Fun Covers Playlists

Hey All -

I know I haven't been so active an editor in the last bunch of years - kids/job, etc. keeping me busy. Trying to inch back into participating as I can.

Thought some of you might enjoy another musical side hobby of mine - I've been making public Spotify playlists, many of which are centered around covers. All of them have been so much easier to make using Secondhandsongs as a resource.

Most recently, I was working with a friend's blog called 'Good Black News' and in May, centered around his 70th birthday, we created a bunch of Stevie Wonder related lists (and accompanying articles). But I've done various other covers collections too. They make for some fun listening - if you have Spotify and are so inclined.

Will link to a few below. If you get a chance to listen, let me know what you think. And if you like 'em, feel free to share... Hopefully most of the spotify songs work across all territories (but I have no way of knowing).

Thanks in advance if you check em out - and thanks for indulging me in this self-promotional (but still covers-related) post.

Jeff

Here are the links:

Cover Songs in the Key of Life (the whole Stevie album, in order, via covers)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Ck4bL1GJCTE3thtT521Ck?si=cnanx3J0SpCmVfmGo5nS…

(Here is the link to the accompanying article that I wrote around this playlist - in which I mention secondhand songs:)

https://goodblacknews.org/?s=songs+in+the+key+of+life

Talking Book Covers (whole Stevie album, in order, via covers)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2gtNgYAOsiwQyGzH1oB0gN?si=K7Jl85crRSCZliXG6j-Q…

Jazz Visions of Innervisions (whole Stevie album, in order, via specifically jazz covers)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/14y1xuKzDBTsXZ5y8McNWN?si=mNNTFFZKQ_eCPm2N2KAn…

Beatles Over Easy (vintage easy listening Beatles covers)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3q5SmtJrLlGVgqtkBwIi05?si=E1IszDZ0QaelSgYJQdBX…

The Soul of Elton John (R & B Elton covers)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0hUI8U2krvWfI1DeTBuZMd?si=npjazTnORU6J7EfR3aFE…

Men Sing Aretha Franklin

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tix1mwUEVA1HNqQgxpXip?si=ZFui-QWeQmev9vI-U27-…

A Stevie Wonder Sing-Off (A Capella Groups Sing Stevie)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3143V2ZMVZAWdZEPa56r2G?si=OOvSt6RQTaSCnhCiBkE-…

Stevie Wonder Goes to Jamaica (Reggae Stevie Wonder Covers)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7gd7WSlKNGin1kC5y5LSs3?si=plBOwTS9TuSoipCAtnUI…

Jeff these are great. Exactly the kind of thing e need to bring the site to life more. Thanks for sharing.

Quote from abbamatic

I know I haven't been so active an editor in the last bunch of years - kids/job, etc. keeping me busy.

Funky kids Jeff !!

More seriously, this is really interesting stuff!

As you're one of the very few people who knows both SecondHandSongs ánd Spotify very well, maybe you could help us discover some new ideas!

For example, is there anyway to automate the creation of Spotify playlists? Or is it only manual?

Quote from abbamatic

and thanks for indulging me in this self-promotional (but still covers-related) post.

Do you want to promote them on our Facebook and/or Twitter?

Thanks for the comment on the kids - they are cool (but a handful) - 5 and 12 right now.

It would be great to have my playlists promoted via Facebook and/or Twitter. I want my playlists to get out to as many people as possible - and it all motivates me to do more of them (though I haven't figured out yet how to monetize playlist-making, as all the biggest playlist companies seem to simply be arms of the record labels - who make their money when people listen to the songs).

There's probably a smart way to 'program' them - weekly or monthly or some distance in between - but that would depend upon whether there are additional members interested in making them too - and if we also simply wanted to source some other publicly posted playlists from Spotify (whether made by editors or just random other music fans). I think, if they are posted publicly, they are fair game.

I'd be happy to try to help develop some of these ideas further (although I'm no tech expert at all). I've been using Spotify for a long time, and I do suspect that they auto-generate some of their own playlists - but these are usually the 'single artist' type of playlists where they can randomize metadata they already have on the songs. I think it's harder to figure out how to auto-generate something based on 'covers' if they don't have anything in their metadata determining that something actually is a cover.

Likewise, their playlists don't even make simple connections - if the metadata doesn't tell them - take gospel music's The Winans Family for example. That family supports a number of different acts - The Winans, BeBe Winans, CeCe Winans, Bebe & CeCe Winans, Vickie Winans, Marvin Winans, Winans Phase 2, Mom & Pop Winans, etc. Spotify has generated their own individual playlists for BeBe Winans, The Winans, CeCe Winans and BeBe & CeCe Winans - but I haven't seen them make a natural playlist which combines the family across different recording acts - it's probably because they don't have a metadata field somewhere which identifies all these acts as being from the same family.

