Interlude

The Problem

The current music landscape presents notable challenges for new and emerging music artists, particularly when it comes to building a dedicated listener base. Dominant social media and streaming algorithms often prioritize content from well-established artists, making it difficult for newer voices to reach and build audiences in authentic ways that reflect their artistic identity. This lack of visibility and meaningful engagement can limit artists’ career growth, contributing to high turnover and reducing the diversity of musical perspectives in the industry.

At the same time, we found that listeners face their own frustrations with today’s music recommendation systems, citing dissatisfaction with repetitive, generic, and inaccurate recommendations, limited personalization, and a tendency to reinforce mainstream trends, limiting exposure to emerging talent.

So, how might we help emerging artists grow their audience and build authentic connections with listeners through more intentional music discovery?

Our Approach

• Secondary research (literature review, competitive analysis)
• Primary research (emerging artist, listener, stakeholder interviews)
• Design ideation, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing
• Recommendation system development
• Full-stack development (system architecture, database design)

Our Solution

Interlude introduces a novel platform to (1) enhance music discovery by connecting listeners with emerging artists and (2) give artists a path to sustainable growth, both while fostering more authentic engagement through socially-driven, community-powered exploration beyond what’s surfaced by mainstream platforms.

In developing our solution, we prioritized two key areas: (1) music discovery and (2) authentic artist expression that helps listeners connect with artists beyond the music. 

To address common frustrations with algorithmic bias, music discovery on Interlude centers on a non-traditional inverse recommendation system. Rather than reinforcing popularity, our system intentionally elevates lesser-known artists, giving them greater visibility within listener feeds.

Authentic artist expression that helps listeners understand the people behind the music is fostered through comprehensive artist profiles, which allow artists to share the story behind songs and albums, unreleased demos, behind-the-scenes content, video check-ins, interviews, and more – offering listeners a more personal, transparent view into their creative world and strengthening emotional connection and trust.

The final product combines and applies all of our knowledge in product design, UX research, data science, full-stack engineering, and product management with our passion for the landscape of music into a community with emerging artists and listeners at heart.