Spotify describes it as:

“The Fresh Finds ecosystem includes the flagship playlist and more than a dozen genre-specific playlists: Latin, indie, experimental, rock, dance, folk, country, pop, hip-hop, jazz, R&B, heavy (metal), música mexicana, faith, and more. A team of more than 30 Spotify editors blends data insights, thorough research, context from pitches through Spotify for Artists, and human intuition to curate these playlists. The flagship playlist represents the very best finds week over week, meticulously crafted for the crate-digging, new-music aficionado open to discovering artists of any genre, from anywhere in the world.”

On top of the genre-specific playlists, the program also includes over 20 country-focused editions to highlight local talent:

Brazil (Brasil), Spain (España), Australia / New Zealand (AU / NZ), United Kingdom / Ireland (UK / IE), Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore / Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Italy, Germany / Switzerland / Austria (DACH), South Korea, Turkey, Arabia, Pakistan, Nordics, Punjabi, Canada, Russia, Poland, Africa etc.

In the age of the buzzword “discoverability”, Spotify itself reports that Fresh Finds drives 3,700% more artist discovery than the platform average. It is clearly a proven editorial tool that helps emerging artists connect with audiences and advance their careers. Personally, I’ve discovered countless artists through these playlists.

(from Spotify - fan study 2024)

I’m a huge fan of these playlists—I’ve found so many incredible artists I’d never have stumbled upon otherwise. And yet, here’s the kicker:

France, the 6ᵗʰ largest music market in the world, doesn’t have one.

Enter Radar: France’s Ineffective Substitute

And then there’s Radar—Spotify France’s so-called solution for emerging artists. Let’s be honest: it’s a curation dead-end disguised as a playlist. While Fresh Finds updates weekly, curated by over 30 editors using both data insights and human intuition, Radar updates every 3 to 6 months, with minimal editorial effort. It’s essentially a quarterly newsletter masquerading as a discovery tool

.The difference is systemic. Fresh Finds leverages Spotify’s algorithm to propel artists to global audiences, turning bedroom demos into viral hits. Radar, by contrast, keeps French artists in a local echo chamber, with limited reach, minimal exposure, and almost no opportunity for international traction. No wonder French talent struggles to “export” themselves—the tool designed to elevate them actively constrains their growth.

Put bluntly: Fresh Finds is a rocketship for artist discovery; Radar is a stalled tricycle on the curb. France, despite being a top-tier music market, is cut off from a program with proven global impact, wasting the potential of its best new voices.

Why This Matters

Fresh Finds has repeatedly helped European, Asian, and South American artists gain global recognition and connect with fans outside their home countries. Imagine what French indie, electronic, and alternative artists could achieve if they had the same infrastructure.

The opportunity cost is enormous: untapped talent, missed exports, and stagnating local scenes. Spotify France has a chance to correct this structural inefficiency, create a weekly curated discovery pipeline, and finally give French artists the global stage they deserve.

My Take

I’m obsessed with discovering new artists through curated playlists, and I can say firsthand: the difference is night and day. Fresh Finds isn’t just a playlist—it’s a launchpad, a pipeline, and a global showcase. France deserves the same.

So here’s the question for readers, industry insiders, and Spotify:

Why are we letting one of the largest music markets on the planet remain invisible to the world?

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Spain has seen a rise of indie artists exploding across charts over the past 3 years — is it a Rosalía effect? Maybe.

You may have already heard of big upcoming names at international festivals: Judeline, Yerai Cortés, Ralphie Choo…

Let’s rewind and trace how we got here:

1970s: Gipsy Rock

I don’t know much about the 70s in Spain, but I do know it was the hippie and bohemian playground of Europe. Especially Ibiza, which was blowing up.

We saw amazing hybrid work — particularly from Las Grecas, who released the genre-defining Gipsy Rock in 1974.

Someone should definitely sample this guitar.

1980s: La Movida — Queer Rebellion & Pop Freedom

Since the '80s, Spain has been the alternative pop culture crossroad of Europe.

La Movida, the famous Madrid art movement, was born in the post-Franco era — a time when youth erupted into a creative explosion. It was queer, punk, artsy, free. LGBTQ+ communities reshaped Spain’s nightlife, tourism, and of course, its music landscape.

