Attempting to cover the moment we are in right now is more difficult than most understand. Things are happening on a minute to minute basis across social media, and the demand for a steady stream of content often takes priority over time that would normally be reserved for research and content development.
With the way the industry works today writers are expected to churn out reviews and coverage at a rate never before experienced to an audience that increasingly lacks the time and attention span to consume it. Regardless, the formula for success in music writing remains the same:
To win readers and earn subscribers you need timely, in depth content that is thoughtful and well-prepared. Have a point a view and share it through facts, imagery, and video (whenever possible).
Balancing the demands of your audience with you needs as a creative is one of the more difficult parts of writing. One path to success, which few seem to recognize, is the fact no one ever told us we could only cover something once. If you have more information to share, or if you opinion on something has changed because you have a new understanding of the art, then share it.
All great writing inspires conversations, and the thing about great conversations is that they are rarely one and done. If you meet someone you can converse with over a shared interest you tend to talk about that thing again and again until you find something new to talk about. The same goes for your relationship with readers. They have followed your work because they like the things you like, so why would you hesitate to continue having any one conversation with them? Follow the story, share the experience.
For example:
If you reviewed the new Kendrick Lamar record last week, but this week you find yourself fixated on one track you feel needs further expiration, write about it.
If you have been following the big local band in your area on their rise through the underground whenever they have news, but right now they are just playing shows – cover the shows. Write about the scene and how they influence it. Take us deeper into their world and through doing so make us want to be a part of it ourselves.
If you are feeling passionate about anything then you need to find a way to write about it again and again until you have nothing left to say. When that happens you wait until they do something new or you learn to see things differently and begin all over again.
Furthermore, the more you cover an artist the more likely it is that they and the people who represent them will take notice of your work. This could lead to additional opportunities, not to mention the chance that person or their team shares your work through official channels.
The sole risk in writing about something more than once is diminishing returns, which only arises in situations where supplementary articles are not as thought out or researched as what came before. Maintain consistency and you can cover anything you want as often as you want.
In closing: Be thorough and be yourself, always.
James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also the host of the Inside Music podcast and a ten-year veteran of the music industry. Follow James on Twitter for hot takes on pop culture and photos of his pets.
Never underestimate how fast the world can change. The move from home phones to cell phones, to smart phones took less than twenty years. Our primary means of consuming news changed from print to digital in what is ultimately the blink of an eye as far as the history books are concerned. Heck, less than a hundred years ago it took week for a message to be sent from one country to the next, but now in the digital age we can send mail to space and back again within seconds.
Music is no different. Columbia Records, the oldest label in the world, launched in 1887. In less than 150 years the industry has undergone more evolutions than anyone can count, changing much faster than most realize. Within the 60 years you could have recorded a single and drove it from radio station to radio station in hopes of getting it played. Today you need an entire team of people who understand radio to even have your song considered.
And let’s not even deep dive the changes in music journalism. The image most carry of a young writer rubbing shoulders with their rock idols a la Almost Famous is a thing of the distant past. Today’s writers are more often than not laptop junkies who maintain a healthy photography hobby on the side (or they’re photography junkies with a writing hobby – it’s 50/50) who make next to nothing writing articles read by anywhere from tens of people to millions. Every one of them is constantly searching for the next original thought or undiscovered gem that might catapult them a bit further into the arena of those who actually get paid to write about music.
While I encourage you to always keep your passion for the next big story strong, it’s important to know that as much as things seem to change there is a lot that remains the same. One of those things is playlists, and in the digital age it is easier than ever to cultivate and engage with a community through playlist curation. In fact, the Music Business Association recently called playlists ‘more popular than the album.’ Ouch.
The biggest problem you’re going to face when deciding to integrate weekly playlists into your writing is deciding which one of the big four streaming companies are you going to build your content on. Spotify has the largest share of the market by a vast margin at the moment, but Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon each have millions of monthly subscribers. Ask your readers what they use and follow their lead.
As for the playlists themselves, the easy access to most music throughout modern history makes gathering simpler than most daily chores, which is all the reason you need to create as many playlists as your mind and collaborators can imagine. At the very least you should be creating weekly discovery playlists based on the coverage you plan to run. Take all the reviews and editorials you’ve got lined up and channel them into an eclectic collection of sound to help further promote the focus of your work. In doing so you’ll not only better engage your audience, but you’ll also make a lot of publicists and independent artists very happy.