And, although Spotify reportedly gives their users more playlist-making & promoting power than the other services (like Apple or Amazon), they are not that incentivized to help the small-guy playlist maker all that much with those kinds of tools - because they are working more closely with the big record companies and all of their internal playlist makers.

Does SHS have its own Spotify account? In the long run, would you want to publish SHS playlists from such an account (and is there a significant benefit from that)? Or is linking to other covers-connected playlists from members like me (or from any random person posting them publicly on Spotify) enough to experiment with right now?

What's next?

By the way, one of the things I've tried to do with my own Spotify playlists - not that I'm an expert yet at finding an audience - is change they way that the 'artwork' looks for the playlist.

Most user generated Spotify playlists simply take the album covers of the first four songs on the list and create a visual based off of our squares in a box. When searching through playlists, this makes most of the user-generated ones look very similar to each other - and when you are wading through it all, all you can know about a playlist is that artwork and the playlist title.

So, to me, part of the skills in making a playlist is somehow creating a visual and a title that can possibly break through the clutter. I'm not a graphic artist at all - but I think creating anything different than the normal pattern makes a potential user at least more likely to notice.

I'm not a master at it - my most popular playlist is still at less than 75 followers - and some of them still have 0 followers, but this kind of titling/art exercise is something I think is becoming more and more important in a very cluttered world of content visuals.

Quote from abbamatic

It would be great to have my playlists promoted via Facebook and/or Twitter. I want my playlists to get out to as many people as possible

Of course, no problem, let's go ahead with this. Send me your Facebook and & Twitter accounts, and I'll give you access the the SHS Facebook & Twitter account.

Quote from abbamatic

There's probably a smart way to 'program' them

What we're looking for is the following:

Step 1: We create a cover playlist on SHS (feature doesn't exist but easy to develop)

Step 2: We verify whether all covers are linked to their corresponding Spotify entries (won't be too mucht work, we already have cross-referenced 120.916 entries)

Step 3: Based on the cover song playlist, we automatically generate the Spotify playlist. (without manual intervention)

It's the last step that is the tricky one: Can it be done, and if yes, how to proceed?

Quote from abbamatic

Does SHS have its own Spotify account? In the long run, would you want to publish SHS playlists from such an account (and is there a significant benefit from that)? Or is linking to other covers-connected playlists from members like me (or from any random person posting them publicly on Spotify) enough to experiment with right now?

The SHS account: hbu1iru0k9gjy6bd6sap18vbz

As you understand from what I wrote above: Yes, we would like to publish SHS playlists. I see indeed a significant benefit.

But we are also willing to link to other covers-connected playlists like yours. Especially since you're an editor

Quote from abbamatic

What's next?

I don't know, we follow your lead?

Quote from abbamatic

So, to me, part of the skills in making a playlist is somehow creating a visual and a title that can possibly break through the clutter. I'm not a graphic artist at all - but I think creating anything different than the normal pattern makes a potential user at least more likely to notice.

Nice

Maybe we can make these playlists the first ones to link to the Spotify playlist feature?

That's a possibility, though I was thinking more in terms of just a list of performances on site rather than linking to external sites.

Quote from Oldiesmann

That's a possibility, though I was thinking more in terms of just a list of performances on site rather than linking to external sites.

Could do both though to make it more interactive and interesting.

Quote from sebcat

Maybe we can make these playlists the first ones to link to the Spotify playlist feature?

Yes, I was thinking the same.

Quote from Oldiesmann

That's a possibility, though I was thinking more in terms of just a list of performances on site rather than linking to external sites.

I understand the original idea, but I see no disadvantage in "exporting" (some of) those lists to Spotify.

Quote from sebcat

Quote from Oldiesmann

That's a possibility, though I was thinking more in terms of just a list of performances on site rather than linking to external sites.

Could do both though to make it more interactive and interesting.

Indeed

sebcat artsinspired you both voted for Ticket #3116 , but this enhancement is stuck for the time being for technical reasons.

Step 3: Based on the cover song playlist, we automatically generate the Spotify playlist. (without manual intervention)

It's the last step that is the tricky one: Can it be done, and if yes, how to proceed?

You probably want to use your voting credits for other tickets? Currently your vote is wasted