The live music industry is crumbling beneath musicians’ feet, but that does not mean the music business is in trouble. There are still many ways to maintain your creativity and generate revenue while touring is on hold.
The Coronavirus has turned the music industry upside down. In less than a month, virtually every tour and music festival have been canceled, with more postponed. These decisions have left countless artists without tour income they need to survive. That, coupled with the global closure or restriction of most service jobs, have left the global creative industry in dire straits. People are scared, and it’s hard to say when those fears will be alleviated.
No one can magically replace the revenue lost from live events, but the music business is still very much operational. The latest episode of Music Biz hosted by James Shotwell takes a look at what artists can do to maintain their sanity, continue creating, and — hopefully — generate additional revenue.
Don’t let the fear of the moment convince you that hope is lost. The music industry is incredibly resilient, and so is the human spirit. Throughout our history as a species, music has played a significant role in helping us through tough times and celebrations. Music keeps people believing in a better tomorrow, and when the time is right, people will flock to live music once more. Until then, do your best to apply the advice above, and try to take this unprecedented event one day at a time. You cannot control the world around you but you can control your influence on others.
For additional advice on sustaining your career during the Coronavirus outbreak of 2020, please click here and here. If you want examples of these ideas in action, we highly recommend individuals check out our stories on Code Orange and Dropkick Murphys. You should also follow Haulix on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Last week we wrote about Twitter’s continued growth in spite of rumors its importance in pop culture was starting to wane. With this in mind, it only makes sense to offer ways you can improve your Twitter activity.
The video above comes to us from Sunny Stuart Winter, a music marketer he used his time in school to study social media influence, as well as the psychology and sociology of social media behavior. Sunny uses this video to explore the following topics:
– Social media engagement – Why the follow/unfollow trick is terrible – The secret behind growing a following – Advice for the content you share
No matter how good you think you are at using Twitter there is always room for improvement. Don’t be afraid. Get out there and tweet something new!
There is a lot of confusion among young artists today over what exactly it is that labels, managers, and everyone else in a position to help their career are looking for when seeking new talent. Most rock and pop bands believe they need to have strong social media skills, decent sales, and as many tour dates under their belt as possible. This is true, but those three elements are not the only things considered when someone is deciding who to work with next. Rappers, for example, rarely tour before being signed, and most give the bulk of their music away for free through mixtape releases or one-off singles. The return on their investment in creativity may not be recuperated as fast as those who sell their every creation, but it does allow for rappers to share part of themselves with a digital audience that many bands and performers from other genres never manage. Still, what is the value of a following if those who believe in you most are not willing to financially back your art?
In 2016, the best way to establish yourself in a way that attracts people who have the power to take your career to the next level is to offer what is often referred to as ‘the complete package.’ The definition for this ‘package’ can vary greatly from genre to genre, but the core elements remain the same. You need a strong online presence, of course, as well as a sizable following from people who are promoting your work without you having to ask them to do so every other day. You need people to hunger for your next move, and when you take that step you should be controlling the development of whatever comes next from the ground up. If you’re making a video, you should develop the idea and find a team to make it a reality. If you’re going on tour, you should design promotional materials to help spread the word. You also need to know how and where your music fits into the greater entertainment industry. Do you know what your audience looks like? Where do they live? Do they buy albums, or just singles? Do they prefer streaming music over purchasing physical products? Knowing this will not only make you more likely to succeed, but it will also enable you to better connect with those who support you most.
To further illustrate this point, let’s take a quick look at one up and coming independent artist who is poised for international stardom solely because of his relentless work ethic. Cousin Stizz is a twenty-four year old rapper from Boston with one mixtape to his name and a recent digital single (“Super Bowl”) that has received coverage all over the hip-hop blogosphere. Though his presence in the rap world has only been known outside his hometown for under two years Stizz has already attracted a large online following thanks to a combination of quality material, free downloads, constant interaction with listeners on social media, live performances, and, perhaps most notably, incredibly high quality music videos that showcase both his talent and his personality in ways simply hearing his art can never achieve. Take a look at his recent video for “No Bells,” which finds Stizz exploring his hometown with his crew while rapping along to the popular Suffolk County mixtape cut:
This is a video created by an artist who has surrounded himself with similarly driven people who understand the value of quality content. For the sake of comparison, here is a video from Future, one of the biggest rappers in music today, which was released around the same time as the clip for “No Bells”:
If I hadn’t already told you Cousin Stizz was an independent artist and that Future was a Billboard hitmaker, could you tell the difference when watching these clips? Probably not.
