Like Pandora, Spotify is very keen to bolster its position within the US country-music community. That’s already seen the streaming service add its video features to its Hot Country playlist, which now has nearly 4.9 million followers, as well as launching live concerts under the playlist’s brand.
And now… crop circles? Yep. “Spotify Hot Country has produced four exclusive custom-designed crop circles featuring three superstar country artists as well as the Hot Country logo,” explains a blog post from the streaming service.
Nashville-based crop-circles artist – this is now absolutely our next job if music-industry analysis ever hits the buffers – Stan Herd created designs based on Luke Bryan, Kelsea Ballerini and Jason Aldean as well as the Hot Country logo. The inclusion of Aldean is one little mark of how far Spotify has come, given his past status as a streaming sceptic.
In November 2014, Aldean pulled his ‘Old Boots, New Dirt’ album from Spotify, explaining that “I want everyone who is involved in making my music to be paid fairly”. He went on to become one of Tidal’s co-founders but returned his back catalogue to Spotify in November 2015. In April this year, he was also one of the first artists to premium-window a new album, ‘Rearview Town’.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…