Listening to music is a method of relaxation and enjoyment for many. In our modern day society, there are a plethora of avenues used to listen to music. Online listening services and applications, such as Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc., have become the norm.
When logging into certain applications, you may notice the option to pay to experience more benefits, such as no advertisements, unlimited skips, etc.
SoundCloud is an app which gives users the option to subscribe to three different monthly music experiences.
“SoundCloud Free” is the first of three options. With it, users get access to “120 million tracks” and are able to “discover, stream and share a constantly expanding mix of music from established and emerging artists”.
The second option, “SoundCloud Go”, features the same benefits as “SoundCloud Free” plus, “no ads” and “offline listening”, for which users pay $4.99/month.
“SoundCloud Go+” is $9.99/month and is advertised as the “best value” on the website. This service includes, “Access to the world’s largest music streaming catalog, a constantly expanding mix from established and emerging artists”, “Full access to all 150 million tracks”, “offline listening”, “no ads”, “Millions of premium SoundCloud Go+ tracks” and “no previews”.
You may be asking yourself, “Why pay for music when I can just stream it or find it online for free?”. Lately, I have been asking myself the same question.
However, I have started to wonder about paying for SoundCloud, as one of the weekly playlists I subscribe to is now featuring mainly “SoundCloud Go+” previews.
This particular playlist has had weekly releases for two years and I feel may be starting to sell-out to turn a profit.
OWSLA, one of the most well-known record labels out there, releases a playlist each week on their SoundCloud page, which features new tracks from various artists featured on their label. “Weekender” playlists are compiled of five tracks and are typically released on Fridays.
Going back to November 2014, when the first “Weekender” playlist was released, it was not very popular, as it only had 636 likes and 172 reposts.
As I searched and analyzed the next two years of “Weekender” playlists, I found the amount of “likes” and “reposts” were within the same number range for the first few months, with a steady rise and decline as the months went on.
The playlist with the most likes and reposts for 2014 was released on Dec. 19. It featured popular producers such as Ghastly and Jack U, and had 885 likes and 248 reposts.
In 2015, a playlist released on Aug. 28 was the was most popular with 1,137 likes and 208 reposts. It featured producers Valentino Khan, Mija and others.
Released on April 1 of 2016, this playlist had 1,282 likes and 384 reposts, and featured music from Dillion Francis, Barely Alive and more.
This year, the most popular Weekender so far was released on January 13, with 652 likes and 155 reposts.
Through all of this analysis, I noticed the Weekender playlists where SoundCloud Go+ previews were not included were more popular than those which did include previews. I’ll be keeping watch on Weekender playlists and hoping they start to revert back to more SoundCloud Free user-friendly playlists.
