Week 6 · Now Drafting
The music industry's weekly draft of new music.
Every Friday, A&R, marketers, journalists and supervisors pick their ten tracks from Spotify's New Music Friday. By Thursday afternoon, the leaderboard tells us who has the sharpest ears in the industry.
Friday: The Draft
Every Friday at midnight Eastern, Spotify refreshes New Music Friday with one hundred new tracks. New Music Friday Fantasy League opens its draft window the same minute. You have until Saturday at midnight to pick your ten.
Saturday to Thursday: The Score
From Saturday onwards, your team plays. Each track accumulates streams in the wild. By Monday, we publish a midweek buzz report. By Thursday at 4pm Eastern, scoring closes.
Thursday: The Reckoning
Thursday evening: leaderboard published, weekly recap newsletter fires, season standings update. The next Friday at midnight, the cycle begins again.
Built for people whose job is finding the next thing.
A&R reps cataloguing what their rivals signed last week. Label marketing teams testing instincts against the room. Music supervisors hunting for the cue that lands the placement. Journalists who file the trend pieces. Pluggers, sync agents, and anyone whose professional credibility rests on having taste, and who would rather prove it than claim it.
Each track on Spotify shows its play count, the cumulative number of times it has been streamed since release. New Music Friday Fantasy League records the play count of every track in your team on Thursday at 4pm Eastern, the moment scoring closes. Your weekly score is simply the sum of those play counts across your ten picks. The drafter with the highest total wins the week. No deltas, no formulas, no bonuses. Just real numbers, recorded by hand each week, ranked publicly.
Placeholder quotes — to be replaced post-launch
«Required reading for anyone in A&R.»
«The most fun I've had with a spreadsheet in years.»
«It's like fantasy football for people who hate football.»