There were deep links between music, fashion, film, art, and gender identity — all expressing one shared desire: freedom.

Artists to remember from this era: Alaska, Mecano, Golpes Bajos, Radio Futura…

1990s: Ballads, Flamenco Pop

The 1990s might be my favorite Spanish era ever.

The release of A Contraluz by Luz Casal in 1991 basically shaped the sound of the decade — a hybrid flamenco with powerful songwriting, guitars, and a touch of mainstream 4x4 pop structure.

Think: emotion, guitars, poetry.

2000s: Pop Stars, Halter Tops, Y2K Glitz

The 2000s were a turning point — globalization, internet, early YouTube, MTV2, reggaetón, everything.

American pop culture hit Spain, Latin music echoed in the background, and pop princesses like Chenoa and Edurne defined a whole generation through sound and fashion: rhinestones, butterfly tops, halters, frosty gloss.

Also… Las Ketchup. The three Andalusian sisters who gave us the most viral track of the decade.

2010s: Bad Taste, Desigual, and Meme Culture

When I think of Spain in the 2010s, I immediately think of: Desigual, bad taste, and early Instagram.

Actually, ChatGPT told me there's a word for this: Camp.

Camp is an artistic style that embraces the exaggerated, the tacky, the “so bad it’s good” — on purpose. It’s over-the-top, theatrical, ironic, nostalgic. Think: Lady Gaga’s meat dress. Desigual’s clashing patterns. Almodóvar’s absurd, dramatic, emotional chaos.

In this era, we saw a rise of cool-cringe projects: autotuned, flashy, tacky, self-aware — perfectly timed with meme culture, Tumblr humor, and the early internet.

Cringe = cool. (don’t forget that.)

Let’s take a second to look at the visuals from this time… so iconic.

2020s: The Era of New Coolness

Now we’re in the new wave. Artists like Rosalía, Bad Gyal, and C. Tangana are pushing sonic boundaries.

The genre fusion is wild: reggaetón, bachata, flamenco, R&B, trap, electronica… all remixed. There’s a return to regional pride too — Andalusian identity, Catalan lyrics, flamenco techniques, etc.

And they’re not just local stars anymore. They’re international.
Global collabs. Vogue covers. Coachella. It’s Spain’s moment.

2025: MADRID baby

Okay. Let’s dive into what has fully consumed my brain for the past four years: the Indie-Madrid scene, and more specifically, the sprawling, glitchy, emotionally unstable constellation orbiting around Rusia-idk.

Where to start, I was following early works of Rusowsky and Ralphie Choo on Soundcloud in 2020 with Lofi work “Disorder Waves”. and then fell in repeat with “No te dejas ver” and then a hardcore fan with “mwah :3” (it was my top 1 Spotify track for 2 years lol) I think I played it 3092093 times and shared to my friends countless times.

Of course I wanted to sign them, but it was too late, they were already pop stars. So in 2022 I guess I wanted more from them so I went to see all their releases, including artists TRISTAN!, Teo Planell, Barry B, DRUMMIE, mori…

Honestly? Everything about it makes sense when you look at them. From the very beginning, they weren’t just making music — they were building a language, a strange and beautiful emotional code that perfectly captured the digital-native experience of being young, lost, in love, and extremely online.

Take the experimentation: Ralphie mixing flamenco palmas with auto-tuned ballads and string samples like he's scoring a dream sequence; Rusowsky whisper-singing over beats that feel like they were made in a sleep-deprived haze at 3 a.m. They weren’t following a formula — they were destroying the blueprint and making something new from the debris.

The rise of bedroom pop gave them the space to exist outside traditional structures. Their earliest tracks felt intimate and unpolished, in the best way — like voice notes from someone too shy to text back but who needed to share something important. There’s a tenderness in the production, but also bold choices: offbeat percussion, lo-fi textures, warped samples, and melodies that refuse to resolve cleanly. They made emotional chaos sound calm.

Then there’s the release strategy — or the intentional lack of one. Dropping standalone singles, SoundCloud demos, surprise features. No PR rollout, just songs appearing in the ether, letting the algorithm do the work. This soft chaos created a mythos around them — not quite underground, not quite mainstream. You had to be paying attention.

And the visuals? Pure brainrot brilliance. Grainy filters, surreal animation, distorted camera angles, anime edits, awkward dancing in someone’s living room — it wasn’t low-budget, it was high-concept anti-aesthetic. A perfectly curated mess that felt truer to Gen Z reality than any glossy label-backed clip ever could.

Their themes hit hard too: love in the DMs, heartbreak at 2% battery, ego wrapped in irony, digital decay as a moodboard. Songs like "No te dejas ver" or "Lamentable" feel like sonic journal entries from someone who's both deeply sensitive and also kinda laughing at themselves. And the autotune — they use it the way painters use color, not to hide imperfection but to add emotion, exaggeration, melancholy, distance. It makes the voice sound human and alien at the same time. It’s not a fix, it’s a filter for feelings.

And that’s the point: they knew. They knew how to make music that doesn’t just sound good but feels like now. They weren’t chasing trends or mimicking what worked before — they were ahead of it. They understood, instinctively, the algorithm of feeling: how to translate mental noise into melody, how to make oversharing feel poetic, how to let a broken beat carry a fragile truth.

I got obsessed. So here’s more:

On the pop side:
Judeline (saw her 3 times — I have a problem), Amaia, Azuleja, Jimena Amarillo, Amore, Vatocholo

On the rap / trap / hip-hop side:
Yung Beef (my ultimate crush), ABHIR, Juicy Bae, Ben Yart, Albany

On the electronic side:
Nusar3000 (saw him DJ twice), Sangrr, Dinamarca, SIMONA, Hadren, Chicarica

On the soft / indie side:
Roy Borland, Claudio Montana, Restinga, Pablo Amores, Sen Senra, Paco Moreno, Shego, Alaï, Blu Samu

The Playlist

You know the sound.
10 hours. 242 tracks. Updated every Friday.

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Anne-flore

Besos,

In 2022, the Grammys quietly introduced a new category: Best Spoken Word Poetry Album. At first glance, it looked like a recognition of slam poetry or audiobook narration. But something deeper was unfolding. As I saw this term pop up more frequently in media circles and playlists, I realized: we're witnessing the slow emergence of a new genre, one that I call ambient monologue.

In 2025, spoken word — the real, raw kind — is shifting toward something new: monologue over atmosphere. A fusion of introspection and sonic detachment. That’s ambient monologue.

What Is Ambient Monologue, Really?

Ambient monologue isn’t officially recognized (yet), but it’s undeniably taking form as a microgenre:

• Narrative monologue: poems, letters, emotional reflections

• Ambient or deconstructed production: slow, sparse, dreamlike

• Emotional detachment: sometimes robotic, sometimes whispery — always intimate

It feels like overhearing someone’s internal dialogue, or finding a voice memo never meant to be played.

Here is one of my favorite example to illustrate

This Isn’t Spoken Word

Spoken word, as a form, is usually built around performance — it’s meant to be heard in a room, in front of a crowd. It’s structured. Often rhythmic, sometimes loud. Slam is its own thing entirely.

But ambient monologue doesn’t ask for attention in the same way. It often feels like something overheard or accidentally captured. A confession in the margins. It’s closer to a field recording of emotion than a traditional song or poem.

You don’t listen to it for payoff. You listen because something about it mirrors how your brain sounds when it’s late and you’re tired and trying to remember how to feel something real.

My analysis of the genre

Ambient monologue is not yet a formal genre, but its patterns are emerging. Artists speak rather than sing, usually in a tone that suggests exhaustion rather than urgency. The voice may be real, or it may be AI-generated, distorted, flattened. The effect is not dramatic. It is intimate. Lo-fi production techniques amplify this intimacy. Whether it’s the fuzz of a cheap mic or the uncanny smoothness of synthetic speech, the audio is raw, sometimes weird. The result feels closer to a diary entry than a performance.