The same comparison could be made between any track Cousin Stizz has released and any hit from today’s rap heavyweights. Quality control is key to Stizz, and he does everything in his power to ensure he only delivers the best music he is able to create. From there, Stizz promotes his art with high quality visuals, as well as cover art, and a steady, but not overwhelming flow of promotional messaging through social networks. More often than not, fans that hear or see his art tweet about it themselves, and Stizz makes it a point to retweet those promoting his work so that he doesn’t need to sell his art himself. Why should he? Stizz may know his music better than anyone else, but he also understands that word of mouth is perhaps the most powerful tool in new music discovery. It’s far easier for your friend to get you to check out something new than it is for the unknown creator of that thing to get your attention. Stizz puts in his work up front, and the reaction from his audiences dictates how his creations are promoted moving forward.
Any industry pro looking for new artists to work with would be a fool to not consider Cousin Stizz because he, somewhat ironically, doesn’t appear to need help at this point in his career. From an outsider’s point of view, Stizz is able to create quality music and videos, receive coverage from essentially all major music outlets covering his genre, book shows across the US, and have his every move promoted, celebrated, or otherwise discussed by a wide array of rap fans on the internet. Cousin Stizz has found a way to establish himself as a reliable brand in a world of artists who often struggle with consistency, and that speaks volumes to anyone in a position of power. With the industry being as cutthroat as it is, most of the so-called ‘gatekeepers’ of the industry are looking for talent that, if anything, merely need more money to better do what they are already doing on their own. It’s not about changing or improving who an artist is, but rather empowering them to be a better version of who they already are. Cousin Stizz is ready for the big leagues, and his body of work, as well as his promotional strategy, tell us that without him having to open his mouth.
You might be not be a rapper, but there are lessons you can learn from the hustle of Cousin Stizz. First and foremost, quality is everything. You can release singles, an album, or even five albums over the course of a year, but if your quality is not consistent you will quickly see a diminishing return on time spent. The digital age has lead us to believe everyone needs to be making something new all the time, but that isn’t necessarily true in music. The artists who succeed most often are those who put as much time, focus, and effort possible into each new step they take. Be it a tour, recording new material, shooting videos, designing promotional materials, or even writing tweets, quality and honesty are everything. Be real about who you are and what you want, share those ideas with the world in the most creative way you can imagine, and then engage with those who connect with what you’ve released. Leverage their belief in what you’re doing to convert more to your art, and in time you will have an army behind you that every label, manager, publicists, and booking agent cannot deny. You don’t have to accept their offers for help, but at least you’ll know they are available and that you’re on the right path with your career.
James Shotwell is the Digital Marketing Manager for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him onTwitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the latest edition of our long-running Journalism Tips series. We started this column as a way to help aspiring writers get their start in music, but over the couple months we have been evolving into a place writers come to have their questions about life in the business answered. This entry was created in regards to a question we found on a journalism forum earlier this week, and we think the solution could very well keep many young writers from inadvertently becoming the source of a future music leak.
This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
As we mentioned above, this specific column came to life after a forum post was brought to our attention earlier this week. The message read:
“Okay…. I just want to make sure I’m not making some rookie mistake. When I get haulix invites or private links, I forward it to my writer depending on their tastes, yeah? Obviously, you’re not supposed to share the invite, and my writers sign a disclaimer about not sharing music and if they do it’s on them, but surely they don’t mean "do not forward this to a writer?” I just ask because I got Finch’s album from razor and tie and she asked me to please not share it. I would never do that outside of sharing it with ONE writer that is writing the review.”
