Spotify Launches Fresh Finds Forward, a New Support Program for Independent Artists

Spotify has introduced Fresh Finds Forward, a new initiative designed to give independent artists a structured path to build on the momentum of an early playlist placement. The program was unveiled on September 17 and will take in roughly 10,000 emerging, independent artists each year, offering each a 12-month package of resources, mentorship, and career-building tools.

The program is built on top of Spotify’s long-running Fresh Finds playlist series, which has spent more than a decade surfacing independent, unsigned, and early-career talent across genres and markets worldwide. For more than a decade, these playlists have helped more than 80,000 artists across 127 countries break through and find new listeners at a critical point in their careers. Artists who first gained visibility through Fresh Finds include Laufey, Clairo, Role Model, Ethel Cain, Ella Langley, Megan Moroney, Royel Otis, and Omar Apollo, and Fresh Finds alumni have earned Grammy Best New Artist nominations for five consecutive years, including Sombr, Doechii, Japanese Breakfast, Ice Spice, and Wet Leg.

Since 2024, the playlists have driven more than 128 million new artist discoveries, with nearly 70% of streams representing a listener’s first exposure to an artist, and more than half of Fresh Finds artists go on to land placement on other editorial playlists such as New Music Friday or RapCaviar.

Eligibility is retroactive: artists added to an eligible Fresh Finds playlist from January 1, 2026 onward will be invited to join Fresh Finds Forward through Spotify for Artists, with the 12-month benefit window beginning once an artist is formally onboarded. Membership is opt-in and limited to admin users on an artist’s team.

Reported benefits include free studio time in the US, premium subscriptions to music production software, and six months of free therapy, alongside early access to select Spotify tools, free studio sessions at facilities including Electric Lady Studios in New York, The Lighthouse at Ocean Way Nashville, and Spotify Studios in LA, and the future opportunity to apply for tour or music-video partnerships with Spotify for a limited number of US-based artists. Participants also receive a Fresh Finds badge on their Spotify artist profile, and the company is running both in-person and virtual events connecting participants with Spotify staff and Fresh Finds alumni.

Joe Hadley, Spotify’s VP of Global Music Content and Partnerships, said the company had spent years listening to what independent artists actually need, and that those conversations shaped the program. He added that Fresh Finds Forward is meant to build “a support system” around the discovery moment, so artists come away with more than just a playlist credit.

The scale of the rollout reflects how large the Fresh Finds pipeline has become: Spotify noted last year that more than 18,000 artists from 127 countries were featured on Fresh Finds playlists in 2024 alone — already well above the roughly 10,000 per year the new program is designed to support.