I just got one of those crow founding things in my flow. I thought that game was totally up? I mean the only one that really got something was Amanda Palmer but it was years ago. And to be honest her claim to fame is just the crowdfunding not so much the music.
Also these campaigns really annoy me. Not so much that they want money, that is okay, it is what they are spend the damn money on. Of course much of the crowdfunding is to get cash and then release something. Because of that most campaigns is mostly about getting money to print a fucking CD. A vinyl is ok, but no it’s not okay since when you see their calculations you see that PR is not even get 10% of what that damn pressing is costing.
I went on to look on this page just to see if something has changed, I mean I was part of this seven years ago. Then it was a pretty good solution to presale physical products.
To my surprise they have done it worse now. Oh well this artist has. The thing the artist is give away is shout outs on twitter with your name. Insane prices to get a signed copy of her album.
Then the artist thanked for the support and got on the youtube channel. Oh well let’s take a look on that one. Ohh the support of 65 followers on 26 videos, and under 200 plays on each video and spread out so it’s not even a video a week more like a video in the month. Okey let's check your Spotify history. The last singles has not even over 1000 listnings…some old album has fishy numbers and looks like to be your self-streaming your own songs ( well I would guess this the way the artist use crowdfounding).
Then we look into if she gather fans , nope, no facebook adding and no crossing between the homepage and the youtube channel.
Finally I listen to a song and get the whole problem. The artist can sing pretty good, but has no real charisma, just a urge to be living out of the music so trying all these advices that are on the internet to try to make the dream happens. Even if I write many tips in this blogg, don't follow them all. But one to follow is think twice before crowfunding.
I had a really good meeting when I was in London with a new company that has a new way of synchronizing music into pictures. In that they also have a really cool way to get exposure for music in the modern technology.
They actually launch in October and are just 5 employees. It’s totally brand new and is doing things no one has done before. I just adore these permissions. Companies in this size are the one you really want to hang on to. They are in the field to do something new and got the founds for it but are still small enough to have a conversation to and get your artists to be in priority.
I have meet hundreds of them and in many cases they fail. But ever third year I meet one t6hat actually succeed. I meet Spotify when they were in this size. I got a lot over that contact. I meet Digmark when they were in that size and we did fabulous things. Now they are Universal Streaming Services and are one of the most important PR companies there is. I meet Music Dealers in that size and they grow to over 200 employees, then sadly disappeared and got bought up, but during the heydays we did some great stuff. You just have to take a risk and a chance.
Still I see so many people not willing to take that risk. There is no point today to try making that relationship with Spotify. It’s gone I won’t play in the league. So you have to get into the business when they are in the right size and are open to work with you and you are important to them. If they succeed it’s good, yes you will be less and less important to them and that is natural, but hey you got some great stuff going on.
What error people do is to try to befriend them when they are too big. It’s easy to be on the right horse when it’s just 100 meters left of the race. You have to the betting before the race.
So to get people believe in your project, start support other people’s projects and dreams.
You can almost never get enough team. Usually the problem is to afford them. Still I meet artist that know how much team there is. Many of them think that all this should be done by the manger /record label. I can easy tell you, no it’s not going to happen.
The Magnettes just released their new single “So Bad” and I will just take that as an example how many people that is involved in a release. This is an indie release so it could be much more. But around this is how many they are.
First is their record label. At their desk it’s two people working with The Magnettes with this release. Then it’s us on the management team and we are also two working on this release. Over that they have a booker in USA, Europe and Scandinavia working around the gigs. On top of that we hired a PR team with one person in Sweden, Two in UK and a third in USA. On the side they also have some sponsors, distribution teams doing some stuff so we can add an extra person since not all of them is working full time with The Magnettes.
Here we have 11 people and of course the band of 3 people so in total 14.
And now we haven’t count in the Mixing guy, the video people, the mastering. They did their job before and, still equal important. Count them in 19 people.
When people say they can handle a release by themselves. They actually tell me that they can do 19 peoples job by themselves. Also people ask me if hire a pr team is enough?
Are in London for meetings and a showcase with The Magnettes. The bombing in Manchester can been seen everywhere with heavy armored police. Still it's "keep calm and keep going" mentality.
