What Is Release Radar?
Release Radar is an algorithmic playlist on the music DSP Spotify designed to show you new music from artists you follow alongside some new songs the algorithmic thinks you’ll like. The official description on Spotify is “Catch all the latest music from artists you follow, plus new singles picked for you. Updates every Friday”.
In this post we’re going to talk about how Release Radar works and how artists can get their music on Release Radar.
Key Takeaways
- Release Radar is an algorithmic playlist on Spotify that shows you new music from artists you follow.
- Release Radar also includes new artists you don’t follow, that the algorithm thinks you’ll like.
- Release Radar only updates on Fridays.
- You don’t need to release music on a Friday to get on Release Radar.
- Music can only be on Release Radar for up to 28 days after release.
How Release Radar Works
Every Friday Release Radar updates and includes songs by artists you follow that were released in the past 28 days. Additionally a smaller percentage of the songs on Release Radar are algorithmic picks that Spotify thinks you will like based on your listening behavior.
Song’s will not be added to Release Radar any other day than Friday. A big reason so many artists release music on Friday is because that’s when Release Radar updates, so it increases the amount of fans listening to their release on release day. However songs do not have to be released on Friday to be included.
Each listener can’t have more than one song by the same artist on their Release Radar playlist. This is why if you’re releasing an EP or Album, the song that you pitch to Spotify Editorial is the song that will be included in Release Radar. It isn’t required to pitch to get on Release Radar, however if you have a multiple song release you must pitch if you want to choose which song get’s on Release Radar.
It is possible for different fans to have different songs by the same artist on their Release Radar playlist. This is most common in the instance of an EP or Album release where several songs are being algorithmically recommended on Release Radar.
How To Get Your Music On Release Radar
As might have guessed by now, the easiest way to get your music on Spotify’s Release Radar is to get people to follow your profile on Spotify. Anyone that follows you will get your new songs onto their Release Radar playlist. However it’s important to note that most listeners don’t actually use Release Radar, or at least not regularly. Most of the time only 5-10% of your followers on Spotify will check out your new song in the first 28 days. It’s still a very nice bump though!
To get more streams from Release Radar you need to get algorithmically recommended in Release Radar. We found it takes about 2,500 streams with at least 250 saves in the first 1-3 weeks to trigger the algorithm and get an algorithmic boost from Release Radar. Sometimes the algorithmic push is only a couple hundred streams, but it can be as high as 10k streams – most often it’s 1k to 3k streams.
Typically you can’t get the algorithmic push with 3rd party playlisting alone, as you need a reasonable high engagement rate to hit the algorithm. My go-to approach is to use Meta ads.
Just testing out this comment thing!