We're starting off 2019 with something a little different for this list: a little bit of twang. "People Change" by North Carolina natives Mipso has been floating in my head for weeks. It's a gentle track, and, as Mipso told Genius, an attempt to articulate loss.
I first heard the track through Spotify's Your Favourite Coffeehouse playlist, which I often put on when working at home. Like many, I'm not listening to the playlist to find my new favourite music, but to have something on in the background as I try desperately to clear my inbox. Over time, you get to know the songs, not necessarily by name or artist, but by feeling. When I woke up the other day humming "People Change" I had no idea what the song actually was, yet I couldn't get it out of my head.
This is a relatively new challenge for artists in the age of streaming. These huge playlists give artists access to millions of new ears. Mipso right now has 2.1 million listeners a month, in part thanks to playlists like Your Favourite Coffeehouse. But how are these people listening? For these "mood" playlists (as opposed to genre-specific playlists), a bulk of users are passively listening, using it as background noise like me when I'm working. So how does a group Mipso turn millions of passive listeners into active fans who will buy concert tickets? This is a question everyone in music is struggling with, and one that has many possible answers.
At Musicto, we believe that human curation and interaction is an important part of this puzzle. As we uncover the stories behind the songs, our connections to the music grow stronger. Through our playlists, we hope you find songs that you'll add to your own rotation, but we also want you to find new stories, connections and questions. Because, as Mipso told Genius, songs are simply an effort to articulate feelings that everyone experiences: love, loss, joy, pain. This year, we're going to bring you all of those emotions, and the infinite number of stories behind them.
Listen to "People Change" now and take a moment to browse Musicto.com, to find other playlists and stories for your life.
You can learn more about Mipso here:
About the curator - Cormac McGee
Cormac McGee is a DJ, artist manager and concert promoter based in Toronto, Canada. He’s played in front of crowds from 10 – 1,000 people and has run concerts with some of today’s top hip hop artists, including Drake, Future, Mac Miller, 6lack, Ab-Soul and more. He also runs the Music Den at Ryerson University, a business incubator for entrepreneurs in the music industry.
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