There’s an amazing website called Forgotify. Forgotify uses an algorithm to find and play random songs from Spotify, but with a catch: they only play songs that have never been played before on Spotify.

How many songs have never even received one play on Spotify? It changes constantly, but last time I looked it’s close to 3 million songs.

That’s right: three million songs that have never been heard before. Three million songs people poured time, emotion, energy, and money into for weeks if not months, and not even one listen from a human being for all that effort. I spent an hour last week listening to tracks, and while there are a lot of really cheesy tracks (see: soviet-era russian pop) there were quite a few pretty good tracks, too.

The big take away for me from this website is two-fold: yes, it’s wonderful that you make music, and you should write regardless of who hears you. But don’t be fooled: a quality, thoughtfully done marketing campaign that accompanies your release is what will get your music heard.