How Cassidy Brooke’s Passion for Music Led to Surprise Streaming Success

Cassidy Brooke pictured performing at the Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, Arizona.

When Cassidy Brooke released her newest song “Stardust” onto streaming services in April 2024, she felt she had created music she was proud of and hoped to gain a little bit of attention from supportive friends and family. Little did she know that less than three weeks later at ASU’s graduation ceremony, she would check her Spotify profile to show someone next to her in the audience and discover that her music had shot up from 40 monthly listeners to more than 7,000 seemingly overnight. 

“I basically went into shock,” said Cassidy. “I was like, that’s not real. That has to be a glitch. So I got home, I went on my computer and sure enough I was at 7,000 monthly listeners. I had a couple thousand streams on the song; I guess more than a couple thousand honestly.” 

This wasn’t Brooke’s first time releasing music onto streaming services, but it was her first brush with attention from listeners that she didn’t expect. After some investigation, she found that Spotify put “Stardust” on an algorithmic playlist that spotlighted the track to new listeners without the use of social media promotion. “It kept building and building and the peak was like 30,000 monthly listeners for a few months,” she said. “It’s freaking insane.”

It has been a long journey for Brooke to get to this point. Growing up in the Midwest suburbs in Ames, Iowa, she began her musical experiences attending shows at Iowa State University where her parents worked. 

“I would go all the time. But it also exposed me to cultures and music and dance and art from outside of the Midwest,” Brooke said. 

When she entered fourth grade, she joined her school’s choir and fell in love with it, staying in it through high school. This experience set a foundation for Brooke as a vocalist and performer, and she credits the network of support from her family and friends in choir as a major influence in her continued pursuit of the arts, including when she felt compelled to begin releasing music of her own. 

“When I mentioned wanting to release music or I would play my music that I had made for my friends in choir, everybody was so supportive and so happy for me,” Brooke recounts. “I think if I didn't have that community, I might not have felt encouraged to release music because it's very vulnerable.” 

Along with the encouragement she received, Brooke mentioned a unique opportunity to hone her craft; the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As everyone was sent into isolation and the world searched for activities to do within the walls of their homes, Brooke began learning the program GarageBand, her first experience with music creation software. Using the resources available to her on YouTube and the internet, she learned how to record and produce music from the ground up. The culmination of these efforts was the release of her first song “Mtn Days” in December 2020, which she created entirely by herself during the pandemic. Peterson primarily used TikTok to promote the release, and it resulted in her first social media attention and Spotify streams. 

Brooke said, “I kind of lucked out and it wasn't viral by any means, but I got like 14,000 views and like a couple thousand likes on this video advertising for [“Mtn Days”]. Because of that I got quite a bit of streams…I think it got like 10,000 or so within the first like year. And that was just because of TikTok.” 

The next step of Brooke’s musical aspirations led her to studying vocal performance at Arizona State University, far away from her home in Iowa. The change was a major culture shock for her and doubts constantly surfaced in her first semester, but she has grown to love it in Arizona as she adjusted to Phoenix’s vibrant atmosphere and identified many opportunities for musicians in the area. 

“It's very overwhelming here. It's very loud. But sometimes that's really good because there's tons to do and there's so many people here from different places around the world,” she said. “And I feel exposed to so much more than I did in Iowa. I feel like I've grown as a person massively here.”

Through her time in college, Brooke has grown more comfortable and capable as an artist, learning more about the methods independent musicians use to upload their work to streaming services. She has released eight songs onto streaming platforms, including her first EP “Evergreen Road,” which she recorded in a small studio near her hometown. She also took advantage of an opportunity offered through a collaboration between ASU’s Popular Music program and Gin Blossoms guitarist Jesse Valenzuela, winning a competition where she created a new version of the band’s popular song “Hey Jealousy.” In 2024, Brooke then got the chance to enter the studio again to record her song “Stardust.” 

“I basically applied to have it recorded for free and it was going to be used in an ASU project,” she said. “The project ended up getting canceled, but I got to record it for free and everything and have it mixed, which was awesome to not have to spend money on that.” What started as an opportunity for a university project then led to Brooke’s release and gain of over 68,000 Spotify streams on the song. 

Through her experiences thus far with releasing music, Brooke has come to realize how much of a benefit streaming services can offer to spotlighting musicians’ artistry and personal brands. She believes having a profile on these services with her music released has helped her make connections with those booking artists for venues, and the algorithmic playlists these platforms create such as Spotify’s “Daily Mix” have made a big impact in her music getting heard, like what happened with “Stardust.” 

Through all the ups and downs, Cassidy Brooke has embraced the journey and opportunities provided to her as a musician. In her words to other aspiring artists looking to begin showcasing their work to the world, Peterson encourages them to take the risk; “Literally just do it because you never know what's going to happen. Like, you don't need really, really high quality stuff to be able to release things. If it makes you happy and you're excited about it, I think you should just take the risk.”

Brooke released her new single “love you more” on Nov. 10. Search “Cassidy Brooke” to check out her music on streaming platforms. To go behind-the-scenes for her cover of “Hey Jealousy,” you can check out ASU Popular Music’s feature on the opportunity here.