Spotify's competitive edge is the amount of data it holds on listeners and the way it uses that data to increase engagement. ... Using the same underlying data and technology can provide unique insights to record labels and artists about who's listening to what and help them reach more listeners. The Spotify algorithm sets itself apart from other digital music streaming services. The algorithm is an AI system known as BaRT (an abbreviation of Ba ndits for R ecommendations as T reatments). Basically, BaRT’s job is to keep listeners listening. It does this by playing and suggesting songs it knows the user is familiar with, while dropping in some fresh tracks it thinks they might like, but most importantly, haven’t heard before. This makes sure the listener is engaged, but things never get boring. BaRT decides what to suggest to listeners by combining two concepts – Explore and Exploit. This combination is the key to the platform’s recommendation system. Exploit uses the listene

Is Your Songwriting Inspiration-Dependent? by Kapa Freeman Talent may be keeping you from your songwriting goals, but not in the way you think. There's an idea in the songwriting community that's really harmful. It's the idea that you have to have "talent" to write songs that people love. I know, because I used to think that too. It was crippling. When you run into negative feedback on your songs, you feel like you should quit because you "Just don't have the gift.". We get this idea because hit songwriters make it look so easy, but watch any documentary on a hit songwriter's life and you'll see how many bad songs came before their good ones... and how many drafts went into the classic ones. Talent can actually be a songwriter's handicap if it's not combined with skill. The talent-only songwriter essentially relies on inspiration to give them songs that people connect with, but inspiration can be a crutch... a pretty unreliable crutch

Writing Lyrics You Can Feel by Kapa Freeman Do you want to write song lyrics that people can feel? Here's a trick from one of my favorite CCM songwriters. Thank Matthew West for this one. One of his more recent songs, "Truth Be Told" really pulls the heart strings. He gets this effect by using a technique that I call "Imagery pairs.".  Before I get into how to make one, let me show you why they make lyrics so easy to feel. People are hardwired to connect more with visual lyrics. Why? It's simply human nature. If you want someone to feel something, you can't just tell them about it. They have to experience it for themselves. And if you want them to experience it for themselves, they have to SEE it for themselves. It's one thing to tell someone that their words hurt you. It's another thing to tell them: "You stabbed me in the heart with a sentence!" So, the more visual, the more emotional impact, but there is a drawback. Sometimes lyrics