This isn't a genre built for the stage. It’s for the bedroom, the phone screen, the earbuds late at night. It's therapy set to ambient textures, a whispered confessional accompanied by sonic haze. The themes are deeply human: parental grief, emotional disconnection, queer longing, climate anxiety, identity dissolution… And yet, the delivery is often so emotionally flat that it feels less like catharsis and more like dissociation. But that’s the point — ambient monologue reflects not how we should feel, but how we often do feel in the aftermath of everything: numb, distant, floating.

1. Narration Over Performance

It’s not about vocal acrobatics. It’s about presence. The narrator isn’t trying to impress you — they’re just there. You’re eavesdropping on their reality.

2. Lo-fi Honesty

Production is minimal, often homemade. Lo-fi isn’t a flaw — it’s a feature. The imperfection feels closer to truth. Sometimes, AI voices or robotic text-to-speech give it a surreal, disembodied tone.

Beautiful writing done by my friend Clarisse - k4eye

3. Anti-pop Aesthetic

In a world of curated perfection, ambient monologue rejects the spotlight. It offers low energy, low polish, high sincerity. The decline of the pop star mirrors the rise of the producer-poet.

4. Emotional Themes

• Grief, breakups, parental loss

• Digital disconnection

• Identity and existential angst

• Emotional numbness

It’s often confessional, sometimes therapeutic — like journaling to music.

5. Non-linear Composition

The vocals and instrumentals don’t chase each other. They coexist, not cohere. Sometimes, the music plays like a background thought — or the voice drifts over silence.

6. Queer & Post-gender Expression

Voices often defy gender, sometimes deliberately artificial. It’s not about who’s speaking, but what’s being said — and how honestly.

Cultural Resonance: Why Now?

Ambient monologue doesn’t just reshape music; it also reflects wider cultural and technological shifts. In a post-pandemic world attuned to mental health and emotional literacy, the genre offers a form of low-stakes, high-sincerity self-expression. It thrives in spaces that value presence over performance — especially among queer, neurodivergent, and Gen Z communities. Its accessibility is also crucial: you don’t need to sing, just to speak. You don’t need a studio, just a phone.

In terms of industry impact, ambient monologue is already reshaping how we think about the role of the voice in music. It fits perfectly into Spotify playlists like "Griefcore," "Late Night Processing," or "Sad Lo-Fi Beats." It merges music with therapy, mood with memory. And it invites producers to become poets — to let voice and sound exist together, even if they weren’t designed to match.

Mental Health & Post-Pandemic Processing

This genre sounds like a therapy session you accidentally recorded. It resonates with Gen Z, neurodivergent communities, and those recovering from collective grief.

Tech-Driven Intimacy

AI voices and text-to-speech blur the line between human and machine. That eeriness? It’s part of the emotional texture.

TikTok Trained Us for This

Shortform storytelling, sad voiceovers, and overshare culture laid the groundwork. We crave emotional payloads, not playlists.

Collapse of Irony

After years of meme nihilism, ambient monologue whispers: “It did matter. You just forgot how to feel it.”

Brainrot Aesthetic vs. Ambient Monologue

1. Post-Internet Emotion

We are overwhelmed by data, hyper-self-aware, and emotionally fried. Both aesthetics reflect an urge to externalize interior chaos in a digestible form.

• Brainrot = absurd memes, overstimulated content

• Ambient monologue = stillness, but with the same emotional core

2. Disassociation as Normal

Derealization, numbness, and detachment are becoming artistic modes — not just symptoms. Whether you're watching “raccoon eating drywall” or hearing an AI say, “You were never really there but I still miss you,” the tone is the same.

3. The Death of Traditional “Cool”

Both reject polished, high-effort art:

• Brainrot = low-effort, low-context media

• Ambient monologue = low-energy, low-performance voicework

What used to be dismissed as “cringe” or “lazy” is now seen as real, raw, and emotionally intelligent.

Jan Jelinek — Social Engineering: scam emails turned into sound art

Key Artists and Works

• Headache — “The head hurts but the heart knows the truth”

• BY.ALEXANDER — Dear Dad: AI flatness meets gut-punch grief

• Vegyn — Emotional disarray meets ambient glitch

• JJJJJerome Ellis — Speech as liberation; stutter becomes score.

• Persian Empire — 3 Options: Dissociation in high-definition compression.

listen to my playlist of all the ambient monologue that I found.