So this will be posted after the show but written before. I can only write what we hope to achieve, when you read we will know.
What we hope here to get people that can book and promote shows for the summer 2018. Yes that is how far ahead we try to work with the artist planning. In most cases it's impossible to plan like this. I guess a measure of success is that you can start planning a year a head.
And it's good it makes life so much easier.
This is the part many thinks happens when they get signed. He truth is that you are just heading into a two year period where it's even more chaos than before. And if you survive that and work hard this is the point when the check box proves that you have moved forward.
You wonder sometimes if it even worth it! I work on the side of my normal job for a company doing some work for their artists. Get them out in the press put up meeting with industry professionals and so on. Usually I don’t even get paid for it. Here and there they pay me a dinner or a ticket when I travel. I do it mainly becuse I know they don't have the money. Now they got a big chunk of money to develop their company from the government and they called me up tell me that they are hiring a new person in their office.
-Yes this person we are hiring doesn’t have that much of experience; she is fresh out of school. So we were thinking that she could go alongside you so she can work up her network and get a feeling how the industry is working.
I was kind of stunned. You never paid me for any of the work I have done and now when you get money suddenly I should teach someone to do the job I never got paid for. So I went on.
-How much do I get for that?
-Well our budget is very estranged. We don’t have that much money. We were thinking if she could just follow you on your trip to The Great Escape next week, we can buy her tickets.
Never got to their mind that I had bought my tickets, trip and hotel by myself.
-And then I saw that you were on another conference two weeks after can you fix her tickets to that one so she can follow?
Since their budget only covered the new employee there was not calculation to pay me anything. They also insisted that they will send her to The Great Escape and that I should take care of her, and this is how it works. They don’t think.
I just ended the conversation really saying nothing. I guess they believed that I would take care of their new employee during the first conference and fix ticket to the second one.
The fact is that they pay her to do that job so why should I do that? Just to be nice? Like oh I do all the work and then you can take my salary?
Practical they will be thrown back a couple of years. The things I build up I just take with me, I won’t pass that along. The sad part of this is having seen it all before.
In the evening I went on a show in Stockholm. There I bumped into a guy that they choose for a government project a couple of years ago. Same procedure, I worked to get the project started when they got money they hired a local guy with no connections. The project never become successful, it just turned into that they paid three years this guy a salary. I spoke with the guy for a while; he has now left the music industry and was working in a cloth store. Another waste of VAT money in Sweden I would say.
That is also tragically, many of the projects gets bad names since they are unsuccessful. The problem is that the idea is good is just that they never employ people that actually has the education, and no this education you can’t get to be in a school. Still they think if we hire young kids they will fix it.
Then another person came by. It was a person working for a record label doing the same stunt a couple of years ago. Not exactly the same, they mainly wanted me to work for free with no percentage and if I got lucky I would be paid. Back then I always showed a bit what we were doing and helped them in a couple of months. Then of course they fucked up and I left the building and I haven’t seen them in years.
I have seen though that the project went to hell just a couple of months after I left. Mainly because they thought if they had some people in the network it was good enough. But these people where loyal, they usually are since they know I’m still here and that project is long gone.
I had to ask anyway how it was with the project. And he told me all the problems they got after we left. I just nodded. I guessed that he really didn’t get that these problems came since I left and just let him keep on talking. Then he stopped and started to talk about a new project he had and if I was interested to work with that since I did a good job on the first one.
I’m stunned they really don’t think. Is it even worth to explain for them that they really, really fucked up? And if you fuck up, you’re gone. And if I was the mob I would just shoot their heads off! Luckily I’m not the mob, I’m just a person wondering how stupid people actually can be and how many projects I will see going down because of incompetence?
I just saw a post just like this from a friend, I guess it's life in the music industry.
I just stumble on a homepage where they have all e-mail addresses and phone numbers to the right people in the music industry. Now you just have to contact the right person.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if a page like that existed? Then everybody in the world could make a living as an artist. Making millions of dollars and tour every fifth year. That would be a great world.
But hey the whole start looks like a spam letter; oh we have a dead African king that left millions of dollars you just have to send your credit card number and security code. Get real!
