Sean Parker Goes On Spotify Benders to Curate His "Hipster" Playlist
Sean Parker has a rocky relationship with the press unless (1) there is no word count or (2) it's about a subject he wants to discuss. A new article by Steven Bertoni, who covers the billionaire beat for Forbes, falls into the second category—judging by a sponsored post on Facebook where Parker paid to surface a link to Forbes.
The article is about why Parker, a Spotify board member and Spotify investor through Founders Fund, is obsessed with his own Spotify playlist, "ironically" named Hipster International. Previous articles shared by Parker about his very own playlist were not sponsored, so this one must be special. And how!
In addition to giving Parker credit for the popularity of international teen sensation Lorde, Bertoni lets Parker go deep:
I had called Parker recently for a quick chat about pop-star Lorde–Parker had added her song Royals to his 800,000 plus follower playlist, helping spark her stardom in the States. Like all great Parker conversations, he dove deeply.
Forbes also permits Parker to take his deejaying very, very seriously:
Sean Parker takes his Spotify playlist, Hipster International, very seriously. How serious? "Sometimes I'll spend six hours consecutively combing through literally thousands of songs," Parker tells me. "I probably listen to 500 songs for every song I feature." [...]
Parker attacks the hobby with the unabashed geekiness of a tech billionaire. "There's a formula for how you identify songs and I'm getting faster and faster going through that process," Parker says, adding that record labels are now sending him pre-released music. "I get thousands of messages with songs in them. I go through all those bands… I listen at various s points in the songs. I think if bands saw the process first hand they'd be somewhat horrified by it because it's so fast. The only way you can get through so much music so quickly is to have a process."
Bonus points in ego-stroking: Forbes gets through the whole post without ever once mentioning Airtime.
To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.