‘It’s a joy to help others find music that moves them’

For Sulinna Ong, head of music at Spotify UK, there’s nothing better than discovering new artists and curating the festive playlists we’re all singing along to this season

Music has always been the great love of my life. I was born in West Yorkshire, but had a nomadic childhood; my dad worked in the hotel industry and we moved from country to country. Wherever I was, I felt like an outsider, so listening to bands such as Nirvana and Sonic Youth was a great comfort to me.

By the time I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to make a life out of music. I played guitar and thought about being a musician. But my parents were right when they said to me: ‘Darling, you’re not that talented.’ They did remind me that I was smart though, so I began to think about what else in the industry I could make a living from.

My family settled in Australia and I studied music at university in Sydney. My first job was a runner for a local concert promoter, but I was ambitious.

So, at 25, I moved back to the UK and arrived in London with £1,000 in the bank and all my friends and family on the other side of the world. It took three years for me to find my feet in the city. It was tough; I was lonely and I cried almost every evening. But it all started falling into place when I eventually got a job at Sony Music. After that, I moved to the entertainment company Live Nation, where I worked on the deals and tours of big artists such as Madonna and The Rolling Stones.

When I was offered the position as head of music at Spotify UK and Ireland in April last year, I couldn’t believe it. It was my dream job, although it’s an enormous one. My role spans curating the perfect playlists to marketing an artist’s new album; from liaising with record labels to programming the Spotify app with the most engaging music content. At Spotify, we’ve quite literally brought music to everyone’s fingertips. Music means a lot to many people, so it’s a joy to help people find music that moves them, or reminds them of when they were a teenager.

It has been interesting to see the change in trends this year as listeners have adjusted to a new reality. When lockdown hit, there was a big dip in the number of people tuning in at the beginning and end of the work day – when they’d normally be commuting. In its place, we saw a huge increase in people listening throughout the day to playlists curated especially for gardening, baking and cleaning.

In my home, I play all types of music, when I’m cooking, in the bath or tidying. In fact, the only time I’m not listening to music is when I’m asleep! My husband, Rodney, is a musician, so we often have a battle of who has the louder stereo.

Christmas is a big time for Spotify. We launch our Season’s Greetings hub – which is an area with all the festive songs you could need – earlier each year. People start searching for Christmas music in August!

All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey is always one of the most popular songs during the season: it has been streamed more than 520m times globally.

We have so many great festive playlists on the platform – Christmas Is Coming, Christmas Crackers and Christmas Number Ones – but my favourite is the album

A Christmas Gift For You, which has all the classics, such as White Christmas, sung by artists including The Ronettes and Darlene Love. It’s a masterpiece. I hope to be listening to that with my family this year. Music brings people together, and that’s what Christmas is all about.

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Music brings people together