"Spotify: Discover This" Dishes On The Live Music Scene

  It's become fashionable to take potshots at Spotify these days. But the streaming giant has developed and released some excellent home-grown podcasts. Spotify: Discover This is one of those indigenous shows that sparkles with intent, insight and information. 

Spotify bills the podcast as: "a show aimed at sharing fresh insights on music, podcasting, cultural moments, and trends - amplified in a way only Spotify can." I'm not sure about the last part after the hyphen, but the show does avoid clichés, redundancy of thought, and guests who blabber in bromides.

Last week, Spotify: Discover This host Lea Palmieri explored the state of live music post-pandemic from various perspectives, including the artist, the venue owner, the live venue preservationist, and Spotify. 

You can listen to the full episode here.

 Over the past year, the live music industry has seen a surge in activity with more artists returning to the stage since the COVID-19 pandemic and eager fans excited to resume life again, including seeing their favorite artists in concert. 

 

Think of the recent Taylor Swift debacle with Ticketmaster. (Note: I think I now despise Ticketmaster more than Comcast, Spirit Airlines, and Exxon).

 

This episode of Spotify: Discover This goes backstage with notable artists like Harry Styles opener Ben Harper, Latin GRAMMY-nominated Bruses, EDM artists/producer JOPLYN, singer-songwriter emlyn, and 90’s rock band Sleater-Kinney to discuss the power of live music, hitting the stage for the first time since the pandemic and the creativity live music can harness. The episode also features some music industry insiders sharing more on the business and preservation of live music venues.

 

Lastly, Spotify Stages’ Renee Volker shares how the platform puts fans first by encouraging fans to purchase concert tickets while streaming their favorite artists.

Available to stream for free exclusively on Spotify, please see below for interview highlights in the episode

• Ben Harper on playing his first live gig since the start of the pandemic. 

• “Absolutely not. But it was the first booking that looked like it might happen. They were one of the first venues outdoors and trying to open up with limited capacity and they asked if I would do one solo, and I jumped at it. And I have to say, I was from two years of doing nothing because, I don't like to get ready, so I stay ready. So I had, I was so rehearsed. I went up there, I was just so ready. It felt and it's such a release. And it was quite emotional, even just hitting the first few notes of the first song. I just took a deep breath and everybody, I think, exhaled with me in that moment. It was quite something.”

• Ben Harper on opening for Harry Styles and playing one of Harry’s latest hits, “Boyfriends.”

• “I wasn't hesitant, but slightly nervous because it's they when 20,000 people want to hear the person, the band they love do a song that is important to them. But having played the guitar part on it, I think did give me license possibly. And Harry knows. He knows. And so for him to give me license. If you want to do it in your set, why don't you just go for it? And we worked tirelessly on arranging the harmonies that Harry arranged himself for the song. Harry heard us rehearsing it in the halls. And got really hyped.”

• JOPLYN on the creativity live music allows her to have on-stage.

• “And also I love being creative on stage. I actually like to not have too rigid of a plan of what I'm going to do. Like sometimes I'll write a song on stage because you're in this special state that you can't really replicate in the studio. So I like to have fun with it.”

• Bruises on emerging as a pandemic artist and performing for the first time.

• “I love performing, man. It's so much fun. I've always wanted to feel like a rock star. I grew up with the emo kids and I feel really powerful when I'm on stage and I really I was scared for a moment because, you know, we're a pandemic artist, as some call us pandemic kids. I fell in love the moment that I went on that stage for the first time as Bruses. People f****** screaming your songs. And especially with my music, they connect on a deep level. I feel like this generation is going through so much. right now and the fact that there they feel like my music is helping them say what they want to say. It's powerful.”

• Emlyn on experiencing her first tour as a pandemic artist.

• “…I mean, it's been extremely rewarding to just see the immediate ticket counts, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is so cool. People want to see me sing live? I thought, though, that when I would play songs, that the songs that would go off would just be singles. But people who show up to my shows know like my whole discography. So it's always really shocking to see people sing back lyrics that like, haven't necessarily been the most like massive song of mine. I'm always really moved by that.”

• Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney on touring in 2022 as a member of a 90s rock band.

• “I mean, of course, that's your goal. It's just this feeling of maintaining relevancy and having music be timeless and transcendent. And that's something you write about can have the same meaning or even a different interpretation, or can be reinterpreted by a younger generation. So it's really rewarding to play a show and have, you know, 15, 16-year-olds in the front. That's who you want in the front. You don't you don't want people our age in the front. You want the dancers in the front, and you want just that unbridled enthusiasm and people that are unafraid to look silly up there. So we appreciate the fans of all ages, but it is really rewarding to see younger people at the shows.”

 

You can listen to the full episode here.