Tag: Korean music

At SXSW Sydney, RADAR, EQUAL, and K-Music Take Over Spotify House

October 26, 2023

Blusher performs during the RADAR Artist Showcase & Party at Spotify House during SXSW Sydney on October 19, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by James Gourley/Getty Images for Spotify)

For the first time in its history, Austin’s iconic South By Southwest (SXSW) festival expanded beyond its Texas watering hole and traveled all the way to Australia for SXSW Sydney. Fashioned as the Asia-Pacific extension of the original event, SXSW Sydney took place over eight days and included a series of creative sessions, showcases, screenings, exhibitions, and more. And you can bet Spotify was along for the ride.

We took over Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel and transformed it into Spotify House across four days. During the day, it was the place to be for panels, networking sessions, and fireside chats. At night, Spotify House became a live-music venue with performances by a stellar line-up of artists from across the Asia-Pacific region. Spotify House was an opportunity to highlight some of our artist-first programs, like RADAR and EQUAL, as well as feature popular genres like K-hip-hop.

On our RADAR

We introduced our latest group of up-and-coming artists during a special RADAR showcase: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, Vv Pete, and Blusher. 

“We are so grateful to be Spotify Australia’s new RADAR artist! We cannot believe the amazing support that we have received so far,” exclaimed the band members of Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers. “We have absolutely loved seeing new people all over the world listening to us little Teeny Jeanies and we really can’t thank Spotify enough!”

RADAR is our global emerging artist program that supports rising artists, and that includes RADAR Australia and New Zealand, both of which we launched in 2020. Since then, we’ve played a significant role in helping regional artists like PANIA, merci, mercy, CHAII, Genesis Owusu, Youngn Lipz, Baker Boy, grentperez, Larissa Lambert, and Royel Otis cross over into international markets.

The response from a sold-out crowd deeply moved the artists. “We started making music in our bedrooms, and support from Spotify has made it possible to play our music to audiences all over the world,” shared Blusher. “Seeing new listeners connect with our project, being able to share not just our songs but our creative vision through visuals and playlists of the music that inspires us, makes us so excited to bring people into the Blusher world that we’re creating.”

It wasn’t just high-energy performances that amplified RADAR. Hannah Beeching, Spotify’s Lead for Global Music Program RADAR, spoke to industry veterans Andrew Klippel, Artist & Label Manager for Ourness Label, and Mardi Caught, founder of The Annex, a music marketing company, as part of the “RADAR Across Borders” session. “RADAR artists have been added to over 5,000 Spotify playlists since the program launched in 2020, and more than half of these artists have gone on to be added to more playlists in over 10 markets around the world,” Hannah remarked during the talk. 

Spotify Set to Launch in South Korea in the First Half of 2021

December 17, 2020

Since Spotify debuted our first K-Pop playlist in 2014, listeners have streamed more than 180 billion minutes of the genre and added K-Pop tracks to more than 120 million playlists. In the last six years, the share of K-Pop listening on Spotify has even increased by more than 2,000%—that’s a lot of excitement for all things K-Pop. So soon, we will be saying “Annyeong haseyo,” or “hello,” to the home of the genre as Spotify launches in South Korea in the first half of 2021. 

Launching in South Korea will give Korean listeners access to over 60 million tracks and over 4 billion playlists, as well as enable Korean artists to reach their local music fans and Spotify’s 320 million listeners worldwide. It will also connect listeners in Korea to artists and music from around the world.

“We are excited about our upcoming launch in South Korea, a market recognized as an epicenter for music, culture and tech innovation,” says Alex Norström, Chief Freemium Business Officer of Spotify. “Spotify has been a partner to the Korean music industry for many years now. We are proud to have been a part of the K-pop global story, showcasing the genre on our platform and enabling its discovery all over the world, from Asia to the US, South America, Europe and the Middle East. We’re looking forward to working with our valued local partners to uncover more Korean artists, and to connect them with fans in South Korea and all over the world.”

As one of the fastest-growing major music markets in the world* and the sixth-largest music market globally,** South Korea is key for Spotify in our mission of giving a million artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. Spotify wants to help accelerate the growth of Korea’s entire music streaming ecosystem, benefitting artists, labels, distributors and fans.

Today, our K-pop genre hub encompasses a wide range of Korean music, including K-pop, hip-hop, indie, OST, R&B and more, as well as “RADAR Korea,” a playlist uncovering fresh K-music finds as a part of Spotify’s global emerging artist program. The hub is localized in over 64 countries, including Russia, India, Brazil and the UAE.

Tune into K-Pop Daebak for some of the hottest K-Pop hits and look out for more information on the launch in the first half of 2021.

* According to IFPI 

** According to IFPI