Building a strong music career isn’t just about talent—it’s about fan engagement. Bree Noble chats with Nick Holmstén, the mind behind Spotify’s playlist revolution, to discuss how artists can connect with their audience in deeper, more meaningful ways. From the power of curated playlists to the future of fan-driven marketing, Nick shares insights on what truly makes an artist thrive in the digital age. Whether you’re an independent musician or an industry pro, this conversation will change how you think about your audience and the role they play in your success.

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Fan Engagement And The Future Of Music: Insights From Nick Holmstén

Everybody, welcome to the show. I am here with Nick Holmsten. He’s known as the creator of Spotify playlists and he’ll explain to you why that is, his background working for Spotify. We’re going to talk a lot about fans and the new economy of fans for musicians. Before we get into all of that, I always want to set the stage and get the backstory from our guests, especially Nick. He has clearly done so much in the industry. I want to make sure that you folks have that context as we start to talk about what he’s talking about. Nick, if you could let people know. What’s your journey looked like? Have you moved through your music career?

Nick Holmstead’s Journey Through The Music Industry

Thanks for having me, Bree. I’m from Sweden from the beginning. I live in New York for many years. I started out always liked being with everyone. I got into music industry. I was an aspiring artist and tried to get a career with that. I was involved a little bit in hospitality as well at that time. I was running a rock club with a stage, and did performances. Eventually, I started a Brit-Pop band at the time where this whole Brit-Pop movement would happen all over the world.

There were a lot of Swedish bands that had a lot of success in Asia with British-inspired pop in the Beatles way. I created a band together with some friends in the end of the ‘90s called Apple Brown Betty. We had not like a massive hit, but a song that got viral and reached a lot of attention. We got a record deal. We went out on tours and stuff. That led into much more behind-writing for other artists. I had the privilege to be signed to a publisher and had some success. I started to work for Simon Cowell for a few years.

I would say after the golden day of the music industry, especially living in Sweden in the middle of 2000, we saw a decline happening and piracy taking over. Sweden in 2006-2007, saw an enormous decline in the music industry. A lot of Swedish startups tried to sell that. I had a couple of startups because I was into the tech scene as well. With my background and trying to understand how are we going to make money in this industry, I also saw other companies at the same time like Spotify and SoundCloud. It was almost like a stalling.

The future of the music industry was located to an area around Stockholm where we had the luxury of early broadband penetration. A lot of engineering and there’s was also a lot of successful artists, producers, and songwriters. There was a community that tried to solve that. My route for that I was involved in a couple of startups. This was a time where MySpace was a dominating part and Facebook started to do inroads there.

We built a community first in a company called Snowfish, which was based on a rev share model on social media, which didn’t exist at that time. It got a lot of attention, but couldn’t compete with the big dragons back in Silicon Valley. After that, we did a lot of things and we started to see that Spotify got a lot of attention. I was a very early user and realized that this is probably going to be the solution.

They took the best from the piracy yield. Basically, having files available for playing or downloading, but solve the problem of making it feeling native, meaning like when you press the play button, the song started, which was something that felt magical at that time. Everybody gets so hyped around it. For me, it was more interesting to think about what that will mean for the music industry because the music industry has been a retail transactional industry where not anyone can choose to buy every record they want.

When I grew up, you get into something. You’re like, “This is my genre.” I think it’s partly belonging to something but also, it’s a financial thing. Suddenly, I was imagining when people have all their music available in their pockets. I have this thesis that in the old days on the record stores, we forget that maybe only 25% of the people who listened to music went into record stores. Most of the people got their music through radio, TV, or other sources.

They were looking for a curated experience. The path we did was like, if everybody gets millions of songs in their pockets and they used to have a very small selection of their favorite artists. How can we help them discover new music and enrich every moment in life? If you take away the cost of listening to music, you’re going to choose other music for different moments.

The battle with Tunigo was to create like a strategy. It was music for life and trying to figure out like what is the perfect music for moments. Not specifically focusing on genres. That was the only thing that people were talking about that time. It was a little bit like if you have a cocktail party, you will never in the old days consider to play like Sinatra. Maybe if someone curated this experience for you, you can reach that moment and create another vibe.

I always felt when I went to New York years ago as I walked into these boutique hotels and they play this loungey jazz chill music. I felt it’s changed the whole atmosphere on that place. What we did at that time was starting to build and bringing in editors, a technical team, and start thinking about what is the future of playlist and what is the future of streaming. We become pretty early. Keep in mind, at that time, Spotify didn’t have any own playlist.

It was basically like a search window, you created your playlist. If someone shared a playlist with you at that time, it was usually like a long URL with no description or something like that and it had a title. We tried to think about like if we try to prime this, use artworks, good descriptions and categorize these playlists into all these moments in life where people go through. Where they might think that taste of music for me is very different than what you’re listening to if you’re going to go out with your friends on a Friday night or wake up in the morning on a Sunday with your partner.

You have different tastes and they could be different moments. That was like the hypothesis. The hypothesis shows that this was something that when people started coming to the streaming environment, they were looking for guidance and curation. We became the first Spotify partner, which is cool. This is a long time ago. It was like 2011-2012. They launched a system where you could have apps within Spotify. You can have a Tunigo app where you find playlists that were curated.

 

We started to expand and eventually, we opened a business in the US and started to do inroads and popularity on Spotify. We even passed Spotify with our Telco partnership in Sweden to become the most downloaded app in the App store, even more than Spotify of all apps. That was when Daniel, the Founder and CEO of Spotify, reached out and wanted to have a conversation that they acquired the company in 2013. That’s when Spotify playlist was born.

We came into the company and our mission was to build the browse feature and starting to categorize music and going from a startup into these very successful, I would still say startup, but growing extremely. When I was there and joined, Spotify was around 500-600 hundred people. We had the ability to build out the curation team and the programming team globally with all the different needs of domestic music. When I left in 2020, I think it was about 9,000 or 10,000 people. The whole industry changed.

We started to build it out and Spotify playlist became the talk of the industry. The way to break art. We create a very sophisticated system to match it with data and improve it. When more data started to work with the editorial, we started a lot of bets on how we could use machine learning AI to even make it better. In the last years, I took over and became what’s called the global how-to music at Spotify, which was responsible for all the industry relations, artists and editorial programming, and so.

I had the luxury I would say by coincidence and a blessing to come into a company that became the biggest company in the music industry. I was able to sit on that front seat and see the whole industry transition into that, which is a very conservative industry. Nothing has happened for so many years, but everything has changed. As for everything, I’m very entrepreneurial. I like building things, but it was a very rewarding culture at Spotify. You felt very entrepreneurial. The soul of a startup was there.

When I moved with my family to the US in 2018 because of my role, we also moved into like fourteen top floors on four World Trade Centers in the financial sector then the company started to become more of corporation, which is an actual step. I felt a little bit like, “I’ve been there for seven years. This is like a little bit of what I signed up is starting to change.” I had a conversation with the lead team at Spotify and talking about that Spotify should consider taking a position because I felt like the old record stores, the MTV area, the thing where fans and artists are mad in real life have disappeared. Everything was based on a mobile phone.

I wanted to bring that back. When I still was at Spotify, I started to look on like how can DSPs position themselves of being more in the business of building these relationships between artists and fans in real life? That’s where I felt the passion always existed in music. When I was down at Times Square, I looked at a lot of buildings, and by coincidence, there was some construction going on there. They were looking for someone to lead an entertainment mission of a very high-level, expensive project that had this outdoor stage leading to Times Square.

It was that moment I felt like, this was probably never going to happen but it was too interesting to say no. I joined forces and came in there from the landlords and the investors in that building to take on and build up something called TSX Entertainment. It was the entertainment strategy on the big $3 billion project at Times Square called TSX Broadway. That’s where we will be built. I left just before the summer to do a couple of other things, but mostly because the problem that happens within commercial real estate and interest rate slowed down the project.

I felt we didn’t have the forward-pushing energy that I wanted and we have a little bit different views of what the next step will be. It ended up that we started to activate that stage and that stage became like one of these amazing tent pool events that everybody talks about. The first show we did, everything was like surprise shows in the middle of Times Square, getting the permits, and getting artists to come and perform. There were no ticketed events. You needed sponsors and build a financial model around it.

The interest from artists was so enormous because everybody understood that this was going to be pretty amazing if it worked. We did that first show in 2022. It must be in like in the summer of 2022 with Post Malone. That exploded and became this massive talk of the town. After that, the phone never stopped ringing. We did the Jungkook from BTS. We drew like 20,000, to 40,000 people down to Times Square. The last one we did was with Shakira in March of 2024, which was an incredible moment.

What I wanted to prove with that is that there are ways like in this way. When you activate fans in marketing, you can create these big events that create such an amplification. We saw the numbers that the earned media, the reach, and the uptake on streaming were enormous. My focus after that was to try to write this book that I did called Fan Power Future to emphasize on the thing how important fans are for artists. They are the new marketers and that is the driver of the new music industry. That’s what my passion is and what I’m building based on.

You’ve certainly done a lot, that’s for sure. I wanted to ask, based upon your work at Spotify and how you helped build out playlists and things like that, what did you learn around as far as how people discover music? How did that translates into fans maybe becoming marketers for artists? For me, I love to make playlists and I love introducing people to other artists that they haven’t heard of on my playlists.

Connecting Artists With Fans Through Playlists

We have a mission at Spotify and that is to connect as many artists as possible with as many fans as possible through our playlist syndicate. What that means is that how do you manage everything from top-tier artists that already have a big fan base to new emerging artists that want to find a fan base? The way we did it was creating a syndicate of playlist where we have a lot of different feed of playlist on the lowest level where we can introduce new artists in a context. Keep in mind, people have a lot of perception of what music they like. If you ask someone, “I don’t like that music. I don’t like that.”

Sometimes, when they hear a song they like and they might not know that it’s exactly what you said you didn’t like. When you put it in context, your sense is going to work in a different way. We proved that. What we tried to do was automatically build a system where we get a lot of feedback data where we could introduce artists to people by first listening to fans. By listening to an artist, you want to find out more about them.

We had a lot of data to see how we turn it into fans. Spotify is way more lean-back than it used to be. What I mean with that, a lot of people come into Spotify because you have so many creative experiences based on your taste or your moment and you press play and then you usually just listen to it. It’s a little bit different when you come to the younger ages. They are a little bit more leaned to their favorite artists, but overall consumption is very lean back.

That is a little bit problematic because what you’re looking for and what we did in the beginning was say like, if someone doesn’t skip a track. It has some understanding that people like it. If they save it, it also has an indication that they like it. If they replay the song from their own collection, is the absolute highest reward. What we’re trying to do is move people from passive listeners into active listeners to create and replay them. That’s how we see fans being built.

When they started getting into songs like you’re starting to give more content to them, you’re building up a better and better relationship. To be honest, this is going to come back a lot to the artists themselves to making sure that they are authentic, close and true to their fans because fans hire you but they fire you as well. They see you like they’re brands and artists. They work with as an extension of their personality.

Fans hire you, but they fire you as well. Share on X

It’s a very different time than being a fan many years ago. They are asking more and expecting more. I always mention the fact like if you had a photo with you with a celebrity twenty years ago, that was a big thing. You probably had a photo and say like, “I met this person. I cannot believe it.” Now, a twelve-year-old expects to get a selfie with Taylor Swift or any other superstars out there. You have to balance things like, how do you treat your fans. How do you involve them? How do they feel recognized and appreciated? Spotify was trying to help artists find a fan base and then it’s their job to keep giving them and build out their music and their content in general.

They can keep releasing more singles and building out their catalog. That’s one way to keep that relationship going. I’ve always found that jump from Spotify to other places to be difficult. I know that you can put your social media on there, but for me, I can get them on my email list so then they’ll come to my shows and things like that. How do you get around that big gap there?

That is probably the big challenge. If you think about Spotify specifically, they are in a business where they basically give back 70% of all the revenues that come in. Thirty percent is what they need to fund their business. Maybe 2024 was the first year in sixteen years or something like that where they made a profit. Up until now, you have had a lot of investors and from the stock market that have invested in the company to provide this money back to the industry, I would say.

Their job has always been to figure out how they can increase their margin because that was the expectations. There’s the contradiction that Spotify wanting some way to get revenue from connecting the artists with their fans in different ways to get more attention on them. Unfortunately, I can feel sometimes like if you earn a big following on Spotify, it’s a little bit weird that you cannot communicate with them. Here is the contradiction in that, I don’t think Spotify will give artists that because that’s a little bit of their secret sauce.

That is why the valuation is what it is because they’re sitting on all that data. I agree with you. That’s why I keep saying to people, you cannot depend on Spotify to help you with your promotion. You have to build your fan base on the outside because Spotify is more of an amplification. It’s also like the mirroring of what you do but it’s very difficult to move the needle within the Spotify ecosystem.

 

You get analytics and very fantastic data points but honestly, you need to figure out how you get 100 fans and then how you get them to 1000 fans. If you can build a thousand fans, you can build 10,000 fans. It’s just that strategy, but it’s not going to happen automatically just because you upload your music to Spotify. The expectation there is, I release a song and nothing happens. That is the world we’re living in. The competition is so brutal to cut through the noise.

You’re not just competing with other artists. You’re competing with everything that is time-consuming and all the entertainment that people put into. You have to ask yourself why should people listen to you. I believe we are in a world of meritocracy but it’s a marathon. People need to put other timelines into it. They need to put in the hours. If you’re talented enough, at least you’ve got a good shot that didn’t exist I would say twenty years ago.

There’s not the gating that used to exist back then, but as you said, there is a lot more competition. What do you think is the best way for them to connect? Is it social media? Is it in-person gigs? Is it all of the above?

Strategies For Musicians To Connect With Their Fans

I think it’s all of the above. They’re making money to build a fan base that do backyard concerts with their fans. They come up with a structure like, “You’re building a small fan base on social media,” whatever platform you choose from, and then you’re starting to engage them and start an offering thing. “I could come and play in your backyard and you invite friends, and stuff like that.” You have to build from the beginning. In the music industry, there’s not a shortcut. There’s not a big jump.

You’re not going to end up on like Today’s Top Hits directly when you release music. The good thing about systems like Spotify is they’re also tracking a lot of data points outside their platform. They know when something started to create some noise and move. That will help you. If you have to do that first push yourself, then you’re going to see when that happens and it mirrors on Spotify. They starting to get more data and they’re going to amplify you because they are only looking for the best user experience.

If people want to have it, they’re going to put the machinery and test to see if they can drive it up. The simplest way to say it is you are responsible for your first thousand fans. That is always what I say to people. How do you make a decision to build that foundation? There are so many different ways. The ones said like, how do you do it? You have to be out there. You have to perform. That’s the easiest way.

If you’re not a performer, you probably need to start creating content that shows authentic personality and attracts people. If it picks up, it picks up and you have to keep trying, but it’s not a human right to be an artist and be able to living on it. I think a lot of people believe that John Jenner made music, why isn’t Spotify paying me this money? You know that as well because you’re in the industry.

We wouldn’t have these talent shows and see tons of thousands of people showing up that could not really sing if there was like the same system in sports. It’s not that people sitting at home and say, “I think I’m going to join the Sheep and play Super Bowl next year. How do I start?” That is the craziest thing for me. It almost feels like music is a different thing because it’s a little bit more fluffy and not mashable, which opens up all these people thinking like, “I can make it because they look at the artist.”

They might not recognize the success or why they’re successful but you think, “They’re not so good at singing and not so good-looking. I have the same shot. Maybe I’m special and I’m starting to go for it.” That is why we have 100,000 songs being uploaded on Spotify every day because there are too many people out there dreaming about becoming an artist, which is good by the way. The question is, is it reasonable that all these 100,000 should be successful? Of course not.

The thing is, as a music curator, I can say that there is so much good music. As you said, it’s not a human right that they would get paid to be an artist. On the other hand, I cannot believe the amount of music that I receive that is top-notch. It’s hard.

I usually saw that there’s definitely like the top segment. I agree with you, I hear it all the time. There’s a lot of fantastic music that never people got to hear that would have been successful. That is a little bit of the reality of the times we’re living in. We compete with so much. It’s not about that you are not as good as you should be. It has to be the right timing. You have to have some luck as well. That’s why I’m saying, if you’re talented enough and you have the maritime mentality and you’re willing to put in the hours.

I would say you have a fair chance eventually to get somewhere. In the old industry as you know, you couldn’t do that at all. You had to knock on doors and you couldn’t get your record out. It was impossible even getting a recording studio, but now when technology is cheaper and everyone can do that.

We have now seen that there is an enormous amount of talent out there that should find their way to the audience. To your point, there are a lot of them. How do you navigate that? I don’t have a solution that I’m like, if you’re that talented and that good, you should be able to start building a fan base. That is what’s going to eventually take you there.

The Importance Of Joy And Passion In Music Creation

I agree but you also cannot be focused on, “I have to make it or not, or I’m going to not be happy.” You have to have joy in building and creating of your music legacy and getting the things that you want to write or record out there into the world. There has to be that joy in the process or you may as well not do it because the percentage chance of making it is low. Maybe you will and maybe you won’t.

You don’t want to go through all of it and then say, “I only have one goal. My goal is to “make it,” and whatever that is to you. You’ve got to be able to feel like you’re making it all the time. When I release a single, that’s a win. I want to talk about your book because it’s an interesting title. The title is Fan-Powered Future. What exactly does that mean? What inspired you to write it?

It was the shift from when traditional media, which has been the way of getting the message out for a long period of time. That’s the way music was marketing before, TV commercials, and so on. We all see that shift happening due to the decline of traditional media and the traditional outlets to buy your way through means that we are in an engagement model.

Most of the information we get is through the channels. We are usually on social media. The people that talk about it, the people that move the needles are the people that are passionate about storytelling around something specific. For me, it’s been a little bit like artists need to rethink around like the role of the fans. The way I look at it, and this is why this book is also as much like a marketeering book from that perspective.

Artists take control of theirs. It goes all the way from the biggest artists in the world. If Taylor, Drake, or whoever it is, they own their rights. They own their recordings. They didn’t used to do it, but they do it. They’re licensing to the major record labels on completely different terms than before. In the old days, maybe an average royalty was between 8% to 15% or something like that. Now, they probably licensed the content on an 80/20 in their favor and get a big advance.

What that means is that the artists, all the deal they do with the record labels, they cannot put the 20% marketing money into the budget anymore. The responsibility is going to come more and more forward to not just the artist, but every brand in the world. Instead of thinking about consumers as consumers, you have to think about them as an extension of your brand. What I mean with that is that the reward mechanism that everything has been built up, and this is what I’m talking about the book.

Instead of thinking about consumers as consumers, you have to think about them as an extension of your brand. Share on X

In the beginning of social media, getting a like and a comment and stuff like that was a reward. You started to see that big influences with a lot of followers started to charge for posting to their followers. You started to see smaller influences in networks started to do the same thing to get the power. My way has always been like, it’s not enough for artists to take fans for granted anymore. They need to be rewarded in some way.

What does that mean? In the last chapter, I make an example which is easy to do when you take the biggest artists. Someone of it is into her fans like Taylor. Imagine in 2027, Taylor goes out and says like, “I’m going to give you back 20% of the revenue is my new record to my fans.” That will create like, “What is she saying? What is does mean?” Fans will probably feel like, “How can I get hold of that?” I’m not talking about fiat currency. I’m not talking about payment.

I’m talking about like artists need to take from a new strategy in marketing. Taking maybe 20% of the earnings, they need to put that back towards the fans in taking that bucket of money into the experience and ask, “What do fans want to have?” They want to have the ability to buy limited merch. They want to be able to get the tickets or discount the ticket. Even just being able to buy them instead of secondary crazy prices.

In my view, in some way, it’s going to be a system where an artist goes out to the fan base and gives them assets and says like, “I need help. You guys are an extension of my brands. Here are some assets you can use. Tell the story. What do you think? I’m not going to tell you what you tell. When you do these things, we’re going to track. You’re going to get some point system. You can exchange these rewards into the experience you’re looking for. Maybe I see you at the concert. Maybe you get that merch.”

Somewhere down that line is where I see we’re heading towards. That the incentives for the fans are also important to know like they want to be recognized. I’m coming down to a bigger world situation that we all have there. People are lonelier than ever. In a New York Times article, it says like, 70% of the people who go on Taylor Swift concerts are pretty lonely people and everyone wants to belong. Everybody wants to be part of a community.

 

When you see what happens around these artists that have been able to build these communities and fan base, that becomes the new friendship model. That’s their belonging. They plan it months ahead. They have conversations in their communities. They meet. They change bracelets. Whatever. When we did with Jungkook, for example, the K-pop things. Everybody has their printed cards and changing them. It’s this whole structure that is sophisticated.

There’s also a hierarchy in some of these, especially the BTS Army. It’s really like an army you think about. You go upgrades in every country and you get recognized. In a way, what the book’s trying to do and what I’m trying to explain is you have to rethink. You cannot see. This goes for every brand, I would say, in pop culture. Not just artists. You have fandoms in a lot of other brands as well.

You have to rethink consumers into fans because the moment you put another name on them, you realize that you are so dependent on them and they feel that they are part of you. You cannot disappoint them. I think in the future there needs to be a way to build a platform or system where fans feel like, “I’m putting in all this effort. I’m burning for this. I should not be the super fan that everybody believes they can make more money out of because I’m putting so much into that flywheel of that artist to get it going.”

I believe if that model works, the more you put in as an artist, the more you’re going to get a return and everyone’s going to be happy. That is what the fundamentals of the book are. That is the description from read stories and also the change of the industry over the last two decades and where we are what I think is going to happen in the future, if that makes sense.

It sounds like you’re suggesting taking a portion of what would normally be your marketing budget and investing it into fans in this way. It seems like a combination between encouraging them to create UGC content and then giving them a loyalty program. If you’re extending it to brands, some brands do this thing as well and it makes sense.

I’m curious what you think about whether this is doable for the independent artists because Taylor Swift and BTS and anybody that’s got a big group of people behind her that can create this infrastructure. Most of the people reading this are independent artists. Do you think this is something they can tackle?

Building A Loyal Fanbase And Rewarding Their Engagement

Take BTS as an example. I think it’s an interesting story because people don’t know about how that was created. There wasn’t a hypothesis around BTS and K-pop was happening. BTS was not a big band in Korea. It was a strategy to take the diaspora. They looked at it like there were a lot of Asian people that had pride and wanted to belong to something. We’re going to make them involve very early. We’re going to put up like what this band’s going to look like. They’re going to be part of putting them together.

It was not the big money at that time. They did that whole journey but they started by creating. My recommendation I keep coming back to is like, Taylor’s example is how it’s going to play out. If you play your cards and you build your fan base, Taylor has always cared about her fans. Everybody knows that. BTS has always done that. You have a bunch of artists that don’t care about the fans. They have big problems because if you’re not authentic, if people don’t trust you, and stuff like that, it’s very difficult to navigate.

If I would be an emerging artist, I’m coming back with the same thing. In the same way, as you say, you need to involve the people in the content. What I love about fans is fans has a tendency, a little bit like you said before. You want to discover these artists early. You want to be one of the first at getting involved. You know already from the start that there are a lot of music fans out there. They want to engage and get involved.

It’s more about like, if you create the right incentives, they’re going to be the extension and your team that might start with ten people becomes hundred and so on. That gives you that powerful exchange. The most important thing is, imagine in the future, which I believe that this will be a pretty obvious next step to engage in because I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be.

What I mean with that is that it’s important to know it’s not about the money, but if you go into a fan and you think about what they care about, what they want to do, what they love, is that they love exes. They want to be able to. What happens is that most fans end up either not getting tickets to the big shows or they are buying secondaries for a crazy price and end up in a nosebleed.

The people with the money sit on the front row, which artists hates, by the way. That’s why they introduced the Golden Circle and all these different things to bring fans closer. We know that the artists want to reward the fans by making sure that they are present on these shows and get access to that. They don’t care about the financial model because they know the long-term, the more happy fans you have, the more fans come and will join. Going back to the emerging artist story, I think the exact same model should be used.

The more happy fans you have, the more fans will join. Share on X

I think you need to build because all these artists from the beginning started like that. It’s very easy to believe like, “They are so big.” If you go back and ask the story, the initial story around this band, you’re going to find out they did that hard work. They went playing in shopping malls, stood outside school, and went to high school. They did all that thing. They just did it. They put in the hours. People are too lazy. You’re like your own CEO.

You’re the entrepreneur. If you’re a musician, whatever your position you take, you are the brand. You are the ones who should be out there selling and represent yourself. Not everybody wants to do it, that’s fine but you need to find a strategy that works with your personality, which could be done in a lot of different ways. There’s no shortcut there. For me, it’s no difference. It’s the same structured process that you have to go through, but it’s going to pay off.

It’s good to put it out there like that and say, “This is what you have to do if you want to get to where you want to go.” You’re right, artists can be a little bit lazy or complain. I get it. It’s hard to be an artist, but I don’t have as much patience for any of that anymore because we do have so much agency that we didn’t have before. Do you think that there is a platform or types of platforms that exist yet that can help musicians do this?

That’s what I’m trying to figure out. That is what I’m doing, trying to understand. I think it comes back to something that I truly believe in. When I have done the analysis around all these artists’ fan platforms. Most of them on the same hypothesis. They build a lot of tools, go out and say, “Artists, come here. Give this content and sell this content. Bring your fans here.”

There’s something problematic with that because it also means that you could probably get the low-tier artists or maybe some mid-tier artists, but the bigger artists will not join because they know that you want to have them there so they drive the traffic. The big question is that you have to rethink it and say like, “If I don’t have the artists if I got to build a platform where fans are and just focus on the fans.”

That’s where it needs to start because you need to create that leverage. The fans need to get leverage towards the artist. What I mean with that is that artists need to come in with a different perception to say like, “I need to be on that platform.” These platforms with the fans are social media and platforms where they own all the content, which is not a logical thing.

What I’m trying to figure out together with some partners I’m building with is how do you create a platform that is a fan’s first platform where fans join without the endorsement of the artists from day one? What can you offer fans that makes them interesting to sign up for something? In the future, that can give them leverage to all the things I’m saying to you. If you get more powerful and create these foundations, you’re going to have more say. In these artists’ future, you’re going to get different experiences and coming closer to it.

That’s where I think the trick is. It’s not an easy thing, but that’s what you need to crack and that’s what I’m trying to do. If we’re going to be able to do it, we have some interesting completely new concepts around that can be built. Time will go, but I don’t think there’s one platform. It’s a combination of platforms that you could use to achieve it, but it’s not streamlined like join that and keep pushing. There’s not a platform outside of social media where fans feel ownership and feels like they are treated in a way that should be treated.

I’m curious to see what you’re able to build, and I’ll have you back on the show when you’re there. I think there is Patreon and that’s what they tried to do but I do think it’s too artist-centric. It’s about how can we support this artist, how can we make sure that they can keep making music and all that stuff. It’s all about the artist, what’s in it for the artist and not what’s in it for the fans. Even though they want you to think that like I’m giving you these special things because you’re my Patreon, but it still feels like it’s artist-centric.

I agree with that. I always refer to more to GoFundMe strategy around these things, which is a completely different business. That is not what I’m talking about. You need to do it in a different way because that is one directional in some way. Put this money in so I can do this and I can serve you with that. It’s a one-directional conversation that always, in the end, ends up being way more positive for the artist than the fans.

I think the fans need to get value in that new platform. They need to be rewarded in a way. A lot of people talk about that. The worst thing I hear is that the superfan economy. That’s a new discussion in the music industry. It’s always built around revenue. Now, someone came up and is like, “Superfan spends more money. Let’s focus on superfans.” There’s nothing in all the data I ever seen that shows that there’s an equivalent between a superfan and dollars.

It doesn’t mean that superfans have more money. Not at all. I think there’s so much diluted when they’re looking at their spending from superfans. They don’t know. I would say that it’s not the true super fans. Either they get pushed in to buy a very expensive ticket or something like that because it’s the only option for them. Someone else is helping or parents or whatever it is to pay for it in some way. It’s not the same of saying like, that fan is willing to spend so much money because of their passion.

Sometimes they get forced to get that ticket and the parents see the sadness in the eyes of the kids and help them out. You also have all these fans, super fans that cannot afford that. I hate the fact that you say a super fan is equivalent to more revenue span. They are way more engaged. Use that engagement from them and reward them with what they cannot afford but they’re helping you so much. That is what drives me.

The Importance Of Valuing Fans’ Time And Passion Over Money

I love that. That means you’re valuing their time and their passion versus just their money.

The most successful artists are the ones who are able to feel authentic and care about the fans and the fans feel that they’ve been taken care of, which is very tricky when it comes to levels of it. The artist needs to think about it. It’s never based on money. Keep in mind, there’s no equivalent between the money. There a different also economic incentives from what an artist makes and the record label or management or touring company like Live Nation that might be driven on their quarterly earnings.

The artists don’t think about that at all. That’s the result of being successful, but it’s not money that is a driver for the majority of the artists. It’s about the performing and the storytelling. Now when artists take more control, we start to see their priorities shifting towards us. That’s why I believe that there is a better future for fans, and that means a better future for artists.

The Future Of Fan And Artist Relationships

I love it. Where can people find Fan-Powered Futures?

The obvious one is Amazon. If you want to find out more, you can also go to NickHolmsten.com, where you have links to all the books and more information and videos. I’m planning to add some additional courses and stuff like that around it because I realized when I wrote the book and got a lot of attention around it.

It’s pretty obvious that when people understand the change that happens in the industry, but I think the more people that started leaning towards that will also get that shift, which in the end will be better for everyone. I’m always coming from a situation where I love when everyone can be a winner, when the artist is getting more successful and the fans get happier.

That leads to a flywheel in the end. What it comes down to, when you build a strong relationship, you also have a lot of other companies knocking on the door for the fans and the artists to help offset a lot of these money because they want to play a part of it. Building that super strong relationship between fans and artists will open up for a less expensive experience for the fans.

Almost like bringing in sponsors or things like that.

This is usually what traditional media is built around. It’s just like that new model, but I don’t want everybody to believe that the fan’s going to pay for everything. That’s what I think is the discussion and that’s going to change.

I think that would be an amazing experience for artists and fans if we could make that model work. You guys check out the book on Amazon, and go to NickHolmsten.com so you can find out more information on Nick and the book. I want to thank you so much. Nick, this has been a great conversation. I’ve loved learning about how Spotify playlists came to be. They’re like one of my favorite things in the world. Thank you for your part and that you played in all of that.

Thank you so much for having me, Bree. It’s been a pleasure.

 

Important Links

• Nick Holmstene
• Snowfish
• Live Nation
• Nick Holmsten on LinkedIn
• Nick Holmsten on Instagram
• Fan-Powered Future

 

About Nick Holmstén

Nick Holmstén is a trailblazer at the intersection of music, technology, and pop culture. As the creator of Spotify Playlists, he revolutionized how millions discover music, following the acquisition of his company, Tunigo, by Spotify. As the former Global Head of Music at Spotify, Nick played a pivotal role in shaping the platform’s success. Today, he’s an entrepreneur leading new ventures, including TSX Entertainment, and the author of Fan-Powered Futures. Nick champions the shift from customers to fans, highlighting how fandom drives engagement and builds the world’s most iconic brands.