After shutting down last year, 8tracks has returned with a million users and counting to carve their own space in the competitive music streaming market.

The music platform designed with making taste-makers out of everyone is returning this year after shutting down in late 2019. With fan and regular user of 8tracks, Jeff Treichel, at the wheel the service is back to build a new legacy apart from the big streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

8tracks was created to make music sharing and discovery more accessible by basing their entire platform on users creating their own mixes of at least 8 tracks (now you see it). With moods, tags, and creative titling at the heart of creating shareable music palettes, 8tracks carved a niche spot in blossoming decade for digital music after its launch.

After building up a regular userbase of 8 million monthly active users at it’s peak between 2012-2015 the platform started to lose out to bigger streaming services. After becoming profitable in 2018 through an increased focus on driving paid users, it was sadly too little too late and ex-CEO David Porter shut it down last December.

Now it’s back with Treichel as CEO after he couldn’t stand to see a service he loved disappear. Treichel says: “I didn’t want this service, which had become an integral part of my life and my musical journey, shut down.”

It re-launched for users in the US this year and they are working on bringing it to Canada soon, once they can sort the music licensing. Their long-term plan at the moment is to expand to the UK, Germany, India, and Latin America to re-introduce the music discovery platform loved by so many and grow it with an entirely new uptake of global users.

Now it’s up to 8tracks to not only regain it’s potential success but to compete in an industry that is more competitive than ever. However with their unique approach to making everyone a playlist maker, their niche may be exactly what people are after in a world where playlists slowly replace radio and even studio albums for many.