“I listened to them before they got big.” No doubt you’ve heard that statement before – people love to let people know that they listened to an artist before anyone else, and now a new feature from Spotify looks to make it way easier to prove that.
“Found Them First” will show listeners whether they are early to the party with new artists. In a nutshell, the tool scans your listening history to check if you were in the top 15% of the Spotify population listening to a “breakout” artist. Spotify has clarified what they believe to be “breakout”, an artist with over 20 million streams, and a 2000% streaming growth rate between January 2013 and June 2015 – so one can assume that for future artists the growth rate takes place over a little over two years.
Spotify’s Vice Pres of creative and brand strategy, Jackie Jantos, explained that “this experience is an ode to the fans who truly love discovering new artists. Users are rewarded for listening early on, and earn some bragging rights.” Artists have also been making videos to thank their supporters who were there towards the beginning, and you’ll that “Found Them First” qualification on your listening history to watch them.
Though this is a cool way for artists to interact with some of their first fans, hopefully it doesn’t encourage constant bragging about knowing artists before anyone else. That legit sucks, and who cares really.
Who you got?