Laurelanne PR+MGMT, the independent music editorial and artist services platform, today launched Song of Summer, a fan-powered playlist contest that turns a live Spotify playlist into a real-time competitive leaderboard. The track with the most fan votes sits at the top. The one that holds the top spot when summer ends wins the title and the coverage that comes with it.
Any independent artist can submit a track released between March 20 and September 22, 2026, free of charge. Once approved and added to the contest, the track appears on the Song of Summer playlist on Spotify alongside every other competing entry. Fans can listen, vote, and come back to vote again every 24 hours, for as many tracks as they want. Each vote is a direct signal: the playlist reorders itself automatically based on the current standings.
“Independent artists have always deserved a real platform to compete on, not a playlist that someone curates behind closed doors and never updates,” says Laurelanne Davis, CEO of Laurelanne, LLC. “Song of Summer puts that power where it belongs: in the hands of the people who actually love the music.”
The mechanic is simple by design. Artists have a real, ongoing reason to mobilize their fan bases throughout the summer rather than for a single promotional push. Fans have a real reason to return daily. And the Spotify playlist gives everyone a visible, constantly evolving scoreboard to rally around.
“Fans want to feel like their support did something,” she adds. “When a fan votes for a track and watches it climb the playlist the next day, real engagement follows for the fan and the artist both.”
The contest resets weekly, meaning this week’s top vote-getter leads this week’s playlist, keeping the competition fresh and giving newer submissions a genuine shot at the top. Votes accumulate across the full summer, and the final playlist order at the close of the contest on September 22 will be determined by total votes earned over all three months.
Submissions are not limited to the artists themselves. Fans can nominate tracks they believe deserve to be heard, making this a discovery contest as much as a competition. All submissions are reviewed by the laurelanne.media editorial team before going live, ensuring the playlist stays focused and curated.
The artist whose track finishes summer at number one will receive editorial coverage and social promotion across laurelanne.media’s platforms, a concrete deliverable for a contest that costs nothing to enter and builds real audience engagement along the way.
“The music industry has spent decades telling independent artists they need a label to get heard. We built Song of Summer to prove that wrong,” according to Laurelanne. “If your fans show up, you can win this. It’s that simple.”
