The Valley View way to discover music
This week we dedicate our spotlight to one of of the most inspiring curators we’re fortunate to be collaborating with - Valley View Records.
Hailing from Perth, Australia, they’re doing a bunch of pretty awesome stuff with musicians, visual artists, and with promoting new music and curating playlists with their latest discoveries!
We were curious to hear out their story and their take on today's’ shifts and trends in the music industry, promotion and music discovery, so we sat Matt from VVR down to hear what’s on their mind :)
Tell us a bit about your label, what motivated you to start your label, and how long are you around?
Matt: "Valley View Records was launched in September 2017 as a platform where I could assist artists in gaining more exposure with their music by utilising some of the contacts and experience I had earned as an Indie artist and motivated industry member... I have always had a passion for music and entering adulthood gained a keen passion for business, so it felt like a natural step for me to start a label. The only area I was lacking was the visual arts component of label services but was lucky enough to have Clayton Popa fill this role as our Creative Arts Director. He is an award winning painter and graphic designer so it certainly helps having that talent on board!"
What's your vision for the label and your artists?
Matt: "As cliché as it sounds, we are very much about the music and being an artist run label... Our vision is to continue our growth plan for the label, reaching and engaging a larger fan base and provide our artists with an exceptional platform to get their music heard. Part of this plan is also growing our Spotify presence which we have really only started to do over the last few months.. It allows us to add and promote a heap of other artists we discover and lov
e who are not signed to our label but simply make great music we feel deserves more attention. The idea being to build more of a community around the label rather than an out of reach commerce centred platform."
As a label, what do think are the upsides of using human music curation in general, and Spotify playlist curation specifically when promoting a new track/album/EP?
Matt: "As a label, we create our own playlists for the simple fact we can choose the exact mood, soundscape and artists we want to promote. Having these playlists accessible for public consumption allows us to pitch our brand to listeners on a different format, which is nice. Also, having our playlists accessible for artist submission allows us the opportunity to hear new music and in turn promote artists we discover and love on an easy platform negating any need for contractual obligations, which is also nice. This is a system that can be exploited by any user on Spotify, whether they are a solo act, band, producer or label. Adding artists to your playlists and having them involved in the growth by streaming following and sharing will benefit all, the only catch is the music needs to be selected carefully and of course be of good quality otherwise the long term engagement simply wont exist."
As a playlist curator, what would you recommend to artists who try to submit music to you? can you share some "do's and don'ts"?
Matt:"Firstly, take the time to listen to the playlist before you submit to actually see if your music is similar not only in sound and style but of equal or better sound quality than the others on their.
Make sure your music is actually on the platform first – It may sound obvious, but we get tons of submissions for our Spotify playlists with people giving us Sound Cloud links or YT links and just assuming because we are a label we can magic them straight onto our Spotify lists – It doesn’t work like that.
Be humble. Don’t reach out with a message that starts with 10 flame emojis and start by saying this is the greatest new song in the world you have to hear it!! – We likely won’t listen. A simple message like – 'Hi my name is xxxxx I just discovered and am following your playlist xxxx' it's really nice... We will listen every time to messages like this.
Follow, Share & Listen. If you do get added, help the playlist grow faster by following and sharing with your own friends and fans and make sure to tag us. This shows that you appreciate the addition and will go a long way in ensuring you are kept on the playlist long term and possibly even bumped up a little higher on the list."