If you’ve ever listened to music on the radio or on a streaming service, what you heard was chosen by a music curator. Music curators are music industry professionals responsible for deciding what we hear. They’ve got a unique job that’s incredibly underappreciated.

Let’s discuss what music curators do, how they affect the music industry, and where to find them. If you're looking to become a music curator, click here to learn more.

What is a Music Curator?

Before we dive into the world of music curation, let’s specify what exactly a music curator does. A curator is someone who gathers things for a specific purpose, such as an art curator for a museum, but in this case it’s music. A music curator spends time finding and gathering music for a specific purpose, and we’ll get into those purposes a little later on.

Think of a music curator as someone who runs your playlist. If you’ve ever visited a streaming service, perhaps you have happened upon various playlists that are organized either by genre, mood, season, or another category. All of these playlists were created by music curators.

Some people compare music curators to DJs. Though similar, music curators and DJs have very different roles. A DJ is someone who plays music at events by spinning turntables and mixing records together. They decide which music to play by responding to a live audience. A music curator, however, carefully chooses specific tracks that belong to a playlist to set the tone for whatever purpose they’ve been hired.

Music curators are an important element to keeping music independent and organic.

What Do Music Curators Do?

If you get into music curation, what is your day-to-day going to look like? Well, number one you’re going to be spending a lot of time listening to music. That is essentially the main part of your job.

But you won’t just listen to music that you like. Music curators listen to genres of all sorts. They listen to music from major record labels and indie record labels. They find undiscovered talent and listen to classic artists. A music curator listens to all sorts of music all day long.

Although it’s the main part of their job, music curators don’t just listen to music. They also work with clients and conduct research. Their clients tell them what their playlists should entail as far as genres and overall tone. Then they research to find music that meets the assignment. These curators are music tastemakers and vibe creators, and are passionate about music.

Different Types of Music Curators

Like with any job, there are multiple types of music curators within the industry. There are independent curators and curators affiliated with businesses, and there are music curators for different aspects of the music and business industries. Let’s discuss this a little bit more closely:

Streaming Curator

One area of music curation is through streaming services. Music curators can be employed with streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music, and they create the playlists that we see when we search different genres.

Those playlists aren’t just created by an algorithm - there is someone behind each one who’s carefully choosing not only the track but the order of the playlist. The curators decide how long each song stays on the playlist and how many other songs by that artist are featured, as well.

Radio Curator

Music curators can also work for radio stations. Each radio station plays different genres and caters to a different audience. The music curator is in charge of finding the songs their audience wants to hear. This requires a fair amount of research, as the curator has to know whether the audience is responding positively to the songs that are being played and be able to predict if they’ll like a new addition.

Commercial Curator

There are also commercial music curators. If you’ve ever gone to an event or shopped at a store where the music perfectly matches the environment, that was not on accident. The business likely hired a music curator to choose the songs.

Commercial music curators choose songs according to volume, tone, and what sort of emotions are felt when listening to the songs, among other criteria. This job requires a very specific skill set and body of knowledge.

Becoming a music curator can be a fun way to earn a living from the music you love.

What Does it Take to be a Music Curator?

If you want to become a music curator, you’ve got to have some very specific skills. First off, you have to love music. Although many people love music, it takes a special person to be able to listen to it all day. Granted you won’t be listening to the same song over and over again, but most people don’t spend seven or eight hours of their day listening to music.

You have to love music so much that you want to listen to it all day, but you also have to appreciate music enough that you are willing to listen to work from all genres, all eras, and popular and undiscovered musicians alike.

You’ve also got to have an extensive knowledge of music. You can’t only know about the artists you like; you also have to know about artists you don’t like. You’ve got to know about the genres they play, the history of the genres, and the history of music in general. The more knowledge of music you have, the better music curator you’ll be because you’ll be able to pull from any genre and any era to create a playlist.

It also helps to have connections. If you are trying to get into music curation, it helps to either have connections within the music industry to get a job at a major streaming service, or to have connections with local businesses and people in the community who may want to hire you for your services.

You also need to know about genres and sub genres of music. You are going to be organizing playlists according to genres in sub genres, and you need to be able to hear a song and accurately categorize it by that genre, or hear a genre and be able to name songs within it.

How Music Curators Help Artists

Music curators are very helpful to artists because they can bolster their streams and get them introduced to new listeners. Take a moment and think about how you discovered some of your favorite artists. Was it on the radio? Was it on a playlist on your preferred streaming service? With today’s methods of listening to music, those were likely how you found many of your favorite artists.

But remember, those playlists weren’t put together by accident. Someone - a music curator - chose those artists and songs to be placed on those playlists and radio stations. For an undiscovered artist, being heard by a music curator is essential because they can be an integral part in jump-starting their career.

Music Curators’ Impact on the Music Industry

Music curators also have an incredible impact on the music industry as a whole. Just as they help artists, they shape the industry by choosing who is heard. The more popular an artist, the more the general population is going to listen to them.

Artists don’t become popular unless they’re heard. One way for an artist to be heard by large audiences is getting a music curator to add their work to a playlist. Unless you’re actively seeking out new artists like a music curator does, you’re more than likely just listening to what a music curator has chosen, making it vital to an artist’s career to be heard by curators.

Music curators have a huge impact on the landscape of music today simply by deciding what they think people what to hear, because that’s how most people discover and listen to music.

How to Become a Music Curator

As with many jobs, there are multiple ways to become a music curator. For example, you can become employed by a music curating business, a radio station, or a streaming service. With either a degree in music or experience in the music industry, you can break into this career field.

You can also go the independent route. This can be tough and will require some networking, but you can become a music curator by creating your own playlists on major streaming services or websites that pay curators for their playlists.

For instance, anybody with a Spotify profile can create a playlist and make it public. If you start sharing your playlist through social media and with family and friends, more people will follow it, and this can give recognition and clients for your personal business.

Where to Find Music Curators

If you are an artist, especially an independent artist, you want your music to get discovered by music curator because they can get you much more notoriety. One way to find these curators is by submitting to independent curators. Companies like SharePro, actively bring together some of the top curators in music, making it easy for your to submit your music in one place. There are a variety of independent music curators who post playlists on streaming services, and they actively accept submissions for their playlists.

You can also sift through playlists on streaming services to find the curators, but this can be a very time-consuming process. There are, however, freelance workers available online who will do this work for you if you’re willing to pay.

Do your research and reach out to as many music curators as you possibly can.

The Importance of Music Curators

Music curators play an important role in the music industry. They not only introduce us to new musicians, they also organize our music and make it easy for us to listen to what we want. Music curators can be a major part in starting someone’s career, or be important in the success of someone’s event.

The music we listen to is the soundtrack to our lives, and music curators are writing those soundtracks. They have an incredible effect on music as a whole, and can alter the course of an artist’s career. Music curators have a far more important job than they’re given credit for, and deserve thanks for introducing us to our favorite songs, albums, and artists.

If you found this article helpful in learning about music curators, or opened your mind to becoming one yourself, please consider sharing this article with your friends and family.

Article Sources

• Music Gateway
• Epidemic Sound
• FairyGodBoss
• The Music Trust
• Zip Recruiter
• Matt Benn