"Currently Listening to…": Curating Artist Playlists and Authenticity on Spotify

This article examines music curation and authenticity through Artist Playlists on Spotify. Generally, playlists across streaming apps are presented as a platform for song discovery and chart success. However, this corner of the music industry's largest online marketplace is regularly used by musicians to establish cultural rather than economic capital through a presentation of labor and knowledge. The article charts the ways that English-speaking popular music artists based in Europe and the United States curate music through three types of Artist Playlists—Catalogue Artist Playlists (CAPs), Catalogue Plus Artist Playlists (CPAPs), and Non-Catalogue Artist Playlists (NCAPs). It then examines how the labor and knowledge on show in the curation of music on Spotify shapes spaces in which to consider and assess the artists' authenticity of expression, experience, and execution.