SoundCloud has launched The Upload, a weekly music discovery playlist that pairs selected tracks with spoken context from the platform’s curation team. The company says the format is designed to “combat algorithmic fatigue” and “put human curation back into music discovery.”
Rather than a traditional radio show, The Upload is being promoted as a social video experience, with team members recording sub-60-second voice notes in everyday settings. The first episode features tracks from Lightleak, Maribou State, and Mary Droppinz.
SoundCloud has long been a hub where emerging artists upload music for feedback and discovery, often by tastemaker DJs. The Upload formalizes that human-led curation into a hosted playlist, offering an alternative to context-free algorithmic playlists on other digital service providers (DSPs).
