The time is ripe for setting up a new blueprint for developing an artistic career in the modern age. Speaking as a musician and on behalf of many musicians I’ve known, A lot of us are flummoxed as to how to go about our business. Do we just give up? There are many people who are in a sort of limbo regarding their career. They have put in so much sweat equity and love into their art that giving up is out of the question. Yet they’ve also realized how difficult it is to make a living. We are artists, not advertisers. Since when have we had to be salespeople? Well, some would argue that any artist worth their salt must know how to sell themselves, and that it’s actually always been that way. Yet we envy, on a certain level, people who don’t have to promote themselves. I remember a spiritual master in India saying that you know a guru is fake if they’re blowing their own horn. And many musicians think the same thing. They don’t feel that they should have to advertise their own products. So I would love to put forth the idea that there needs to be digital blueprint for how artists go about their careers in the digital age. It can’t just be voodoo and wishes.
Many who prospered in the old paradigm of record companies handling everything for them are angry. David Byrne, singer of The Talking Heads, has written about how disenfranchised the up and coming musicians are. In his blogpost on davidbyrne.com, titled “How will the wolf survive- can musicians make a living in the streaming era,” he says, “it looks doubtful that musicians will be able to make much of a living from their recordings given the kind of pittance that trickles down from streaming services after record labels and others have taken their pieces of the pie.”
I respect his point of view, especially because he’s not coming from the mindset of “Woe is me, more like “Woe to the current crop of artists trying to make a living.” When Peter Mensch, who manages Metallica, The Chili Peppers, and Muse, recently slammed Youtube as being A great behemoth he likened to The Devil, people had a hard time figuring out whether he is protecting up and coming artists or his own pocket book. When people criticize the music business in it’s current condition, the public at large is often suspicious if the person speaking has a lot of money.
In Amanda Palmer’s book The Art of Asking, we follow her on an artistic journey from trying to figure out how to make a living as a street performer in Boston Square, where she would perch atop milk cartons in a white wedding dress and hand strangers flowers in exchange for human connection and dollar bills. That “busking” was great training for her future life as a rock and roll musician. She parlayed her talents of songwriting and singing into forming a band called the Dresden Dolls. Yet with all of the success she experienced, she felt hampered by the demands of her record company. She also felt that they didn’t give her the support that she needed. So she turned to her fans, building an online community.
Via Twitter, Facebook, and Emails, Palmer created such a profound connection with her fans that she would often, along with her bandmate, Drummer Brian Viglione, crash at their houses. She built up relationships all across the globe. When she decided to crowdfund her Solo Album on Kickstarter, she broke every record in the book, raising 1.2 million dollars for her album.
Palmer is an example of somebody who has embraced the modern paradigm of the Internet and building her career online. But her secret sauce is the human connection that she builds with her fans. When she needs a favor, she is not afraid to ask- whether she is in the restroom and out of tampons or on Twitter and requesting a trombonist for the next show in Toronto.
I’m not saying that every artist out there needs to be as extroverted as Mrs. Palmer, as I certainly am not either. But even while reading her book, light bulbs were going off in my head about things I could have done differently. Times when I was carrying the whole weight of the world on my shoulders because I was too afraid to ask for help. Times where I just wanted to be “organic” and not rely at all on the Internet, not realizing that a delicate balance could be had.
A few years back I took some classes at UCLA extension regarding the music business. It seemed to me that I had been living in a cave. Tom Sturgess, head of Universal Records, was one of the Professors and he talked about how people complaining about the current state of affairs were similar to people a century ago who were complaining when the refrigerator was invented and put the people carrying ice blocks out of business. I decided that I wanted to “get with the program” and instead of waiting around for money to put out my CD, I took various songs and projects I had been working on, both in studios and lofi home recordings and released 54 tracks as a digital album on CD baby.
