Sampling

Spot-digging: e-digging on Spotify

The word “spot-digging” has made its way onto Urban Dictionary so it must be a thing, right?

Spotify - the home of spot-digging

We like to do research on topics covered on Sampleface. It ensures everything you read has a factual basis, whether it’s an opinion piece or for reference. “E-digging” is a popular search term that leads to our site. It makes sense given the articles and lists we’ve written (see at the bottom of this post). But we came across something more specific that piqued our interest: spot-digging.

It doesn’t sound like anything in isolation but in the context of e-digging it sounds familiar. We’ve kinda covered it before in our article on Forgotify. Yep, spot-digging is short for Spotify digging. Anyone who partakes e-digging (looking for samples online) will have no doubt searched on Spotify for breaks and loops. Urban Dictionary user dekdekwho added the spot-digging term to the website with the following definition:

Just like crate digging and the processor e-digging, Spot-digging is digging deep into Spotify or any streaming music app and finding the oldest, dopest, or lesser-known artist or song.

Crate Digger friend: Dude, I just found several of these rare Soul records that have some great breakbeats! Wanna hear it?

Tech Friend: That’s cool bro but, I already knew about these songs. I was spot-digging through some girl’s playlist about rare breakbeats and these songs came up. You should try it out sometime.

dekdekwho on Urban Dictionary

I’ve yet to see or hear anyone use the term so allow me to be the first second person to give it life. Spot-digging has become my personal preference when it comes to finding samples online due to Spotify’s easy UI (most of the time) and expansive collection. You can find everything from Bruton library music to Cold Heat Heavy Funk Rarities but the best finds are on user playlists. Many people compile their own playlists with famous samples, obscure samples, or songs they want to sample themselves. The possibilities are almost endless.

What are your thoughts on spot-digging as a term or a concept? Let us know in the comments and peep a list of our e-digging articles below.

E-digging articles

Hi, it's Luke, the editor of Sampleface! Why not subscribe to my Patreon and support the blog?

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