The First Building Block

Something special happens when that artist sings those notes.

Such a crazy, simple thing.

And yet it’s from that power that music became a popular thing and continues to be a staple in our lives.

It can be a lot of fun to play the music business game, to try and get famous or get lots of money or become associated with the cool crowd because of the music.

But all of those pursuits are built on top of a silly little magical thing that happens when someone vibrates their vocal cords a certain way to a certain rhythm. That’s it. That’s the first building block.

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Not Only The Labels

Record labels these days get a bad wrap for only signing acts that already have a huge audience. That are already proven. That are already making money and have the rest of the pieces in place.

And it’s true.

But it isn’t only true of record labels.

Every entity: management, booking, radio, playlisting, publishing, labels…everyone is looking for the least amount of work for the biggest pay off.

Management wants tons of stuff already going on, including label interest.

Booking agents want pre existing promoter relationships and hard numbers on Pollstar.

Radio wants all the other stations to play it first.

Playlisters want the other playlisters to add it first.

Publishers want you to be well connected with other writers and have a catalog that is generating revenue.

So it’s not just the labels, it’s everyone.

And it’s us too. We long for familiarity. We long for low risk high reward. We are afraid. We’re afraid of making the first move. We don’t want to look stupid. We don’t want to lose our jobs by rolling the dice on something unproven.

If anyone of us were in charge of putting a million dollars into an artist with the obligation to turn it into two million…we might surprise ourselves with just how ‘true to the music’ we really are.

Most of the time we all operate exactly like the record labels do.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Modern Artist

Writing music, releasing music, playing music for people.

For decades these three things have been at the foundation of anyone wanting to be a musician. If you’re an artist this is what you do.

These three things also turned the wheels of the money machine. So it was a good match. These are the things musicians do…which are the same things that grow the music industry.

But it’s changing. The definition of ‘if you’re an artist this is what you do’ doesn’t always include those three things anymore. And those three things are the only primary drivers of revenue.

Is the artist and artist if they’ve never played a show longer than sixty seconds?

If they’ve never written a song?

If they don’t have a discography?

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Deviating vs. Wandering

I’ve yet to talk with someone who made a plan, carried out the plan and everything went according to plan.

More often I’ve talked with people who have made a plan, carried out the plan, adjusted the plan as they went and ended up somewhere a little different than they had planned. And are quite thrilled with the results.

A plan is an excellent thing to deviate from. But if you try to deviate with no plan to start with, that’s just wandering.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Easy To Copy

It’s a lot easier to copy what someone did than copy someones attitude.

Anyone can copy the guitar feedback at the beginning of The Beatles I Feel Fine.

It’s a lot more difficult to copy the attitude, curiosity, excitement, diligence and creativity it took to make an intro like that come together.

There’s nothing wrong with copying what’s easy but it will only get you so far.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Menu Items

When I call in, why is it always ‘the menu items have recently changed’?

Who is pouring over these menu items day after day?

These meetings must be heated and held often…

Listen Marcus I’ve been wanting to break up Flooring and Tile for a long time. And you know that. Tile deserves it’s own number and if you ask me, which you could stand to do a little more often, it ought to be no lower than five or six.

Leslie I’ve always always always respected your views about Tile and it’s not that I’m totally against giving Tile its own number…but if we keep them together it means we can squeeze Seasonal onto the second page of menu options instead of the top of the third…and I’m sorry but Seasonal is the hill I’m willing to die on. I’ve built my whole career supporting Seasonal.

Okay here’s what we’re going to do Marc…Tile gets its own number. But it’s one day only. Trust me, we did it for a week back in the nineties and it was an absolute disaster. So after today it’s re-coupled with Flooring at least until we can navigate this Seasonal situation.

Sounds good. Great work today. I’ll see you right back here tomorrow to keep tweaking.

Tweaking menu items is a waste of time even though it’s easy to make an argument in the other direction.

Just make the decision and move on.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple