I made this post some weeks ago about how the world is ruled by hype and marketing, how it shapes the perception of the masses into accepting that an artist (singer, writer, actor, etc) is really great.
With all I wrote there I think I didn't delve deep into the logic and hows of the whole thing and that's what I'm going to do with this post today.
A true breakdown of the hows and logic behind turning the greats into products in order for them to be great, is what I mean.
Now say a person is a singer, the way for them to achieve greatness is by being heard by as many people as possible, perceived by as many people as possible as being a great singer, winning awards and selling millions or billions of records.
They can try to achieve this on the back of their talents alone by singing great music and hoping the few who hear them love them enough to show them to other people either by playing their songs a lot or by telling others hey here is this new great singer.
Or they can get signed by a record label who would do the work of marketing for them.
The record label or whatever form of establishment that signs singers are the ones who turn them into products in order to make profits. When an artist is signed, what happens is that those who sign the artist have a deal with the artist to promote the artist and help them out with their music in return for profit.
It could be agreed that the label/signers take 90% of whatever the artist makes from them on, and sometimes it is more than 90%. Artists make these deals because they would now have the chance to make more money than they could ever dream of making on their own.
Say they were singing and trying to get people to hear them on their own they could be making say $50,000 a year, but when they get signed they start making say $15million a year. That's where you want to be. When signed you can go from selling 100s of records to millions of records! All cos you were signed.
And this is how the labels/signers do it for the artist:
They give the artist the best studio and equipments money can buy. They get him the best producers, beat makers, songwriters, etc. They pay for great videos to be made for their songs, and they pay other famous singers to collaborate with the artist.
With all of these you can see that the artist would most likely make better music and the chances of being loved by the public increases exponentially!
The label also make better deals with music distributors to take the singer's music and sell them in further places than the artist could have dreamt of selling on his own.
Then the label pay the radio and TV stations to put the singer's song on repeat. When people hear the song the first time they probably think it is trash/the worst song they've ever heard in their lives. But when the hear it repeatedly for the next one month their brains and body accepts the music and start vibing to it and loving the singer. If they loved the song the first time they heard it then after a month of repetition their love for it would be even wilder!
If everyone doesn't fall for this at least a good percentage of people would fall for it and those who fall would play the song a lot and make others who didn't really like it in the first place to love it more. Or at least the ones who didn't fall wouldn't say "nah, that's a bad song no one likes it".
Next, the label would pay blogs and those who talk about music to talk about this new artist and his new song. When they're all talking about him the masses would feel like he is more worthy of their attentive because all the talkers who matter are talking about this guy. The singer would immediately be granted status because nonentities don't get talked about by blogs and media hosts.
What's left? AWARDS! The label start paying award organizers to give their singer and award or at least nominate them for the award. This would give them even more status and make the masses pay even more attention to the singer.
All of these would translate into more money from the singer. His songs would begin to get more plays because he is now regarded as worthy, thanks to all of these moves. And this is why the label signed him: to make money!
The 100s of millions he starts making after all of these, remember the label takes 90% or whatever they agreed on in the first place. That's great business.
In the process of all of these, though, the singer now becomes known as one of the greatest men to live, not really because of their talents, their talents were great, though; but mainly because of all that was invested into making them profitable.
This entire process is something anyone can do, it's all about having as much money or connection as a label. Money alone could do it because if the connection is lacking you can simply pay any of these people directly if you can make them a good offer.
This is all the same as pulling money together and putting it in real estate or any venture you hope to make profit from. All of these workings, you know you get the dividends back when your singer starts selling more due to the new status you've bought him, just like any other venture, isn't it? 😀
The End
All Art Used Created by Myself
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