If you’re like most people, you get tired of hearing the same songs over and over again. Even songs you may usually love can get played out. That burnout is what makes discovering new music so exciting. Eli Rossman, founder and CEO of playlisting company Upturn Network, is bringing that discovery to you as someone who enjoys finding tiny artists and curating playlists with their best music.
Most people don’t know about all of the obscure artists out there and have no easy avenue to find them. Spotify alone has tons of hidden gems that are just waiting to get discovered. Eli has been doing his best to introduce as many great unsigned artists to a wider audience as possible. However, there is simply no way he can facilitate this entirely on his own. That is where Upturn Network comes in.
The goal of the playlisting company is to help artists who are independent grow larger fan bases. After all, if nobody hears their music, they won’t be able to grow or share their art with the world. By introducing these artists to a wider audience via playlists, Eli has had a hand in significantly increasing the profiles of a number of acts, including Upturn’s personal works with artists Issana and The Rossman Ensemble.
To date, Eli, with the help of other users, has curated playlists that have generated over 40 million streams: a remarkable feat, even on such a popular music streaming service like Spotify.
The exposure that unsigned acts have been able to enjoy thanks to Eli’s efforts was largely due to playlisting. He was able to secure editorial placements on Spotify’s “Viral 50” charts in four countries These charts, an incubator for new acts, can be a godsend for unknown artists. Eli was also able to get artists on his playlists entered into Spotify’s daily Top 200 in a number of countries, including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, and the Philippines.
One of Eli’s most successful organic promotion campaigns involved getting The Rossman Ensemble to land on Spotify’s charts and go viral. The Christmas artist ended up doing just that by entering Spotify’s Top 200 list and did so without any external promotion. Eli knows what to do to get relatively unknown music artists heard by millions of listeners. Yes, millions. The Rossman Ensemble in particular was receiving over 200 thousand daily streams for the better part of December, peaking at just below 2 million monthly listeners. Those are some impressive stats for an artist you have probably never heard of before now.
Eli plans to expand the network of playlists he and other users have created. It’s his hope to get as many ears as possible listening to all of the incredible unheard music out there. Upturn looks forward to expanding into the passive listening space in the future.
You can visit the Upturn Network website to learn more. You can also check out The Rossman Ensemble, Upturn Network’s Christmas artist here.
