Why playlist curators reject songs

Most curators who turn a song down write a reason. Most artists read it once, feel bad about it, and send the same song to the next playlist.

We sorted 157 written declines from indie and pop playlist curators by the reason they gave. The reasons fall into two groups, and the two groups need different fixes.

Some declines give more than one reason, so the shares add up to more than 100%.

Two kinds of no

The first group is about the recording: the production, the singing and the vocal editing. That is 87 of the 157 declines, or 55%.

The second group has nothing to do with quality. Genre, mood, tempo and lyric theme together are 57 declines, or 36%. Not one of those 57 also found fault with the recording. The curator heard a song that was fine and decided it did not belong on their playlist. The same song can be right for a different playlist.

That second group is the cheaper one to fix. It costs an hour of listening before you pitch, and nothing else.

Fit: pitch the playlists your song already belongs on

Genre

The genre declines were rarely far off. "Leans a bit too much toward metal", "a bit too country", "too mainstream when I'm looking for more of an indie sound". The song was close to the playlist's genre, but not in it. A genre tag on a submission form is broad, and a playlist is narrow.

Before you pitch, play the ten most recent tracks on the playlist. They show what the curator adds now, which can differ from what the name or the description suggests.

Mood

The 14 mood declines almost all point the same way: the song was too dark, too sad or too emotional for a playlist that is bright and light-hearted. A good dark song still gets declined on a bright playlist. Read the description and look at the cover. A playlist that calls itself feel-good, sunny or summer is telling you what it wants.

Tempo and energy

Fifteen declines said the song was too slow or lacked punch for the playlist. Compare the tempo and the energy of your song with those ten recent tracks. If one release has a slower and a faster song, send the faster one to upbeat playlists.

Lyric theme

Sixteen declines were about what the song is about. Break-up and love songs came up most, in 6 of the 16, followed by a sport, alcohol and drugs. A listener who cannot relate to the lyrics skips sooner, and curators know that. A narrow theme is fine, but pitch it to playlists that are built around that theme, such as a heartbreak playlist for a break-up song.

The recording

"Flat"

"Flat" was the word curators used most: it appears in 20 of the 157 declines. In practice it usually means that the mix has little depth or space, that the top end is dull, and that everything sits at about the same level.

You can check this yourself. Put your master next to two or three tracks from the playlist you want to pitch to, and play them all at the same loudness. Spotify does that by default, so this is how most listeners hear them side by side. If your song sounds smaller or duller next to theirs, the difference is in the mix, not in the volume.

Loud, compressed masters

By default, Spotify plays every track at the same loudness, -14 LUFS, and turns louder masters down. A master that is limited hard to sound loud is turned down anyway, and what remains is a squashed sound. Curators described that as "compressed". Spotify's own advice is to master to about -14 LUFS, with a true peak no higher than -1 dBTP, or -2 dBTP for a louder master.

Clipping, harsh sounds and the vocal level

Other declines named clipping, guitars that sound harsh on the ears, a vocal that sits too low under the instrumental, and lyrics that are hard to make out. Before you send a song out, listen to the final master on earbuds and on a laptop speaker, not only on your studio monitors. Most of these problems are easier to hear there.

Vocals

Tuning and editing

Nineteen declines, 12%, said the vocal sounded too edited, too tuned or robotic, and asked for something "more raw" or "more natural". That is a preference of indie and pop playlists like the ones in this sample. In other genres heavy tuning is part of the style. If you want indie playlists, keep pitch correction light enough that a listener cannot hear it working.

Singing

Twenty-two declines were about the singing itself: notes out of key, double-tracked vocals that are out of sync, or a singing style the curator did not like. You cannot change a curator's taste. The first two you can fix, with more takes before you release.

Arrangement: get to the song quickly

Spotify counts a stream only after 30 seconds of listening. A playlist listener who does not hear the song start in that time skips it, and a skip before 30 seconds is not a stream. Three declines said the intro was too long, and one named the moment the drums came in: 1:08. If your intro runs past 30 seconds, ask whether it earns that time.

The other arrangement notes were small and specific: a vocal and an instrumental in slightly different keys, a rhythm that felt choppy, drums too far in the background, a guitar panned hard to one side. None of them appeared more than four times. With the long intros and the mix balance from the section above, they make up the 13% in the table.

What to do with a decline

• Write the reason down next to the playlist.
• If two curators name the same problem in the recording, believe them. Fix it in the next release, before you pay for more pitches.
• If the reason is about genre, mood, tempo or theme, the song is fine. Change where you pitch, not the song.
• Do not send the same song to the same curator again. A decline is a decision about that song, not a request for a second try.

How we use this at Ovation

Most of the fit problems above are solved before a pitch goes out. Our campaign managers look for playlists in your genre that match your sound, and we would rather place a song on three playlists that fit than on ten that do not. If we cannot find placements that fit your song, you get a full refund. You can read more about it in how we work with curators.

If your song is released and ready, you can build a campaign.