Indie Artists vs. Major Label Artists + Music Marketing

I guarantee you will enjoy more success with getting “famous” or getting signed, or getting rich with your music if you can just remember two things. Because these two ideas will make you think twice before you get disappointed, expecting sales and expecting overnight success… or expecting for some A&R to hear your music and give you an instant record deal.

Why Independent Artists Fail at Music Promotion

It gets increasingly harder and consequently more expensive to promote music as an independent artist each year, by the year, regardless of whether those efforts are online or not.  Until you cross the chasm to reach a success level where your popularity, music and finances catch up to each other, you are more likely to rely on a limited amount of information to determine the value of your music career.  For example if you are a music artist with a fan base of 100, it is easy to believe that 80 people out of 100 think you are destined for worldwide success.  This is a limited window of honesty that can cripple your efforts to reach a wider audience that spans beyond the local market to reach worldwide audiences.

Without a more concrete and easy-proof system in place, you can continue to create music that no one cares about and no one buys except the people in that window of 100.  In order to broaden the listening audience it is important to understand their worldview in three phases:

• How they viewed music in the past
• How they view music in the present
• How they “think” they will view music in the future

You should know that to reach mass audiences “nowadays” that they probably prefer to download your music easily, because it’s faster and they are not restricted to listen to your music where a CD player is present. This mis-understanding is an ignored flaw that results in a sharp line to failure.   You can better judge almost everything you do to promote and further your career if you consider these two worldviews:

People with money don’t care what’s real to you…unless its presented in a way that is appealing and sensible to them.

No one in the hospital is going to suddenly panic and die if they don’t hear your music.
People with money are, have been, and will be used to buying music that sounds MAJOR…because 9/10 it invariably sounds better.

Why?

People who buy music, aren’t exposed to indie music as much as major music. Major music is like the GOD of music because its EVERYWHERE all at the same time…in someone else’s car down the street, at a store, in the mall, in a bathroom, on someone else’s ipod, on the radio, you see it on someone’s shirt, you hear people singing in walking down the street… and this is what creates an environment where…if you don’t sound major/ you don’t follow trends; its likely that it will be harder to get those music consumers to buy your music.

You can’t sell someone something they don’t want, or something they’re not familiar with. Period. I don’t care what you sell.

From strippers to music to houses and cars. People only buy things that solve their problems (permanent or not) AND they buy what they truly want.

Just look at the fact that we live in a world where NOBODY gives a damn about how healthy it is to eat organic food, people want what they’re used to. McDonalds doesn’t get 23 million dollars in the bank because it tries to give people what’s healthy…it gives them what they want, fat and heart clogs included.

Why doesn’t originality sell? And why shouldn’t an artist make music that’s real to them?

ORIGINALITY is extremely important and yes you have to balance originality with trends…but there is a line between doing whats original to the point where its unenjoyable and doing what is most likely to sell. That’s another hard part of this particular business.

Because again, the people who worked their ass off this week in the office dealing with Bob and Sally have to deal with the fact that they got $200 taken out in taxes. So they’re not going to buy music just for the hell of it. Especially not when they can download it using Bit Torrent for free. The people, who ACTUALLY buy it and not DOWNLOAD it, will buy it if its music they are used to hearing AND what they WANT.

I love Herbie Hancock…he just got a super huge Grammy award but the majority of America isn’t blogging about him. They blog about Britney and her nipples or her panties (or not).

The majority of people don’t wake up in the morning looking for NEW JOBS…they go where they know they’re going to get a check. The majority of people don’t wake up searching for new MUSIC. They trust radio (declining) and friends to provide them with music that’s familiar and hot. The majority of people don’t wake up in the morning trying out different toothpastes everyday… they use what they know.

Human psychology suggests that people LIKE what they know. We hang around people who are like us, we buy things that are popular, we eat things that are the norm. They don’t really care about originality if its unfamiliar with them and they can’t relate to it.

So yes! You can be successful in a major way, still be original, but only if you can create something that people want.

THAT is where trends are extremely useful. Song keys, tempos, vocal styles, recording techniques, phrases, melodic motifs, chord progressions, reverb styles, compressor uses, 808 drums, synth sounds, etc. are trends that will never go away…and most chart topping songs have similar characteristics.

Besides…most everything we are familiar with uses a trend. Oh in the gum department…its teeth whitening. In fashion, its big 70sand 80s styled frames. In computers its dual processors. In cars its USB and voice activation. In TV its Hi-Def. In movies its shock factor & humor. On TV its 1 hour episodes instead of 30 minutes. In music…its the 80s sound, its the urban sound, its multi-genres. If you’re rock, you’re pop. If you’re pop, you’re urban. If you’re R&B, you’re hip-hop.

This is simple and its centered around the fact that you’re dealing with people who probably don’t want to PAY for the music in the first place and secondly, you had better create something that they can believe in,experience, and relate to.

Perhaps originality comes second to familiarity… for most music consumers.

Why won’t Record Labels put out an artist just because they’re on the roster?

Commerce. You can look at the billboard charts and tell that releasing a certain artist right now is probably not going to work. Especially when you have artists who dominate the entire scene with an album or song that everybody’s going crazy for. Every record label tries to do whats right for their survival and bank account at the same time. Record Labels are entities, but they operate much like humans do. There are bills that need to be paid and there is little time for experimentation with artists who have already proven they won’t sell that much, or based on statistics, prove that they will not sell that much.

So who CARES if you get signed. Doesn’t mean you’ll get released. Most record labels have more artists than they can manage…but to them each artist represents a specific financial forecast. You can BET that they have a net worth assigned to each artist, and if they think that it makes more sense to release artist A than artist B…then that’s what they do. That’s what they will continue to do…until about 6 years from now when everyone gets screwed and it all crashes all over again like it did in 2004.

Why do you have to cater to 10-18 year olds?

You don’t. You just have to decide who you are and what you want to do. What you want to start out doing and what you want to end up doing. Popular music is played everywhere…in clubs, in restaurants, in stores, you can’t deny it. People who listen and/or create country music are more exposed to pop/rock than they are exposed to country. You don’t walk into the mall and hear alot of country…unless its mixed with…pop.

You have to decide if you want to
a) make music that’s unfamiliar and work hard enough to get people to become familiar with it and then sell records or
b) make music thats familiar, increase popularity, and sell records faster/easier/better.

You can chose to side with the labels, be with the indies who achieve major label success, or be an indie whose totally organic and is more concerned with the art form than commercial appeal.

So if you want to sell something, at the same rate that major labels sell it, then you have to find a way to get consumers to LIKE you. Whether its unoriginal or not…the people who swipe their card aren’t critics, they don’t care whether you’re major or indie so much… that’s something that only us “music insiders” care about…

Why don’t record labels invest in artists who surpass the trends?

Record Labels do the best they can. They aren’t TRYING to fail, they’re just stupid when it comes to many things. But as the years go by, the pressure increases as does the competition to put out music that will sell and that can be marketed. It doesn’t make sense for record labels to run a development farm like they used to. They’re not going to spend 5 years babysitting artists trying to see which artist will turn out to be a golden egg. The likelihood of another pop icon like Beyonce’ coming along is slim, and she did most of her artist development by herself. Her dad quit his job to make that happen… that whole family went through turmoil just to get where they are today; and that was oh about a decade ago.

So what’s the bottom line?
The superstar formula HAS always revolved around hard work and creativity… Who cares what genre of music you make, the pool of listeners is relative to the genre. The Beatles? They have one of the most popular songs in history called “Yesterday” it’s been performed over seven million times… took them a year to even write that song, and it didn’t even GO mainstream at first. But that song has the record for being one of the most recorded COVER songs in history. The Jacksons? Everybody knows that they for damn sure worked their asses off. Beyonce? None of Beyonce’s success just landed in her lap. Britney Spears? Yeah this woman has been in the public spotlight since she was a kid, she’s been trained to BE the attention, GET attention, and KEEP attention.

Again, you’re not competing against people who haphazardly became successful. You’re competing against people like Miley Cyrus, people who are born into super stardom…or people who are willing to move clear across the country just to work with a producer who will give them the perfect sound. IF you aren’t willing to make those kind of sacrifices…then you’re handicapping yourself, I don’t care how you look at it.

You’re competing against people who don’t have ANY connections at all, but will spend a solid year to whip themselves into shape and go through hell JUST to put together a 7 song package that can be shopped to majors. You’re competing against people who DON’T CARE how long it takes until they get it right. And those are the most dangerous types.

I can type sentences all day and all night long. I could give history lessons all day long. But the bottom line is that yes connections are great… yes you should be original. Yes you should use trends… but the only thing that matters FIRST is if you have DAMN good music. And can you REPEAT it enough times to satisfy the appetite of people who are used to hearing DAMN Good music. Does your Myspace page have 3 songs that sound as good as the top 100 songs on Billboard?

If you want music industry contacts buy the A&R registry – it will cost you maybe $60 bucks. Its worth it. But even if you had Clive Davis’ #…what would you do with it? Which song are you SO confident in, that’d you’d be willing to bet your entire DREAM on it?!
It takes an ungodly amount of work to produce and create damn good music…on this kind of level.

Unless your music sounds MAJOR, no matter how original you are, then you’re already fighting an uphill battle. If it isn’t crisp, easy to listen to, flawless, and perfect…I say START OVER.
Music Superstar Formula is something I have fought with, I’ve cried over it, I’ve kicked, I’ve screamed, I’ve been just a few fries short of a happy meal sometimes… but you won’t see it until its right… because in the BIG LEAGUE…there is no 2nd chance. By the time you screw up and try again, something new and better has already come along.

If you ever get ONE chance, treat it like it IS your last simply because it COSTS too much to get people to give a damn about YOU or YOUR music. If they don’t pay attention to you, they’re not going to pay a penny for you.