Music

Spotify’s Pick Hit For SXSW? Years & Years

Mar 11, 2015

South by Southwest began as a small music festival with only 700 registrants, where A&R reps from the labels scouted bands with the intent of discovering, and then signing, the cream of the crop. I was there for 16 straight years, until after having the greatest 4 days ever spent in that city – Jesus & Mary Chain, The Black Angels (performing 6 times), and Dave Grohl at the Keynote, that was it for me. I knew when it was time walk away for a few years, but I’ll be back.

Austin’s homegrown festival has since grown into a huge, multi-pronged event: Music, Film, and Interactive, plus offshoots like SXSWedu, SXSports, and SXSW Eco attract different groups of people from all over the place.

For many, it’s still all about the music — arguably more than ever, because in the early days, SXSW was attended by people who see music for a living. Artists can still make their mark in Austin by getting “discovered,” but only if they attract enough buzz from the fans who now comprise the majority of SXSW attendees.

Spotify is helping you discover some SXSW artists right now, before the event gets underway, by polling music fans to find out which artists playing SXSW are receiving a disproportionate amount of buzz from the global music community. Based on the artists people everywhere are reading about, sharing, and listening to, Spotify includes a discovery score for each artist. This reflects how much attention a particular artist is getting from music fans, relative to the artist’s familiarity among the general public. If lots of people around the world are discovering an artist (or are about to discover them), that artist gets a higher discovery score. So, it’s a measure of disproportionate attention — a sign that music fans are really starting to get behind a particular artist.

The following 100 SXSW showcase artists are receiving the most disproportionate attention from music fans around the world right now (playlist below). Italicized artists happen to be playing Spotify House: