There was a time when making music mostly meant, well… making music.
Writing songs. Finding your sound. Performing. Experimenting. Creating something that felt unmistakably like you.
Today, making the song is only half the job.
Before your creativity reaches an audience, there’s another question to answer: how do you make the algorithm care?
For emerging artists - particularly with one-person teams - that may look like transforming into a content strategist, personal brand, social media manager and marketer alongside being a musician. The song needs a solid hook, but increasingly, so does the content selling it.
As both a musician and digital marketer, I’ve become increasingly aware of this tension as music creation and discovery have evolved. Great music still needs visibility, and good marketing connects the right artist with the right audience.
But there’s a fine line between marketing music for discovery and creating music for discoverability.
When Musicians Become Marketers
Artists are now expected to understand short-form video, branding, audience retention, content strategy and the unwritten rules of whichever platform they’re hoping will introduce their music to new listeners.
The result is a strange reversal. Instead of platforms simply helping audiences discover great music, musicians can find themselves creating around what platforms are most likely to reward.
A brilliant record can exist with 2,000 streams while another reaches millions because eight seconds became the soundtrack to a trend. That doesn’t necessarily make one better. It makes one more algorithmically visible.
In marketing terms, visibility can easily be mistaken for preference. What performs well gets distributed further, which shapes what audiences encounter.
We’re no longer just asking, “What are people listening to?” We’re also asking, “What content are people engaging with?”
Those questions can produce very different answers.
Some Music Was Never Designed for Eight Seconds
That becomes particularly interesting with genres such as R&B, soul and jazz.
These genres are built heavily upon storytelling, musicianship and feeling. Sometimes the best moment isn’t the opening hook.
It’s the chord progression underneath the second verse. The background vocal you notice on your fourth listen. The instrumental break. The ridiculous run tucked somewhere near the end.
Historically, music discovery has also been deeply human. DJs, record shops, local venues, radio presenters, friends and music communities introduced audiences to artists outside the mainstream.
Algorithms haven’t eliminated that behaviour, but they’ve changed who holds the keys.
Discovery Is a Two-Way Street
It’s easy to say we should “support independent artists”, but doing it requires intention.
Listening beyond the viral snippet matters. Saving a song matters. Sharing it matters. Buying tickets to a small show matters. Following an artist with 4,000 streams rather than waiting until everybody else decides they’re worth paying attention to matters.
Today’s “small artist” could simply be an artist the algorithm hasn’t introduced to enough people yet.
There are incredible artists creating R&B, soul, jazz and everything between them right now. The question isn’t whether the talent exists.
It’s whether we’re still willing to go looking for it.
Culture has always moved forward because somebody took a chance on something they hadn’t heard before.
R&B, Soul and Jazz Taught Me Something Different
My own musical influences sit heavily within R&B, soul and jazz, where some of my favourite moments aren’t necessarily the ones you’d expect to go “viral”.
Ella Fitzgerald has been one of my biggest musical influences. Her voice wasn’t simply about delivering a catchy melody. It was an instrument in itself. Through phrasing, improvisation and scat singing, she could take an existing standard and make it unmistakably her own.
As for R&B, let’s take the vocal layering and musicianship throughout D’Angelo’s Voodoo album for example, where part of the magic is sitting within the groove rather than waiting for one standout moment. Many moments we remember mostly happen around the obvious hook. The vocal run towards the end of the song. The subtle chord change underneath a lyric. The background harmony you only notice after listening with headphones.
And Jazz takes that even further, with records like Miles Davis’ “So What”, intentionally leaving space for improvisation, conversation between musicians and ideas that develop over several minutes. You’re not necessarily supposed to understand everything within the opening few seconds.
These approaches to music have always fascinated me.
And they’ve consistently taught me to always appreciate musicianship, storytelling and, most importantly, feeling.
Jazz doesn’t always offer instant gratification. Sometimes you have to sit with it. Soul asks you to feel something. R&B has continually reinvented itself while carrying pieces of everything that came before it.
That feels increasingly at odds with an industry where artists are encouraged to capture attention within seconds. But maybe music shouldn’t have to.
As I continue navigating as an artist, this balance has become an increasingly important part of my musical journey and something that (hopefully) acts as a core reminder for my fellow underground creatives too.
Discovery Isn’t the Problem
Algorithms aren’t inherently the enemy. I’ve discovered incredible artists through TikTok, Instagram and YouTube who I probably wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.
For independent musicians, that’s huge.
The problem comes when discovery starts dictating an artist’s creative process. When the first question becomes “Will this perform?” instead of “Do I actually like this?” or “Does this genuinely reflect something I want to say?”
Creativity gets boring very quickly when everybody responds to the same signals, especially when creating for virality takes priority over raw, authentic emotion.
Final Thoughts
The algorithm isn’t killing music. But it is changing how we discover, market and sometimes even create it.
As a marketer, I’ve developed an appreciation for this. The visibility, audience and strategy all matter. After all, great music still needs to reach people.
But as an artist, I believe there also has to be a line.
Marketing should help incredible art find its audience. But it shouldn’t determine what the art has to become in order to deserve one.
So to the wider music industry and music lovers, go beyond the viral snippet. Explore those unsigned artists with <2,000 streams. Share the song nobody on your timeline is talking about yet.
Algorithms are exceptionally good at giving us more of what we already like.
Artists are there to give us something we didn’t know we wanted yet.
Author Notes
Shantelle King is a UK-based R&B singer-songwriter and award-nominated digital marketer, discovered by the likes of BBC Radio and 1xtra. With a passion for R&B, soul and jazz, exploring the intersection between music, creativity, culture and marketing.
Connect with Shantelle:
Artist, Shantelle King Official (Instagram)
Music, Shantelle King (Spotify)
Marketing, Shantelle King (LinkedIn)
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