SoundCloud expands new genre-driven playlists

SoundCloud, which from next week gets a greater profile in Australia with its sales partnership with radio network Southern Cross Austereo, is expanding its playlists and introduced community profile pages.

“SoundCloud is home to the largest, most diverse music catalogue on the planet with more than 200 million tracks from over 20 million creators,” said the platform in an announcement.

“You come to SoundCloud for what’s new, now and next, and we’re dedicated to connecting you directly with the creators driving music culture worldwide.

“In fact, the full SoundCloud curation experience features nearly 1.7 million unique creators heard a week, compared to a few hundred thousand on other music services.

“That means more new music for you, and more opportunities for creators to connect with fans and grow their careers.”

The new playlists will be specially curated to help locate these tracks and generate more music discovery, the streaming service announced overnight.

These include:

The Feed which will curate the SoundCloud likes, follows and reposts of a particular artist (first up: hip-hop artist JuiceWrld).

Noise and 808s: “new, new beats from the loudest names in rap.”

Morning Mourning “for everyone who agrees: mornings suck.”

DTFunk designed as “your soundtrack for a freaky first date.”

Speed Bumps featuring rapid electro from around the world.

Drippin for the latest in rap and hip-hop.

Song selections will be curated by music journalists and critics, including former Pitchfork editor-in-chief Mark Richardson, electronic dance music commentator Philip Sherburne and music journalists Sowmya Krishnamurthy and David Turner.

The platform now features community profile pages to bring together fans and curators who have the same music tastes.

These include Hustle for rap fans, Scenes for “lowkey vibes”, The Peak for EDM freaks and Shine for pop aficionados.

Earlier this week SoundCloud announced it has hired former Apple Music subscription marketing head Anthony Gabriele who was instrumental in growing that company to 50 million subscribers.

Gabriele joins the service as SVP of subscription and marketing, a newly created role based in New York.

It signals the company’s push to convert more of its 175 million users to become subscribers via SoundCloud Go and Soundcloud Go+.