Marketing Maximize collaboration with private track and playlist sharing on iOS

 

We know that collaboration is important to your creative process, which is why today we’re making it easier than ever to share your work discreetly before it’s 100% ready to be unleashed.

Whether you’re getting tips from your college roommate’s producer friend, emailing mom to get her perspective (spoiler alert: she’ll LOVE it), or pitching your favorite music blog for feature consideration – collaboration is key. We’re the only audio streaming service to offer private track and playlist sharing because enabling your workflow will help you to create the best possible upload.

With the introduction of private track and playlist sharing on iOS, you can now maximize collaboration on the go, making it easier than ever to share demos, refine content, receive feedback and promote your work. The steps are simple and few. Here’s what you need to know:

  1. You can share a private track or playlist the same way you share a public link via the fullscreen player menu at the bottom of your screen. (Y
    ou must be the owner of the track to share one, meaning you cannot share someone else’s private track).
  2. Once you think it’s ready for the world, you can make a track or playlist public on your mobile phone. You’ll know if you’re public when the locked icon is gone.
  3. Decide you want to go back into stealth mode? You can easily switch back to “locked” status, so your track / playlist is unavailable for discovery.

Because creating your best work requires the best possible workflow, we’re committed to continuously improving your tools and our offerings. So you keep rocking and we’ll keep rolling out the updates – and make sure to check back here regularly so you don’t miss a thing.

Private track and playlist sharing is already available on Android, so download the latest version of the SoundCloud app in either the App Store or Google Play to access today.

 

Marketing Under Armour x SoundCloud celebrate what’s next in music with Five Boroughs event

On November 1st – AKA the Thursday before NYC’s Marathon Sunday – hundreds of people poured into Brooklyn music venue Output for Five Boroughs: a pre-race celebration for New York, presented by Under Armour and SoundCloud.

By connecting athletes who are running down a dream, emerging artists who are training for a different type of gold, and the city-dwellers who prove every day that they “can make it anywhere” – Five Boroughs celebrated New York, yes – but it also celebrated the people who are defying gravity every day in their own special ways.

The invite-only list included UA-sponsored athletes, runners needing to let off a little steam after training all year, and music-loving New Yorkers wanting to up their BPMs with some high-energy sets.

The music acts were just as diverse as the guests, representing multiple boroughs of New York and genres across the board: Fly By Midnight, a pop duo repping Staten Island, opened the night; Brooklyn neo-soul group Phony Ppl kept energy high; and hip-hop artist SAINt JHN took everyone across the finish line. He played “Roses” and “McDonalds Rich,” while the crowd danced and sang under Under Armour HOVR shoes suspended from the ceiling rafters, casually living out the brand’s slogan: UA HOVR™ lifts you up.

Want to join us at a future event to celebrate what’s new, now and next in music? Make sure you’re opted in for SoundCloud’s tips & offers emails to be the first to know about more opportunities like this.

SoundCloud First on SoundCloud: Studio Sessions Berlin featuring How To Dress Well

 

Dressing well doesn’t mean adopting every runway trend, slathering yourself in logos or trying to keep up with the Joneses. It’s about being true to yourself; the surface expression of what’s within. And just as clothes are the first glimpse of a personality, the music artists create can provide a powerful deep dive into their internal psyches. Example A: the avant-garde pop artist How to Dress Well (recording alias of Tom Krell) and his experimental electronic music steeped in deeper meaning.

Krell was the third artist to stop by our Berlin office, as part of First on SoundCloud: Studio Sessions, to discuss his unintentional foray into music, his decade-long career, and his fifth studio album, The Anteroom.

Making music wasn’t Krell’s initial MO and it’s clear the thought-provoking lyrics are penned by someone who has a master’s in philosophy, not someone trying to follow a recipe for commercial success. Krell said, “I didn’t really have a passionate relationship with music-making until I learned about pedals and samplers and I was kind of exposed to the world of noise, rather than just the world of songs.” With otherworldly sounds and exhibition-worthy imagery in his videos, his music is a 360-degree sensory experience that proves Krell knows how to do everything well.

It’s been nearly a decade since Krell first snuck on the scene cloaked in obscurity. With The Anteroom he wanted to get back to “the avant forge” in which he first emerged as a creator. He approached the project strategically, grouping songs into two categories: “nonkilling” that represents the Buddhist ideal of pure living peace, and “false skull” that expresses an impossible pure death – two conflicting forces that hammock a listener in between.

In the studio, Krell played, “Body Fat,” a melancholy ballad off Anteroom that he wrote on Christmas Eve in his childhood home. On his website, scenes from the song’s music video fill the screen. A peach-colored not-quite liquid hangs suspended on the page; an amorphous putty that takes shape into something human – something that turns out to be Tom Krell. It’s an uncomfortable reminder of mortality offset by gossamer vocals and blending chords. It feels like a dance through molasses, being forcibly unhurried…a tension of heightened emotion vs. down-tempo speed.

In case you were wondering, Krell dresses well – and kind of like his music. He wore a white tee with blue text forming a circle that read, “SPIRITUALITY FREE WILL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE,” topped off with a thin gold chain. A look that mirrors The Anteroom’s theme of opposing duality and the cyclical nature of his artistic journey.

Stream The Anteroom on SoundCloud here. And watch the video above for a glimpse into How to Dress Well’s First on SoundCloud: Studio Session.