Welcome to Sleeve's Newsletter: Liner Notes
This is it - the inaugural edition of Liner Notes! You're receiving this newsletter because you're one of our earliest supporters - thank you for being here! Every Tuesday, you'll hear from us with updates, industry trends, random reflections, and recommendations. Dive into information you didn't know you needed about discovering new music, emerging industry trends, and making music meaningful again.
Inside Sleeve
Big news! Sleeve recently went public with an interview in Kulturmonitor, a renowned Danish magazine. I shared our vision to reimagine music streaming with a luxurious, curated experience that compensates musicians fairly and fosters meaningful fan engagement. We've nailed it if we can recreate the magic of reading liner notes without holding a physical record sleeve!
Imagine discovering your next favorite song and knowing that your support helps artists thrive. Isn't that a pretty damn nice feeling? A listener recently told me, "Spotify's recommendations feel superficial, only reproducing the crude form of my listening habits. Discovering new music myself is like opening a treasure chest of pearls." We want to make that treasure chest accessible to everyone. Our mission is clear: to create a space where fans can easily discover new music and support artists directly.
Tuesday Trends
Music streaming is super convenient, as it gives listeners more of what they already love. But is there a downside to all this convenience? On a recent Ezra Klein podcast, Kyle Chayka, author of "Filterworlds - How Algorithms Flattened Culture," nailed it: "The promise of the internet for so long, was that you could find someone really interesting who you wouldn't have found in the traditional ecosystem of, like, Hollywood or newspapers. You could find a person like you personally who would be a voice that you could listen to and follow and develop and grow alongside."
The internet is vast yet feels tiny because we can't process all the content out there. And AI content has yet to take hold. When it does, expect an explosion of content—like a balloon inflating and deflating.
So here's a question: How do you discover new music? Don't be shy. Please write to us with your answer.
Random Reflections
Have you ever struggled to finalize a creative project, feeling something was off but not knowing what? Making great music often takes time! This week, I met with the jazz group Girls in Airports, and it was a powerful reminder of this. Martin (Saxophone) shared, "When we create a new piece, we have a good, slow process. We have a theme that we repeat and structure, and then we play it live to see what happens. The song gets to marinate but has to stay true to the mission."
The band just recorded their 10th album, and anyone who has ever created music knows how challenging it can be to agree on when a song is truly finished. Girls in Airports embrace a simple but profound principle I wanted to share: "We have quite simple principles; collective creativity means you can't base your arguments on anything other than what you think. So we choose not to waste energy on why you don't think it's great, but instead on what is great. The first feeling can be 'something is wrong!' but then you have to transform it into the question - what do I want?"
That's a wrap for this edition of Liner Notes. Tune in every Tuesday for more updates. Thanks for being part of the Sleeve community – we're glad to have you with us!
Stay tuned,
Anna
P.S. Musicians, managers, record labels – we want to hear from you! Your feedback is pure gold. Drop me a line at anna@sleeve.fm if you have anything to share.