Ambient monologue isn’t just a genre — it’s a mood, a response, a new way of being heard.

I’d like to feature Russel Davies who was the first to talk about in 2009 through his blog article “ambient speech”. He added a pic of his pasta and I felt the need to pay tribute to it 16 years later.

I've always liked the idea of 'Ambient Speech', the spoken word equivalent of ambient music.

It's the background sound of a cafe or a bus. A conversational, human noise that lets you know you're alive and not alone but doesn't intrude too much.

A Voice for the Unvoiced

Ambient monologue might never headline Coachella — but it doesn’t need to. It speaks where silence usually sits. It thrives in bedrooms, DMs, voice notes, and 2AM playlists. It’s not trying to be heard by everyone — just by someone who needs it.

Sometimes, we don’t need music to dance to.

We need music to feel seen by.

Playlist

Let that voice play.
Let the room go quiet.
Let the monologue begin.

Santa was the main guest. The clip showed her receiving a new platinum disc for 300,000,000 streams of her debut album — Santa, crowned the new queen of French pop. First female artist in France. Everyone was smiling: the artist herself, the TV show team, the guests, the audience.

Meanwhile, I sat there, eyes on my phone, taken aback — like waking up from a fever dream. Who tf is she? Am I the only one who’s never heard of her? Have I missed an entire side of the internet? Have I been living in an alternative niche?

I can be an arrogant jerk sometimes… so I thought, let me check if there’s any chance I’ve come across her before and just ignored it. So I listened to her whole album, watched her interviews, media features, playlists, fan content, concert clips... Nothing rang a bell.

The queen is unknown to me — and I’m pretty sure to a small group of others like me as well.

So the real question is: how can you sell 2,000,000 albums in France, be the number one female artist in the country, without being “famous-famous”?

I’m probably getting old (I just turned 27 lol), but new artists are emerging every day, breaking records — and no one will remember their names? The problem isn’t her. It’s not even her music (I mean, it’s not my cup of tea, but it can’t be that bad). So I know the problem must be me.

For so many years, I’ve been isolated in my niche, holed up with my smug music peers, so much so that we’ve lost touch with the mainstream world. Are we alone? Is communication still possible? Are we two parallel worlds that won’t cross again for decades?

But actually, I like my vain, alternative niche. I like discovering artists with under 1k monthly listeners. I like following independent journalists and curators here on Substack. I like going to indie concerts, ordering a ginger beer, and casting a disdainful look about it. I like our small community. I feel immense joy being on a treasure hunt.

Anne-flore

The Playlist

For the past 3 years (I guess), I share every Friday on my IG (Link here 👉🏻 ) my selection of new releases of the week. I may have missed some Fridays, especially during slow periods like July/August or around Christmas. But it has been my go-to habit when waking up to my decaffeinated espresso on Friday mornings. I even like to stay up til 00:00 to check the new releases (crazy gal ik)

First, how do I keep up ?

8:00 Well, of course, finding new releases isn’t the toughest job. It’s pretty easy when the “evil platform” feeds you with new f****ing releases every day, rather than promoting back catalog. So, as expected, I check New Music Fridays to have an overall and also because I don’t listen to a lot of mainstream Pop / Hip-Hop / Rap so I still want to be aware in case a teenager corner me talking about the new album of this *not* A-MA-ZING artist. New Music Friday US, UK, Spain and France is my base. I’d like to check out NL for edginess and sometimes specific countries for local genres.

• 8:15 Secondly, as expected, I check my 🔔 notification alert. I’m not gonna lie, I follow a LOT of artists, if I’m a real fan I'd even add an event on my phone agenda lol. That’s mostly how I found my fav releases, from artists I already know about at least.

• 8:30 I like to check my release radar if there’s any remix, featuring or alt version of an artist I know and maybe to discover an expansion of their work (if they’re not tagged as a primary artist and then in the 🔔 section).

• 9:00 I look at other editorial playlists from the platform that I know are updated every Friday like All New Indie, some Fresh Finds and some other programs.

• 9:15 I save all of those new tracks in my folder and listen to them, sometimes I might not listen to the whole album but will give a try to 2/3 tracks to have kind of an early overview.

