Trending earlier on Twitter, Forgotify, the brainchild of San Francisco web designers and developers Lane Jordan, J Gaussman and Nate Gagnon, has come to the aid of millions of lost and lonely songs sitting unplayed on Spotify, a leading music streaming service.
Here’s what you should know about the new web app:
1. Four Million Songs are Unheard on Spotify
4 million songs on Spotify have never been played. Not even once. We’re changing that. http://t.co/74gUDMKD7A
— Forgotify (@forgotify) January 29, 2014
That’s just about 20 percent of Spotify’s total playlist of 20 million songs. To put that into perspective, that’s over 14 million hours of music (or 2.3 million listens of Bohemian Rhapsody), of unheard music from relatively unknown artists.
“We thought, ‘What kind of weird stuff is out there that people could find?'” Gagnon told NBC News. “It’s a crazy testament to how many songs are on Spotify, period.”
2. Forgotify Won’t Help Generate Money for Artists
Spotify distributes royalties on a 70/30 basis. Seventy percent of revenue goes to artists and 30 percent is left for Spotify. And because Spotify pays royalties out to artists based on the number of listens to a song and popularity of the artist, it’s highly unlikely that any of these 4 million songs would result in massive royalties rushing in. So sorry, Marty Gold & His Orchestra, but you won’t be rolling in the dough quite yet. With Forgotify, once the song is played once, it disappears from the list.
3. People Love Oddities
Do you like obscure music? As in, really really obscure music? As in, no one else has ever listened to it? http://t.co/Rvwh5UBP0r
— Rebecca Rosen (@beccarosen) January 30, 2014
4 million songs on Spotify have never been played. #forgotify http://t.co/6DhzKCm2JI Currently listening to Gulag-Tango!
— Peter Healy (@phealy1982) January 31, 2014
Some interesting stuff on Spotify #forgotify ♫ Oh, Doctor – Art Samuels and the Montréal Youth Singers http://t.co/25SDWI02eR #NowPlaying
— Jordan (@JordanLeft) January 31, 2014
4 million @SpotifyIreland songs have never been played.Use #forgotify to find some gems.@EarHazards @Niki_Kelly #tune http://t.co/vdVDgEcYlH
— Thomas O'Reilly (@tom_dublin1) January 31, 2014
4. And Some of These are Really, REALLY, Odd
5. Looking at the Album Covers is Entertainment for Hours
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Forgotify: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know