This is not an uncommon question, and to be honest we are kind of glad someone brought this post to our attention as it provides the perfect opportunity to address this concern on a large scale.
To put it the simplest terms possible: You should never share a Haulix promo. There is messaging included with every promo sent out that informs recipients their promos are not to be shared, but there are many who do not follow this request. By sharing Haulix promos you are not only breaking the trust of the label/publicist who sent you that material, but you are also putting yourself in a position to face severe legal repercussions should that material find its way onto the internet.
Most promos sent from Haulix are injected with numerous watermarks that not only identify the original recipient, but also the geo-locations of every person who accesses the respective promo. You should check each promo you receive to know whether or not that particular advance has a watermark. If you share your watermarked promo with someone, and that person later leaks the material online, our tools will point to you as the person responsible for the piracy. You may not have leaked the album yourself, but because the record was entrusted to you it is your responsibility to ensure it is not made available for public consumption. Should that occur, any legal action taken to recoup lost profits will be made against you and not the friend who you allowed to enjoy your advance.
To better explain what happens when an album leaks, we asked Rey Roldan of Another Reybee Production to share some of his experience with piracy:
“A blogger who is part of this site once sent a download of a band I was working with to two writers. One of his writers leaked the album (it was a very highly coveted advance). When we traced it back, we found his watermark. Label, management, band and I were thisclose to taking this a step further in the legal direction. While the writer was responsible for the leak, said "blogger” was ultimately responsible because he breached the contract (I often tick off the “watermark warning” with writers who I am unsure of, just as an extra warning). We got very close to making it legal but we opted to re-strategize and move forward.
I know some editors pass round links designated for them and it sucks. I usually often tell editors that if they are assigning a writer, give me their email address so I can get them their own watermarked music. To be honest, do YOU trust your writers to NOT leak music? If they did leak it, do you want to be legally and professionally responsible for that because YOUR watermark is on that music? God forbid, you pass your streak or download to a writer who inadvertently leaks it, do you want to become that industry pariah?
The music industry is really pretty tiny… Make the wrong move and it can follow you… Be smart about this… Request a link for anyone who is reviewing it for you. Don’t take the fall for anyone because it can happen a LOT easier than you think.”
Some sites may believe an easy solution to this problem is to have one email dedicated to receiving promos that every contributor can access. This may work at first, but should any member of your staff leave the site it is of the utmost importance you change both your email password, as well as your 4-digit Haulix passcode. That way, if they have a promo link and/or access to a promo, they can’t get to ***all**** promos, because they won’t know the passcode.
Likewise, if you allow writers to reach out to publicists on their own and one of your writers decides to leave your site, make sure you inform all publicists the writer has left and is no longer a part of your writing team. If not, that person may continue to receive advances that are linked to your site. Should something happen to those files, it may come back to you.
The best thing you can do to protect yourself and the reputation of your site is to first do a good job vetting your writing staff. Make sure you trust everyone you send releases to not only as writers, but as professionals in the industry. If you would not trust a writer to contact a label directly you might not want them handling advance releases.
Haulix has no say in what happens to individuals caught sharing watermarked materials. We are simply a middle man between journalists and labels. It’s up to our customers to handle the situation how they see fit.
Additionally, you should ALWAYS request additional promos if someone other than you will be reviewing material you have been sent. It may seem like this complicates or otherwise draws out the assignment process, but publicists would rather know who is in possession of their music than have less work to do. For example, let’s say I send you, a blog owner, a copy of my client’s album for your site. You receive the promo, pass it off to a writers, and several days later send me a link to a review of my client’s album written by someone who is not you. Who is this third party? How did they get the watermarked music I sent you? Are they someone I can trust? I have a million questions about this anonymous person. In fact, I may not want to send you another advance if I think you’re going to pass it off to more people I do not know.
It’s easy to understand why forwarding promos seems like a quick solution to the issue of how to get advances from one person to another, but actually taking part in such efforts puts you, your reputation, the livelihood of your site, and possibly even the reputations of your contributors at risk. It takes less than a minute to request additional promos, and doing so keeps you out of trouble.
Don’t risk a leak just to save time. It’s just not worth it.