• 9:30 I make the selection (between 7 and 10 most of the time).

• 10:00 Stories are posted !!

• 14:00 Some indie or media playlists curators update their lists on D-Day which is super satisfying and I can listen to new records that I would have not heard or missed.

Secondly, how do I curate my NMF ?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, it’s mostly about artists I already have connection with. I have been following their work for a while. My main genre is super hybrid. LOL it kinda means I don’t have a genre but there’s a lot of spanish production influences, indie, alt-rnb, ambient or experimental electronic work…

I like to share emergent artists mostly or small labels. It just gives support and space for our community to my 800 IG followers (lol).

Of course, I’m still basic - I would listen to the new rihanna album and will share it - who knows ? test me Riri

An example of what I shared last friday :

• 🩷 Amore - I Gotta Feeling

• 🐴 Men I Trust - Come Back Down

• 💋 Jimena Amarillo - En La Calle Ave Maria

• 🦄 Dabelha - Mirrors

• 🎩 Puma Blue - widows peak

• 🐚 Erika de Casier - Delusional

• 🔄 Unamo - Fou Damné (feat. Opera Sierra)

• 🧼 bb, Jeshi, Maverick Sabre - Need To Know

So wait ? I only listen & curate new releases ? Loser

Hmm, that’s the thing. We’re in this duality where I’m supposed to promote new releases and back catalog at the same time. The longer you have known an artist, the earlier you listened to their work, the harcore-st fan you are. But I mean, I like to discover new work, new genres, new artist and to see what the future sound might shape.

So that’s why I have my main playlist AF Random Rotation 🎀 - which is kind of an organized version of my liked tracks - that heavily promotes both, early and late, young and old.

I update it pretty regularly depending on what I’ve been REALLY listening. So sometimes you might find a lot of reggaeton or ambient, it just means I’m going through a phase.

Reach out.

I might need a hug or a drink.

Anne-flore,

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While scrolling through albums and digging for new tracks to add, I noticed a pattern. And no, this wasn’t my first rodeo with this realization (symbolism and music live rent-free in my head 24/7), but now it was glaring. I couldn't unsee it. Folks, we’re deep in the Equine Indie Era.

It really hit me when I added tracks from Men I Trust’s recent double release: “Equus Asinus” & “Equus Caballus”.

So I did what any normal person descending into symbolic obsession would do—I asked ChatGPT. Maybe it’s a cry for help, or maybe it’s me trying to romanticize my life. Either way, it helped. Thanks, Chat.

Through song titles, artists name, visual artworks, the Horse is one of the most symbolic animal featured in the music landscape.(Reminder that I should do the same with birds.)

This horse thing isn’t just some random aesthetic quirk. There’s actually a whole saddlebag (lol) of reasons it makes sense. This recurring motif isn’t random—it ties into several themes that resonate with indie music:

1. Freedom and Wildness:

   Horses = independence, nature, the untamed. Sound familiar? That’s pretty much the vibe of indie music. Whether it’s emotional repression, societal expectations, or just the Top 40 chart, indie artists are often trying to break free—and what better symbol than a wild horse?

   Wild Horse from Rolling Stones evokes this theme : Marianne Faithfull has revealed that “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away “were the first words she uttered to Mick Jagger in the hospital when she came out of a six-day coma caused by an overdose of sleeping pills in the summer of 1969.

2. Nostalgia and Americana: Especially in U.S. indie/folk, the horse is shorthand for the dusty road trip, faded denim, and lonesome heartland vibes. Old Westerns, tumbleweeds, and lo-fi acoustics go hand in hand. Just picture a songwriter riding across the plains with a guitar and zero cell signal. Horses are the OG muses—romantic companions.

   Bonus theory: We clown teenage girls for their horse obsessions, but maybe the real origin of horse-human emotional dependency is cowboy poetry.

   

3. Mysticism and Dream Symbolism: In mythology and dream symbolism, horses represent transformation, inner power, and the unconscious. Which fits perfectly with the dreamy, introspective tone of so much indie music.

   Take Wifiskeleton’s “Pony”—equal parts childlike and surreal, with artwork that feels like a crayon-drawn lucid dream.