Still I bump into artists almost every week that actually keep this illusion real. Instead of chasing fans they are chase people that should chase fans for them. The energy goes to chasing these people that really not exists. Same as in a casino they let you have a small win and then you chase that big win, but it never comes. Instead you should just save that money and build your fortune. It’s pretty clear but easier said than done.
Still the text is just like a spam letter. This homage should just not work. The right person is where you are in your career. The right person is not the same for Metallica as it is for a new indie band from Copenhagen. Just there should you be suspicious about this homepage if it existed.
It really doesn’t matter who you know if your position is not right. Even if I gave you my whole network it doesn’t matter. For example I know the girl who books the biggest arena in London. She is really nice and always says that I can send her stuff and is keen on discovering new bands. Sure I can send her new bands, but the arena takes around 65000 visitors so she can't book them. I don’t have a band that can draw so many people in London. She will be good to have when I have a band in that capacity, but right now I have to wait.
In the world of these bands they don’t want to wait. Send her their demo and hope that she can do something. There is no reality to it. Back to the lottery, in a million maybe she can do something but it’s so slim that it’s better to build the artist so they have enough fans and then go to her.
I’m amazed that the artist hasn’t figured this out and still wonders. I guess it has to be with human nature, hope is the last that leaves a person’s body, like Adée use to say on her concerts.
It happens again that the terror try to get on the music scene. First it was Eagles of Death Metal at Bataclan in Paris this time Ariana Grande in Manchester. The only thing they try to get I fear. I can’t really see how you can win any supporters by that tactic? Also the latest attack is more against children since Ariana has a younger fan base.
I guess just that is the biggest mistake. This age group is experts on social media. They live and breed it and they can be a very strong asset when it comes to spread the word about how stupid and useless a terror act like this is.
They are told to believe in them self’s and really express their thing and music is one of the most powerful tools to do this. The terrorist thinks they are an easy target but is against a quite big and influential part of the world. These stars have the power to tell their fans to hijack quite much on the internet by cheer numbers.
And I will be part of this resistance with music. I’m going to London tomorrow with The Magnettes who preach the same message to young girls as Ariana Grande. They will tell to stand up for your own voice and don’t let a terrorist try to pull you down.
I usually get over 10 000 views each half year, both 10000 and 20000 came with six month time. So being a whole month ahead is really great. I don’t care so much of the statistics, but I was looking through today and saw that I have the same amount of readers as the midsized music blogs.
So I have proven my point? I don’t know if I have written this in the English part (the blog changed language to English from Swedish it has just been English in a year). The reason I started the blog was to prove to the artists that everything can be done if you just put in some time and keep doing it.
The blog is like giving out music. You have to be consistent and you try to write about stuff that people actually care about and yourself care about. Then you try to spread the things you create. I guess here I have done a bigger step. In the beginning I was just posting to the blogg. Now it is always promoted a week later on Musichelp, Distrosong, my personal Facebook, also adding my personal Twitter account. That and the language change made a bigger audience and I have been experimenting with witch times is the best time to post things.
This is what an artist should do as well with music. See what post works best and mix between songs, live and other stuff.
Back to my point. Have I proven it? Well in a way. I guess you music is actually more interesting than me nagging about different things in the music industry. I also hope it has a better look and feeling then my blog. It’s proven though that I have gotten an audience by posting 443 posts over 1,5 years. By that said an artist should not have that much of a problem breaking my numbers. Also I have a better understanding what should be done on a artist account on social media, when the artist complains that it’s hard to get followers I can just say that if a middle-aged man that nags about stuff get these numbers and you not, then you do something wrong.
I just got a lot of new readers from France even though the biggest countries are Sweden and USA. And it’s fantastic that people for all around the world read what I put out.
One thing makes me wonder but also come to a special conclusion. I don’t get any comments. Over these 443 posts I have gotten 10 comments. Two was spam. One was a guy seeing through my April fools joke. Three was in a special blog where I promised to send unique information and four has been just people complaining that I suck or can’t write good English.
Still I know people are reading it, they come up to me talking about the blogg when I’m out from the office on festivals, clubs or awards. I ask them why they don’t comment, and they don’t have anything to say since I said it all ( flatter I know). Most of them though gives me likes on Facebook and if they really like it they share it.
