More than 4.8 million tracks have been analyzed and recommended to fans. Introducing New Buzzing Genre Fan-Powered Playlists including Metal, Rock, and Indie.

As an artist, one of the single most important things is finding fans. With this in mind, we recently introduced Buzzing Playlists, a set of fan-powered, genre-specific playlists, featuring songs based on genuine fan engagement, meant to expose artists to even more listeners, giving them the opportunity to get heard and… it’s working.

Since the launch of Buzzing, artists featured in these playlists with tracks that are well-received have seen a significant increase in plays and exposure by being featured on additional SoundCloud playlists. Overall, almost 20 percent of all tracks added to Buzzing playlists are getting added to Trending playlists, which have 3X more listeners than Buzzing Playlists. And, nearly half of the tracks that made it to Buzzing Hip Hop & Rap were added to SoundCloud’s Trending Hip Hop & Rap playlist. Updated daily, SoundCloud’s Trending Playlists are composed of songs, by genre, that have recently received a large increase in streams in a short amount of time. 

Building on the success of the Pop, Hip Hop, R&B, Electronic Buzzing Playlists we’re adding three new Buzzing Playlist genres including Metal, Rock, and Indie. With the introduction of these new genre-specific playlists, even more artists across even more genres get the chance to get heard!

Buzzing Playlists are sourced from Next Pro artists who have opted in to have their tracks analyzed by our recommendation algorithm, First Fans. Since the launch of First Fans, SoundCloud has taken aim at the ‘Zero-Plays Problem’, analyzing and recommending more than 4.8 million tracks to potential new fans, up by more than 37 percent from the 3.5 million tracks analyzed when Buzzing Playlists first launched in April 2024.

Buzzing Playlists are available to all SoundCloud listeners and will showcase fresh tracks from the best up-and-coming Next Pro artists in Pop, Hip Hop, R&B, Electronic and now Metal, Rock and Indie. For Next Pro artists, it’s a chance to show off their best new music and find future fans. Tracks that receive continued and sustained increases in plays may subsequently appear in one of many SoundCloud charts. For listeners, it’s a way to discover the tracks and artists other fans in their scene are connecting with. For A&Rs and industry professionals, it’s a cheat-sheet for who to keep their eyes on.

You can listen to this week’s Buzzing Playlists here. You can also learn more about Buzzing in our Help Center here.  Subscribe to Next Pro today to access First Fans, be eligible to be featured on Buzzing, and get early access to other upcoming features.

We’re hard at work building on our commitment to helping artists get heard so stay tuned for future updates.