My email gets blasted everyday with 10 tips or 5 ways to get discovered or some other bs article. All to get you to subscribe to their site , to lure the uneducated musician into believing if they just follow these steps they will have a successful career in the music business, BS. They all say the same thing but in a different way.
Do you really want to know how to succeed in the music business? Then read on I will tell you how without any hype. Do you see the word business? Being a good musician is not enough, you have to be a good businessperson. If you are going into business the first thing you should do is fully educate yourself on the business you have chosen to go into. Then formulate a business plan and make sure you have money to carry out your business plan. If you’rE not prepared to be a business person or hire a manager who is — then get used to playing on your porch to the flies cause that’s all that will ever hear you besides the people at the corner bar.
The record labels are dead they aren’t selling records, music is free now . So why would a record label want to sign you and invest thousand’s of dollars with no way to get it back or make a profit. They don’t. The days of record labels are over. So get over it, forget the ole school way and educate yourself and move on.
Lets take a look a one successful indie artist, Mackelmore . He played all over the country for over a decade and built a huge following. The following drew investors and Mackelmore knew the business so he took the money and played the game very successfully.
OK you’ve read the above articles now read this –promotional dollars spent by Mackelmore were in excess of one million dollars.
The fact is you ain’t gonna hit billboard anytime soon no matter how good you are unless you have at least ½ million to drop into promotion in the US. The whole US and music industry is just as crooked as politics. Fact is you could be Donald Duck and sing out of tune but if you had enough money you could have a hit record. I have heard some awesome musicians and songwriters but unless they learn the business and execute a business plan you ever won’t hear them unless you wade thru the billions of releases on a free streaming site.
OK you don’t have a half a million dollars? Then there are alternatives. Lets begin by crushing some myths. Streaming, the streaming companies advertise free music ,then they try to tell the musicians this is great exposure for them. That BS – how is anyone ever gonna find you among billions of songs. They’re not. Harvard law calls streaming piracy plain and simple. You’ve been ripped off . They have taken the music that you have created and stolen it from you all so they could charge a minimal monthly fee. If Indie musicians would unite, they outnumber the big machine and could crush it. Refuse to give your music away for free. Sell it off your website.
Want a sure fire way to achieve success in the music business? Work your ass off. That’s right work your ass off. First polish your craft so you can hold your own with anyone in the world, develop your product, book gigs even if for free at first if your that good the listeners will know it to and they will tell others and they will all come to see you, get more gigs , work to get them calls , emails what ever it takes even playing acoustically in front of the venue drawing their crowd outside . If you’re good they will hire you. Yeah all this time you are spending several hours a day blogging on social media trying to get fans and if you work your ass off and you are good then you will get fans. That’s success – it’s like a building it’s built one brick at a time- so is your music career.
Then there is radio promotion, essential for all artists. Some produce measurable results some don’t. There’s cheap guaranteed spins, So what if your played on a few internet stations with 4 listener’s each at 4 am. That’s not gonna translate to anything for you. There are some good promotion companies,ones that deal in major charts –ones that deal with the world not just the us or any other geographical area. After all we are all connected now. I’d advise the world, massive affordable exposure. Musik Radio Promotions just happens to offer the largest network of 250,000 stations anywhere in the world.
I leave you with one last word, “The young kid said to his mother ‘when I grow up Mom I want to be a musician‘ Then his mother then said, “You can’t have both son.”
Grow up and go after your dream as a businessperson and make your dream come true.
Stephen Wrench
President, Musik and Film