In the end I’m happy that they read the things I write and I hope it actually gives something back about the music industry and if I can just inspire one reader my goals are fulfilled.
This is how happy I became for the news of 30 000 views. Also that i got a "Trucker Keps" on the Southern Comfort party at TGE (to the left is Bosse who also likes new hats)
One of the strange part of the music industry is the levels and goals you talk about. I write a lot of these levels and achievements and try to describe them.
If you compare to a sports star it's much easier. First is to reach something like I want to jump this high or this long. Then you can also measure it by competition or Guinness record book and with numbers. And you can see where you are since you are playing in a league. Even the goals themselves are much easier. I aim for the next Olympics for example.
If just start a business it's easier. We were on a course with our company and these questions came up. And when we started to describe our goals the teacher looked confused. He was used to that the companies had goals for money and units. And these goals could be calculated like in sports.
The questions like when has a band broke through or witch level is the band right now was impossible to answer. How long will it take was also impossible. Values like network and friendship was much higher. Also that things like even we had more bands was not equal to more money, could even be the opposite. The course was really intense for us but fun to try to explain our complex world of competing in a no competing environment.
So when sport star talks about been focused or it takes endurance I will laugh. If you have a easy measure system its child games. In reality just try to not be injured.
This makes it frustrating also for yourself. I don't know when I reached next level. Sometimes I feel now I can do this and then when you do it is too early. That leads to that you just wait to reach for something really too late.
Overtime you get better and better to read the situation but it's never easy.
Right now I think just I stepped over a threshold on a thing I though happened two years ago but really happened now. I guess I can tell in my biography if I was right.
I also guess that the new industry will fail around that they try to make figures out of music. The number of streams really doesn’t tell how many who would pay for a ticket to see it live.
It has been a great days on The Great Escape. Okey to much rain and not that great of a lineup, I haven't seen a whole show at the whole festival.
Still this is the new number one festival in Europe. Here is the new young hungry people in the industry. I had great meetings and good gatherings and made fabulous new contacts. I got offered free tickets to Midem while I was here, sorry France your time is really over and will more be home for people longing for old days.
And I guess it's part of the new landscape that is forming right now in the industry. Time for big changes.
We are in the studio right now so we don't take gigs, we wait until we have the whole package to deliver and the right time.
Quoted from a manager that clearly don't know what they are doing. If you think you should reveal all in a big splash you are deep in shit. First it's hard to make a noice if no one us knowing that you are working on something. That would be like releasing a movie without trailer or posters beforehand. Second you don't know what the audience really think, if you test the stuff you at least have the chance to tweak any mistakes.
Then it's about the right time. There is no right time. You create the things around you blend up to the perfect storm. If everything is just calm you won't people excited. And it takes time to build up excitement specially today on social media. You can't just repeat the same message, it has to be tweaked everytime.
This week I'm on great Escape in Brighton in UK. I guess the blogs will come a bit strange times. Also doing it on the phone can change words and other things so bear with the language.
I had a really interesting meeting in London today about new income models and pr things on Youtube. It will change fast and this make the artists really confused and I will make the Diy die really fast. I guess the diy died already 2010 still people actually think it work with the long-tail and other smart ideas that now is proven wrong. Today is the team that matters, a team that cares about you not a service that makes everything looks the same for all artists.
Late the sinner will wake is a quote they use in Sweden and here is really written on the wall.
I got a really disturbing message from an agent asking “where are the kids going now a days?”. Well pal that is your job to know that. But the live industry seems to be sleeping quite much so I’m not surprised that the message was sent out.
Right now I know several record labels that build in their own network and platform to get the artist the live experience they need. Also they won’t share this with the booking departments. My guess is that the live stages will have serious problems in just two years. And they will cry in the public that it is so unfair to them. I will just referee to this blog post when they do it.
Even more disturbing is that some Swedish official teams are using these old methods when they are doing things. Got a mail that the government hired a firm that really is outnumbered and just famous for heavy cost and no results. The funny part is that the firm takes money from the government to do their shows. Then they ask for money from the artist as well. It’s nothing new and I thought everyone knew this, but yes like the bookers it seems like so many are so after in the Swedish industry right now.
I was watching the final of Eurovision song contest and congratulations Portugal. Still is this the best we have in songwriting? It feels like in the 90: s when the Ice Hockey championship was held. Since the timing of the Ice Hockey world cup was held in April the NHL was not done so the best players was never able to get into the teams. Because of that it just became pointless. It was the farmer league making up for the world title.
So many other country’s just take in songwriters that I wouldn’t let send in a demo to me write for their country’s. Neither the Swedish ones are the best we have; it’s more the semi pros that are writing for Eurovision in most cases. If it is a pro it’s usually song that they can lose anyway.
Portugal won but still the songs sucks. Not in the competition in Eurovision there it was the best. But I compare with the rest of the world. This was 26 horrible songs. I didn’t hear the one that was taken out in the semis, but can just imagine how bad these where. The worst part how bad was the songs that were taken out by this bad song in the semifinal?
It’s no wonder a song from Eurovision has a life span of two weeks.
I’m still looking for artists. Well we always do but right now it’s for a special reason. Okey we have many demos in the pile so there might be something there. Still it’s so many that don’t fit in. I feel the gap between where you need to have the artists when you start working with them and where they really can get themselves is way bigger now then it was a couple of years ago.
The demands on the artists are higher and more complicated than ever. Still most artists just think, a good song is enough. Then also they start to invent the wheel all over again.
The worst part is that I see a large part of the industry be on this low level. They can’t really provide what the artist need. In the end it’s just blind leading blind. At the same time the top people are distance themselves from the normal stages and mainly develop artificial artists that really just are fit to sever the music that the big audience demands on the algorithms.
Well today I’m on my way to Musikmakarna a school in Örnsköldsvik (North Sweden) that has a good reputation to educate students to be really good songwriters. And I will have the chance to listen to some new things in the pipe and I’m super excited.
I guess also I’m interested to see how they look on the future and what they expect from the business. It will get a good indication how big the gap really is. This is a very professional school with good people and very attractive students. So it will be interesting to see what they have to say.
When you work with bands you get this piece of problem quite often. The whole things should work like a collective mind. In reality the most successful bands usually has divided the work tasks to different members in the band. Still with new band it is not that uncommon with this collective mind.
So what I’m speaking of is that the band act like a group. It’s we against the world. Since that is the case you ask us questions and we discuss them together and give an answer. I get it; it’s very democratic and equal. The problem when you get that democratic you also end up with a lot of bureaucracy.
And this is also a kind of a main reason why people leave a band to make a solo career. Suddenly you don’t have to discuss every single detail in the career.
I actually know labels that don’t want to deal with more then to members in the acts they work with, and they prefer solo acts. And this is the headache it actually brings. If you give a simple suggestion around the cover art it has to go through the whole democratic process. You would imagine that this was much worse in the old days. Not really since we got social media it has become worse. Before you could accept that some decisions was taken without you since you couldn’t be reached. Today that is impossible. Everyone is online and should have a saying. And this can take time and leaves us with a no answer which leads to a frustration that you can’t get a simple answer if it should be Times New Roman in the biography.
I guess it’s a bit fear also. As a member in the band you know that Times New Roman is okay, but still you don’t answer if someone thinks Ariel would be better. But since everyone thinks that way no answer gets back to us. Same thing when you tour. They act like they all should do the same things so it ends up that them actually never leaves the hotel. In the groups I have been working with where it’s divided you have the problem that as soon you get out of your transportation all the members are in different part of the city within five minutes.
Still I prefer the latter, less problem to find people then take care of miserable people.
I get these messages from time to time that people always think there is a backdoor to everything. Right now it was for a showcase festival abroad where we had booked bands before. Suddenly people think that we know a back door to that festival and start mailing me if I can give the email to a person that could bring in their artists to the festival.
In this case, all we did was applying and our band is that way that they took them on. Maybe they took an extra listening since they know me personally and we have meet during the years, still I took the normal way, even payed the entrance fee.
Sure I could have mailed my friends and pushed it. But I don’t think it would have helped. In most cases there is no back door. There are personal contacts so people listen to what you have to say. But that is not that much of advantage. It comes down to good music and a good product and if it fits in that year.
