs that they love and actually make more connections; hopefully, generate more possibilities for them.”
“Then secondly, it’s for the people who are music fans, and they are used to kind of digging into more information. They get even more of that information and make it like a rabbit hole to go down and find out more — new stories, new songs and more context around things they already know.”
“And then thirdly, there are people out there who don’t even know what a songwriter is, and we’d love all those millions of people out there to discover what songwriting is, what a songwriter is and why they’re so valuable.”
To achieve all of this, the Hub is designed as the home base in navigating the intricacies of songwriting. “We’re trying to build tools, basically,” Parker explained. “Now in Spotify, if you press ‘Search’ there’s loads of tiles of different choices, and one of them will be ‘Songwriters.’ You know, of course, songwriters are part of everything else as well, but this will be a new home for them within Spotify.”
The features of the Hub include Written By playlists (collections of a songwriter’s songs) and podcasts about songwriting (to understand the nuts and bolts of the process). Parker and his team also made sure that the Songwriters Hub is easily accessible from any point in the Spotify cosmos.
“So the way that it works is if people dig into a song they like and they look at the credits, now what we’re doing is gradually creating more and more credits that are applicable for songwriters. So if we take any song, like Havana (by Camila Cabello), Ali Tamposi helped write that. So you can go in there and check Ali Tamposi Songwriter Page and then you also connect to the Written By playlist as well.”
Spotify has already seen impressive successes from the features that Parker describes. For instance, the songs with clickable credits have had 127 billion streams on the platform since the songwriter page launch in February 2020. The launch today builds off of these trends.
Parker continued, “The Hub itself will feature the Written By playlists and then within that Hub, there’ll be different shells of different things. One of them will be a chance for us to feature a specific songwriter at a specific time.”
Right now, Spotify is featuring the songwriter and producer Nija. Her Written By playlist speaks for itself as songs performed by artists like Ariana Grande, Jason Derulo and Beyoncé claim Nija’s songwriting expertise in the credits. American Songwriter also got Nija’s take on Spotify’s new Songwriters Hub.
“Having a hub for songwriters is extremely important because people need to know who these people are who are helping create the soundtrack to our lives,” Nija said. “Songwriters deserve to be praised for their contributions just as much as artists & producers. A lot of times we get the short end of the stick, so I’m glad that there’s a place where people can see who’s writing their favorite songs.”
“Personally, I’m so thankful that I was chosen to be the first featured writer of the Hub. It makes me feel appreciated and that makes me want to work harder.”
Parker and his team (who, by the way, are from all over the US and the UK) recognize the talent and fire in Nija because they themselves have histories working with songwriters. “We’re super excited and we are, as a team, just really passionate about this…. all of our backgrounds have been working with songwriters. And this is what we care about, and we want to make sure that there’s an equality of recognition of what they do.”
“I think the point is, we view it (the Hub) as just a start of more of what we can do. At Spotify things always evolve.”
Check out the Songwriters Hub here and find out more here. Or if you’re ready to hear some music in a new light, listen to the new Songwriter pages that launched today: Gregg Wattenberg, Ant Clemons, Noonie Bao, Sia, Bebe Rexha, Irving Berlin and Ashley Gorley.
