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The Hidden Psychology Behind Streaming

Musicians face a common frustration: getting followers to actually stream their music. It's disheartening when people interested enough to follow you aren't clicking through to hear the songs that mean everything to you. The natural question follows - if your existing followers won't listen, how can you possibly reach new audiences?

There's good news. Artists use a powerful psychological technique every day to generate streams, operating almost subliminally. Once you notice it, you'll see this pattern everywhere. Let’s break down this psychological trigger and teach you how to communicate with your audience in a way that motivates them to take action and stream your music.

Understanding Music's Core Function

People tend to swing between extremes when analyzing music - either overcomplicating its role or oversimplifying it. Before diving into specific techniques, we need to understand music's fundamental scientific purpose. This perspective forms the foundation for everything that follows.

Why Do We Listen To Music?

Whenever we put on a song, we're trying to use a feel a way we'd rather feel. Music is, at its core, a mood-altering drug that makes us feel the way we’d rather feel. If this hasn't clicked for you before, take a moment to think about it. When you reach for an album or a song you love, it's to change your mood to one you'd rather feel. Sure, there are other reasons you put on music, but all of them are downstream from that you just want to feel a way that the music may make you feel rather than the way you currently feel.

Too many people don't see music for what it actually is: a mood-altering drug. Granted, this one is usually legal and endorsed by even the biggest tightasses in our society, unlike nearly every other drug.

Music is a Mood-Altering Drug

What do I mean by music as a mood-altering drug? Drugs, at least in the way we refer to them in the recreational sense, are just vehicles to change our mood or perception. If you want to feel happier, you put on a song that makes you feel that way, which can be a sad or happy song, depending on the person, maybe even a melancholy one. If you want to sink into your sadness, you put on a song that puts you in that mood. We all have different emotions and songs that hit us differently, which is why the music we love is all over the place.

Losing Tolerance

Music works just like a drug in this way - we eventually gain a tolerance to it. It doesn't hit as hard anymore, and we start chasing a new high. And if you have ever drank or done drugs, you may have noticed the phenomenon of unless you get a stronger hit or a new blend, the highs get lower. This is just the same as when a song starts to no longer feel as resonant to you and you don't get that emotional change in mood you used to get from it. It just doesn't feel as emotionally powerful as it used to, and we move on to another song that makes us feel the way we'd rather be feeling. So we move on throughout our lives, looking for songs that change our emotions to a way we'd rather feel, and looking for ones that bring us that mood change that really, really feels amazing to us.

Why Your Old Fav Songs Don't Hit Like They Used To

As you emotionally mature, you naturally grow out of certain records. Looking back at them, you just don't feel what you used to feel. Many successful artists don't understand fan reactions when they change their sound. Think about it - the fan was used to a particular mood-altering drug, sometimes even addicted to it. They had so many good times with that high.

So when your next record shifts mood and doesn't give fans that familiar feeling they're chasing - that emotional hit they're used to - they feel betrayed. You've essentially taken away their drug. And if you've ever tried to take away drugs from an addict, I can tell you it's about as ugly as fans' tweets when their favorite artist decides to abandon pop and go prog.

One of the great struggles of maturing as an artist is figuring out how to evolve in an emotional language that's true to you while hoping your fans will join you for the ride.

Emotional Power in Music

So what does this have to do with marketing your music? Here's the thing - most failed promotions happen because the music isn't enough of a mood-changer for the listener. If it's not emotionally powerful enough, people won't keep coming back for that fix they need to change their mood. The listener tries it out; it’s kinda mind and doesn’t change their mood as much as they are used to.

Why Songs Go Viral

When your audience uses your music as their go-to mood-changer, they naturally share it with the people they bond with emotionally. That's how music spreads from a few followers to many. Look at songs that go viral - it starts with one person feeling that powerful emotion from a song and telling their friends about it because they want to share that emotional experience.

Music Fails Without Emotional Power

But if your song doesn't deliver that feeling - if it's emotionally weak - people won't turn to it for that high, and they definitely won't tell their friends about it. Your music needs to hit with the exact emotional power you're trying to get across. This directly impacts your marketing too - how you present your songs and what you tell people about them should mirror the emotion of the song itself.

How to Do an Emotional Call to Action

The secret I've been building up to - something you'll now spot in every successful artist's promotions - is what I like to call an emotional call to action.

"Listen now," “Out Now,” & “Streaming Now” don't just fail to motivate - they can actually backfire. Think about how many times you've made the foolish decision to stream someone's song and you can't wait for the mood they've put you in to be over. Instead, tell people what emotional change they're in for:

• "Would you rather be dancing in your bedroom"

• "Have you had a good cry lately?"

• "For when you're thinking about that huge fucking weight on your heart"

• "Crank this party rock anthem"

• "Have you ever read The Odyssey? Well, this is that in song form" (okay, maybe that last one isn't my strongest pitch)

When you pitch people on the emotional change they could be having if they listen to your song, you're giving them a much better bargain to try to take a chance on clicking

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Show Don't Tell

Ever notice how your favorite artists use memes, fan reactions, or their own performances to show how the song feels? Sometimes showing hits harder than telling. Look at the best music videos - they demonstrate what you could feel if you put the song on. It's a psychological trick that imprints on listeners, making them feel the song even more strongly because they have a visual of what they could be feeling. The best directors tap into how a song would make you feel and translate that emotion into video form.

Demonstrate the Mood Change

But here's the thing - if you aren't telling people what the mood change will be or showing it to them, how in the hell is anyone going to listen in the first place? When you drill it into your followers' heads through your promotions that your song is what they need - whether it's to turn up before the club or tune down in the bedroom for some mellow vibes - they'll know exactly where to turn. You become their fresh new dose when their latest one is feeling weak. You become the mood-altering drug they want to consume.

How To Message Your Music

So when you promote your music, think about how you'll tell people how it will alter their mood or perception. When I work on this with artists, we reverse engineer it. We identify what we think the fan will probably feel from the song, then brainstorm an emotional call to action that reflects the song's actual emotion and what it embodies. That's what we message to the fans.

Starting a Conversation

There's another side effect to this. Beyond being more motivated to click on - I've seen this across dozens of campaigns - it sparks real engagement with your posts because it starts a conversation. Once you say "This song will make you scream out your car window," you'll be shocked how many people comment saying they did exactly that. People want to bond with you, and these kinds of posts spread through the algorithm because of that engagement.

Tell a Story

The emotional call to action is one of the best opportunities to tell a story. Tell the story of the reaction and emotional change your song brings. Talk about the emotional changes the song has brought you as the songwriter, but mostly encourage your fans to try feeling that way too. I guarantee you'll see a difference in the conversation around your song and your click-through rate.