They told me there was no limit on tracks so I just went for it. I also realized that all of that music was soon available on Itunes. Now it’s on Spotify too. I figured out ways do A few music videos on the cheap, and one of the keynote speakers of one of the classes, John Lenac, became a contact and ended up putting one of them on Yahoo music, which was a kind of online music channel a few years back. I felt like some kind of whirlwind of momentum was beginning to happen. I had not put out a CD of my own (not counting some other bands I played in as a sideman) since 2003 and yet I felt like I was beginning to make some headway into the online music world. While watching my video at an Apple Store at the Grove, A friendly man struck up a conversation with me. Like many other people in LA, he had been in the music business also. I sort of misjudged him for someone who probably played around town locally until he told me about tours in Japan and playing the Budokan. A large venue in Tokyo. When he said his name was #########, I knew that I had heard his name and it dawned on me I was talking to a former star. He said he didn’t currently own a cell phone or computer. He had been weary of people contacting him. When I talked to him later after I sent him a CD with a bunch of my songs, he said that he may want to cover one of my them, and also that it was a bad idea to release so many at one time.
Although a lot of musicians are currently frustrated with Spotify and the fact that the money you make on it is quite meager in comparison to the amount of plays one can get, I see it more as a promotional tool. And you can see where people are listening to your music. I’ve realized that for some reason my music is way more well received in Europe than America, for instance. How would I have figured out that if I was merely sending CDs back and forth? Also on Youtube I’ve noticed that certain tracks get more play in England than anywhere else. My point is that you can use the information available to you online to figure out where your larger core audiences reside. I feel like this is important also. I guess I’m trying very hard to be an optimist and to see the glass half full instead of half empty. Musicians have to quit thinking that they will get rich because they have released their music onto the world. Even multi-millionaires like Radiohead have a hard time garnering attention and have to figure out new and novel ways to stay on the radar. In my opinion, once you’ve created the music and put it out there, that’s pretty much the easy part.
A songwriter I find myself agreeing with a lot, Ari Herstand, who keeps a music business blog, wrote an interesting article entitled “The future of music income is not in downloading or streaming.” In it, he talks about how even he doesn’t download music anymore, like most of us. He also talks about the fact that even though people will download his music for free, it doesn’t bother him because they still crave products that they can hold. That’s why he believes vinyl is not going away anytime soon. I agree with him, but I believe in pushing it further and creating merchandise that is useful. How about a T shirt you can buy that comes with a free download card? That is the kind of business model I’m interested in looking into. What about a really cool hubcap with your band logo? I feel that artists need to start thinking about the whole thing differently. From what I’ve gathered in my research, I feel that newer musicians need to not look to revenue from streaming. They need to play live, and develop an online presence. The online streaming should be seen as a form of promotion, and essential to their success, but not in the form of immediate revenue- more in the form of attaining promotion for their music which they can leverage into monetization via touring.
I think what was happening for a while is people would look at a band like Led Zeppelin or U2 and believe their band could be like that. If you think about the amount of composers in the world than and now that kind of success is literally one in a billion.I believe in seeing your band more as a small storefront that has to continue staying opened in order to be effective. And part of the way to stay consistently opened and in tune with your customers is by developing an online presence. Does that mean you need to be stuck to your Iphone every minute? No! (Although I should probably join a 12 step program for Iphone addicts.) It means setting aside time in your day in a disciplined way where you manage your career online. Or having somebody who is more savvy in that department to help you with it.
A lot of musicians used to be afraid of selling out their material to commercials or what have you. One way to look at the online aspect of digital marketing is that you can “brand your band” the way you like. If you want to go the environmental route and only sell CD’s in recycled covers, you can do that. You are the A&R and CEO person of your band. And now that I’m on this subject, this goes for writers and visual artists too. We can be our own “Madison Avenue” but instead of building a business that is only enabled to serve it’s bottom line, we can intend a whole different business paradigm for artists- one that relies on the relationship of digital means for promotional duties, to get people in the seats for the artistic and human aspect! Who’s excited! Let’s start…….NOW!