But you should never do the bare minimum unless it’s absolutely necessary. Get creative. When the possibilities are endless you can be both extremely niche and shamelessly generic at the same time. Collect the 25 best love songs of the last 25 years right alongside a list of every song played during a car chase in a Fast and Furious film. Invite musicians, industry professionals, actors, and anyone else of interest to create playlists for your audience, and use those playlists to promote any coverage of that artist person you have on your site.
In an age where the options for consuming news and entertainment are endless the best tactic for reaching consumers is to play into their own interests and behaviors. People are more likely to start their day with music than a quick search of your latest blog posts, so take your brand and focus to them through the streaming playlist curation. If you can establish yourself as a great playlist curator people will seek out your other work. You can even add links to the description that promotes specific content on your site.
It has never been easier to showcase your taste than it is now, so quit hoping you 1000-word discovery of the week essay will get a million reads and build me a list of every song and artist my life is missing.
James Shotwell is the Digital Marketing Coordinator at Haulix. He is also the Film Editor for Substream Magazine and the host of the Inside Music Podcast. If you enjoyed the words above James would like you to follow him on Twitter.
In my decade of experience in music writing I have found that contributors, especially those working for little to no money, are incredibly flexible as business professionals. The way people are able to find the energy to create brilliant observations before or after committing their time to a job or other interests that often provide much more fruitful returns is something that has never ceased to amaze me. Your favorite writer has probably been one of these people at one or more point in their life, scraping together whatever they can from the volumes of work they create in hopes of one day finding regular pay that is good enough to support themselves (or, for the real dreamers, a family). I know I’ve been there my fair share of times, and I am almost certain I will find myself there again before my time in this business has come to an end.
While it is true most contributors are able to put up with a lot when it comes to developing their careers in this business, the one thing no one has time for are false promises of payment that never result in writers actually being paid. This goes for everyone in writing, by the way, and not just those who have only recently begun their journey in music. Publications of all sizes have been called out online by frustrated writers looking to be given the compensation they were promised for words already written, but despite a consistent outcry from writers everywhere the amount of hurdles that often need to be left over in order to actually see the money owed to a writer can be substantial.
And make no mistake: Writers understand that finding money to pay for creative writing is harder and harder to come by in the modern age. Social media and the splintering of consumer behavior in regards to new consumption in the digital age has created hundreds of niche audiences that are served by a wide variety of sites and blogs who are all competitions for the same shares of an often quite small market. The only publications able to make real money are those who are able to cultivate a community around their content offerings, and even then convincing a major brand to advertise takes business skills few in the world of music journalism possess. Still, we (contributors) need to be paid.
When you promise to pay a writer, or even better sign a contract guaranteeing payment, it is your responsibility to make good on that deal. Not when it’s convenient. Not after they have asked for it for weeks or months on end with little to no response. You need to pay them when you agreed to pay them, and if some reason that is beyond your means you need to be open with them about this fact. You may have other bills and costs piling up, but a deal is a deal. You need contributors as much, if not more, than they need you, and rest assured they will be vocal about any wrong doing on your part. There may be thousands of aspiring writers in the world, but only a couple hundred are doing it in any real capacity, the cream of the crop – the ones who really matter and maintain some semblance of influence in a time where ‘everyone’ has been given a voice online – only work for the places that make good on promises. They not only talk to one another, but they have an audience of writers at every level following their every thought on Twitter.
It’s simple: You are trying to build something – a site, zine, magazine, etc. – and you are looking to others to help you accomplish that goal. Bringing on writers is no different than hiring on a construction crew. Both work when the money is good, and they stop when it’s not. Make good on your agreements and everything will be fine.
People are not machines. This may seem obvious on paper, but it’s a bit harder to discern when applied to real life. Many people feel they are put on this Earth to do one very specific thing, and every morning they set to doing that one thing over and over, again and again, until they whither and die. If they’re an accountant, they account. If they’re a teacher, they teach. Like machines, these people feel the only have one task and that is the only task they set to do. While this method of living may work in some careers, it is a recipe for disaster, or at the very least lethargy, when it comes to the creative arts. Whether you’re a writer, artist, poet, musician, filmmaker, or working under some experimental title I don’t even know exists just yet, variety is key to your success, and not just in the work you do. Let me explain:
A toaster’s sole purpose is to toast, and in order to do this it needs electricity. You can toast anything you can fit into your toaster, but virtually every toaster on this planet only functions if it has power provided through an electrical. There is no variety in the diet of your toaster. It needs one thing and one thing only to work. If you try and run your toaster of something else, like water or wind, you’re not going to toast anything anytime soon.