Same with recordlabels. Time to time people call me up to get the personal address to someone on the labels we work with. Same here there is little point. Yes if I personally send the stuff then they look at it since it’s me sending and they have worked with me for a long time. To be honest most of these people that ask a question like this don’t have their shit together and that is why they don’t get in. Also the reason why I don’t want to waste these peoples time with something that they can’t work with anyway. And it wouldn’t look good if I started to send stuff that is not good, and the person behind it doesn’t have their shit together, that can end in a loss of trust.
Then there is the back door. If you pay money, for example if you want your own stage on a festival there is certainly always a price. Seldom have these people that contact you wanted to pay that price, they just want the favor that never will be returned.
Since I look on a career as a long distance running, it’s about endurance. Still when it comes to some part of the race you really have to strengthen and run faster for a couple of miles. Can you handle that pressure?
Most answer yes, but in reality the answer is no. Many times we get artists that complain that nothing happens and they want more tasks and so on. But when the shit really hits the fan and it becomes a reality of how much is really needed they bail out.
Usually the case is that when they complain they actually don’t have anything to do. But when things start to move they are not expecting the amount of things that is really necessary for example a release. Suddenly the photos must be taken, the video done, uploading, biography, ne homepage and so on. And it should have been done yesterday.
In most cases we warn them. Telling them to do the shit while they have time over. In 90% in the cases they don’t listen and ends up with panic towards the release. I guess it’s like when you go to school, you push up that reading until the last minute. I guess it’s human, still can you handle the pressure?
I have just going through 46 blogs, 25 newspapers and 13 radio stations on a Saturday morning. All because The Magnettes and Royal Prospect are playing on Youbloom in Dublin, Ireland first week in June. Also The Magnettes is playing in London a week earlier so I guess by the end of today I have done around the double.
This is the ground work artists forget or don’t realize that it should be done, especially when you don’t have a PR firm doing for you. Actually in The Magnettes case they have two PR firms in UK doing it. Still I’m doing it just to get some extra things going.
If you are going to another city playing. You should contact the local media. That is the groundwork. The funny part is that when I speak to journalists they usually never get this kind of information. I work a lot with Live at Heart (showcase festival in Örebro) and when we book bands to the festival the ones that does questions about how to reach local media are the ones that have professional managers. And I will assume that on Youbloom we might be the only ones that actually reach the press in Dublin out of the 100 acts that actually play.
Yes the statistics shows that I will probably get 45 no answer from the blogs, 25 no answers from the newspapers, and the same results for the radio stations. Still 50% of the times it actually comes one back. And that one could be huge for your audience. So even that the number is against you. When you get it in you have a good benefit so wasting a couple of hours doing this is worth it.
Also that some journalists will remember you. We know they see the press release. Okay they will not act on it this time. But when you go back a couple of months later they might remember you and actually put you their paper, blog or radio show.
This groundwork is rarely done by the artists. It’s usually forgotten or pushed over to someone else to be done.
Right now I’m about to send emails to my friends in Dublin asking witch news outlets they think is important, check that to my list, but also ask them if they have some personal insights in these media outlets. Yes you have to do the groundwork but you also have to think twice.
No they actually sees you, the thing is that they just don’t know what to do with your talent right now.
I was that person last night, was visiting a talent show in Stockholm. I meet some business persons that of course I had to talk to. I was really that music industry person that is in the back of the room just talking during the songs with other persons.
As an artist you probably really hate these situations. Still, you should know that I listened to entire artist during the evening and I know all my associates did the same.
Many think we are uninterested of the artist. And if you play on showcases people also just walk out during your show. It’s not the case. They are all looking and listening, but they also have to maintain a lot of other stuff so it can really look that they don’t care but are really looking.
And no one was seeking you out after the show also doesn’t mean a thing. You can have done the show of your life without knowing it. They might have liked you but don’t know where to fit you in the puzzle yet.
What to do then? No one looked you up? You just keep on going. Next time you play these people might be there again or see you name and remembers this show and this time you might fit in the puzzle.
That is why every show counts. The more shows the better. The worst is the persons that put all their power to one show and hope that people will come down and everything would be fixed. It’s never the case. I know an A&R person that saw an artist 36 times before signing the artist.
So how was the artist last night? Actually really good! Still it was quite much work to get them on the full path to stardom. A time that I don’t have right now. Still when they have fixed these minor problems (witch they will easily do by playing more shows) and then they might fit the puzzle in the future.
I saw this quote from one of my hero in the record industry in Sweden Ola Håkansson saying.
A good song needs the right timing and everything else would fall into place.
It’s totally right, or should I say it was right. Today I’m not sure. The change in the listeners pattern is so changed that it doesn’t really fit. Today is more; build the platform where you have the ability to place the song in the right timing.
Both that everything else would fall into place is hard. Also that without the platform you really can’t do a perfect timing. Of course this was not the problem before when radio and tv dictated what was going through. You only needed a very small network of key people to make it happen.
Today we have to have 10 time’s bigger network or even bigger than that to just achieve 50% of what was done in the smaller network. And many falls off very fast even though they actually put the song in the right timing since the network that use to get things into place is no longer there and spread out.
So the sentence would be changed to: You have to put the song in the right timing several times, then everything would fall into place.
I was surfing around and some new band pages and was struck how bad these pages are maintained. Okey if the artist has a personal page, there it’s all fun and games. A lot of interaction and good stories. As soon they have also a artist page it’s so boring. Even if it is a band the page is very poor with information.
So I decided to make a experiment. I would have to leave a comment on 5 different artist pages, but with some rules.
I can leave a message if the latest post is about an upcoming concert.
I can’t leave a message if the last post was like Thank you Hoboken for last night you were great!
I can’t leave a message if the lasts post is about a song on Spotify, Soundcloud.
I can’t leave a message if the last post is a link to their new video.
So I went into a band that I know looked on their page. From that I looked on the pages they liked and went on to the next band that I didn’t know. I avoided already famous bands like Tom Petty etc.
You know what! It took me 89 artist pages until I have left my five messages. Like 70% of them was a post of a new show. 10 was a thank you of a show. 10% was a new song or video, 10 % was very close to these ones.
I started another experiment. I took famous acts this time, just choosed, Lady Gaga, Talyor Swift, Zara Larsson, Ed Sheeran and Bon Jovi.
Lady Gaga: Just a post of her new single and her performance on Cochella.
Taylor Swift: Talked about Lordes single.
Zara Larsson: A picture with all her dancers.
Ed Sheeran: One funny clip where Ed is working in a recoredstore.
Bon Jovi: Shows Jons backstage outfit.
Actually not that good, but much better than the unknown ones. Sure here it is more gigs, more merch and stuff, still they find to post personal stuff. Only Lady Gaga was kind of crap on this.
It’s called Social Media since it is social. If I just walked into a praty and the only thing I said was
-You know what, I play a gig next Saturday in Stockholm, 8 pm at OBaren.
Well people would be annoyed about me. Same if I just talked about the new single I just released. They would go nuts. And here are the new strategies for artists. You need to have more interesting posts. If you social media suck then I would assume your show sucks. And this is the truth 85% of the meetings I have with labels we just talk about the artist’s social media.
The worst artists are the ones that need to release a new song just to have something to post on their social media. Many of the most famous ones today is using this to their advantage. Like the author Camilla Läckberg. Most of the time she is a phenomena on social media then she adds on when she release a new book. And just a bit of it. That makes her sell so much that she can keep on going being a phenomenon on social media.
I’m sitting and sending out the new album for a band to get reviews. The problem today with this new single driven world we live in is that is it really necessary?
I know that the reviews many times are just like a receipt of the artist work. A good receipt is always good for the ego. At the same time do we need them? I get so many artists using these reviews as a teddybear to tell me that their music is good.
The problem today is that most writers will only write when they think it’s really really good, or it’s very famous. So in most cases there will not be any reviews since usually there is some famous every week and they usually don’t need that review anyway. And the really really good ones as just ten albums a year.
I guess today we see it more that people write as a good review. And actually it’s not a review is just a short text saying that they like the new song.
The days when someone was going over your music in details is really over. And if someone is doing that it’s usually someone that really doesn’t know the craftsmanship of music and will just be a saying in the flood with millions of other sayings on the internet.
Still we need to do this send out. The dream is still there that you will break through getting good reviews.