4. Romantic or Melancholic Loneliness: A lone horse in a wide-open field? It screams melancholy. Indie music loves this sense of aching isolation, and horses are the perfect metaphor—majestic, but distant.

   Ladylike’s Horse’s Mouth repeats “I don’t need anyone” like a mantra. It’s about work ethic on the surface, but also low-key about being untouchable and alone.

5. Beauty & Elegance: There’s a sensuality to horses—their grace, strength, poise—that translates beautifully into indie pop and ambient aesthetics.
   Think: hazy album covers, soft lighting, white ponies in slow motion.

   Deftones’ White Pony gets it. The album’s title is layered—beauty, danger, maybe even a sex dream. (Also, street slang for cocaine, but let’s not ruin the mood.)

6. Strenght & war : From Troy to medieval knights, horses were ride-or-die in battle. Some indie music leans into that epic, historical vibe.
   Patti Smith’s Horses is a perfect example—she said the title symbolized the band pulling themselves together after personal losses. "We had to pull the reins on ourselves… Now we’re letting the horses loose again."

   Plus, don’t forget all the “stallions” in artist names—evoking leadership, dominance, and raw power.

7. Mythology and horse variations: Fantasy variants like unicorns, winged horses (Pegasus), or nightmares offer metaphorical flexibility:

   • Unicorns represent innocence, queerness, or idealized love (used in synthpop or queer indie scenes).

   • Pegasus symbolizes poetic inspiration and divine creativity—perfect for surrealist lyricism or cosmic dream pop.

   • Dark horses or nightmares can evoke buried trauma, desire, or chaos—themes found in gothic folk, darkwave, or psych-folk.

     To be more specific about that last point : the word “nightmare” actually has a direct etymological and symbolic link to horses. The term nightmare originally referred to a mythical creature, not just a bad dream. While the word “mare” in that sense is unrelated to the modern word for a female horse, the two ideas overlapped symbolically because:

     • Horses have long been associated with the unconscious, mystery, and mythological travel between worlds

     • The image of being "ridden" in dreams by something untamed—like a horse or spirit—carried both sexual and psychological undertones.

     In indie or darkwave music/art, the nightmare-horse link resurfaces in themes like:

     • Uncontrolled desire or emotional weight (being “ridden” by feelings).

     • Dream logic and haunting memory (e.g., the album Horse Rotorvator by Coil).

     • Romantic dread or surreal fear, often visualized as shadowy horses.

     So, when artists use black horses, wild mares, or dreamlike horse imagery, they may be tapping into these deep-rooted symbolic associations—not just with freedom or power, but also with psychological darkness, desire, and the haunting unknown.

I’ll be real with you: horses freak me out. They’re majestic, sure, but also huge and unpredictable. Still, I can't stop noticing them in the music I love.

So here’s a playlist I made—a whole corral of equine-themed indie tracks from my library. Whether you’re chasing freedom or just vibing with melancholic ponies, there’s a track in here for you.

👉 Find it here.
(Also, remind me to make the bird version next.)

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I’m French—proud to come from the country with the best baguettes but, unfortunately, one of the least diverse music scenes. In France, people mainly listen to two things: French rap and French variety (local pop). I was surprised by my Uber driver’s answer and naively thought they were an exception—an isolated case of a hardcore music discovery fan, which would explain their extensive genre knowledge.

I ended up falling in love in Mexico—and with Mexico itself—so I stayed much longer than planned. During my time there, I realized that my Uber driver was not an exception. Most Mexicans listen to at least eight different genres in their daily lives, from local to international and even niche music spheres. This is a stark contrast to France, a supposedly open-minded Western country, where music consumption is largely limited to just two genres.

So, what can we learn from Mexico’s music consumption habits?

Mexicans Listen to More Music Than the Global Average

It’s well known that music plays a huge role in Latino culture and daily life. Music is everywhere—in buses, pharmacies, restaurants, and schools. It feels like Mexico is never silent, but that’s part of its charm! One major reason for this high music consumption is their long daily commutes. Many Mexicans listen to music on their phones or the radio while traveling to work. Additionally, the low cost of digital streaming services has made 24/7 access to music incredibly easy.

According to the IFPI, people in Mexico listen to at least 26 hours of music per week, far surpassing the global average of 18 hours.

Mexicans Listen to a Wide Variety of Genres

As I mentioned earlier, what surprised me most was the diversity of music people in Mexico consume. From Banda, Norteño, Corridos, Mariachi, and Ranchera to U.S. hip-hop, K-pop, German electronic, UK folk, reggaeton, Baile Funk, and Afrobeat—the range is astonishing. This is largely due to Mexico’s close cultural connection with the U.S. without the downside of being musically self-centered like the U.S. itself.

With the rise of YouTube in the early 2000s and the expansion of streaming services, Mexicans became some of the first digital-era music explorers. They were pioneers in music forums and early viral music trends. Alongside their love for upbeat, pop-fueled Latin music, another significant movement has been the emo-sad wave—ranging from punk rock to indie folk—which has been going strong for the past 15 years. The average Mexican listens to far more genres than the average American or European.

Mexicans Listen Equally to Local and International Music

Another aspect that surprised me was how much non-Spanish music Mexicans consume compared to other Latin-language countries like Italy or France. As I mentioned earlier, sharing the largest border with the U.S. plays a major role in this, making American cultural influence extremely strong in Mexico. Beyond music, the U.S. has a major impact on Mexico’s entire entertainment industry—movies, TV shows, books, and media programs. Much of this content is in English, even though most Mexicans don’t speak the language fluently.

Shared TV channels, for example, have led to widespread exposure to English-language programs, which in turn feature U.S. artists more prominently than local talent. However, Mexicans are naturally curious and highly respectful of other cultures. For instance, the French electronic music movement, French Touch, was hugely popular in Mexico in the early 2000s and 2010s, with artists like Daft Punk, Justice, and Cassius gaining massive followings—largely thanks to forums and YouTube.

Mexicans Are the Most Loyal Fans

While researching my thesis in 2020, I discovered a key fact: in Mexico, entertainment is the highest household expense—ranking above housing, food, transportation, healthcare, education, and household goods. I’m not a sociologist, so I can’t provide a complete explanation, but it largely stems from a cultural tendency to prioritize entertainment as a shared social experience.

The entertainment industry is well aware of this and prices its services accordingly—not too cheap, but still accessible, as they are seen as essential goods. In most Mexican households, you’ll find premium subscriptions to digital music and entertainment platforms such as Amazon Prime, Spotify, Netflix, YouTube Music, Disney+, Disney Channel, and MTV.

Because of this, Mexicans spend significant amounts of money on entertainment—especially music. They are considered the most loyal fans, often being the biggest buyers of artist merchandise and concert tickets, in addition to consuming music in high volumes. In fact, Mexico is one of the most profitable markets for international artists. Many performers make their highest earnings and booking fees there due to overwhelming demand. Over the past five years, we’ve seen a massive increase in ticket prices for major national festivals—Tecate Pal Norte, Corona Capital, Axe Ceremonia, and Vive Latino—reaching prices similar to Coachella ($600 USD). Promoters know that Mexican fans will pay big money to see their favorite artists.

Mexicans Support Niche and Emerging Artists

A common misconception is that Mexicans mainly listen to mainstream music. While it’s true that pop, rock, rap, and reggaeton dominate, what makes the Mexican music scene truly exciting is the number of thriving niche communities. Thanks to Mexico’s 130-million-strong population, even a 0.001% interest in a niche genre results in a 130,000-person audience—a sustainable market for any artist.

Mexicans have been at the forefront of discovering and supporting emerging artists and genre-blending movements in the digital era. They help niche scenes grow by consuming their content in large volumes. In fact, many independent music labels and artists owe their survival to Mexican fans. A great example? The continued success of French electronic label Ed Banger Records, whose artists, like Justice and Breakbot, maintain a dedicated following in Mexico.

Conclusion

Living in Mexico completely changed my perspective on music consumption. The country’s deep love for music, genre diversity, loyalty to artists, and openness to new sounds create a vibrant and unique musical ecosystem. Whether through high streaming hours, diverse tastes, or unwavering fan dedication, Mexico proves that music is not just entertainment—it’s a fundamental part of life.

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