People are not toasters, or any other machine for that matter because we cannot rely on a single source of any kind to survive. We need a variety of foods in order to gain energy, just like we need a variety of influences in order to feel consistently inspired. We all have our go-to foods and sources of inspiration, but if we only rely on those things our palettes will tell us they have grown stale in a very short matter of time.
The same idea also applies to writing: If all you do day in and day out is write about the same thing the same way your creative drive will stall long before it should. If you’re a pop-punk critic who only listens to pop-punk your ability to denote the small differences between various artists will abound, but after several months or maybe even years you will find yourself becoming increasingly burnt out on the genre that once felt like your musical home. This is because all great writing, and by that I mean everything from criticism to novel writing, thrives on original ideas born from a variety of life experiences. Writing solely about pop-punk is perfectly acceptable, but if the only thing you’re putting into your ears is the sound of three chords and gang vocals your mind and body will begin to hate the idea of continuing to rely on that musical diet. You brain can only take so much of the same input before it stops responding as it typically would, and the only way to prevent that from happening is by diversifying your musical and/or entertainment palette.
It’s important to remember when you find yourself stuck on a creative plateau that literally every other person who has tried to create something from nothing has found themselves in the exact same place. Creativity stems from original thought, and those are born from your personal experiences, including all the media you consume throughout the day. Your creativity needs nourishment just like your body, and it can only survive on a single source for so long before it begins to breakdown. The responsibility to prevent that from happening rests entirely on your shoulders, and that is something you should never take for granted. We live in a big, beautiful world of creativity, and you owe it to your own career to experience as much of it as possible. So next time you’re feeling down, stuck, or otherwise lethargic toward your passion, step outside your comfort zone and take in something radically different. Truth be told you might not like what you find, but even if that is the case you will walk away with a new influence and a bevy of new ideas born out of what you have just experience. In those ideas you might find your next big move, and if not at least you’ll have a new story to share with those around you.
Life is short. Take my advice and experience as much of it as possible.
They say best way to learn about the realities of life in the music business is by talking to the people who spend each and every day working in music, so that’s what we did for this piece of content. The following tips and tricks were pulled from a music writing group on Facebook that boasts over 1200 members who write about everything from punk to hip-hop, grunge, metal, pop, country, and any niche genre in between. We posed a question to the group earlier this week seeking the best single piece of advice anyone had received, and we’ve collected our favorite replies for you to enjoy:
“Find your own voice.” – M.J. Rawls, Mind Equals Blown
“Take risks and stop worrying what others think (within reason)” – Jordan Mohler, Kill The Music
“Sometimes you have to say no to the “maybes” so you have time to say yes to the “sure things.” – Josh Hammond, PunkOut
“Don’t ask anything you can Google.” – Alyson Stokes, Alternative Press
“Musicians are people, not gods.” – Joseph Tucker, The LP Collective
“Be true to yourself. If you don’t like something, either write nothing, or be ready for backlash.” – Alison Toon, Toon’s Tunes
“Don’t just write about one genre or you’ll get pigeon-holed.” – Sareth Ney, Examiner
“Ride the highs and remember them during the lows.” – Bill Knowlton, WeLoveMetal
“Give honest feedback. Artists hate being told "it’s so good!” They want constructive criticism so they have a direction to grow in.” – Jessie Frary, Vinyl Mag
“Be consistent. If you want to succeed, especially if you own your own press outlet, you have to commit yourself to keeping a constant flow of content releasing.” – Joshua Weidling, Digital Tour Bus
“Write about music that you think is worth writing about” – Molly Louise Hudelson, Circles & Soundwaves
“Be patient. This is something I still struggle with but sometimes you just have to be patient with things, whether its a press request, waiting on a writer to finish up a piece, or anything else.” – James Boss, Babetalk
“Don’t pander. The very first time I posted something on the Babetalk Facebook, I was trying too hard to be cool and bouncy. I was trying too hard to “internet speak” (I called All Time Low “pop punkers”). And when we started sharing the post, people in our target Facebook groups definitely took notice. It made me realize that your audience is smarter than you think, and if you’re just honest in your writing and engaging naturally, your audience will come, you don’t have to pander to them to bait them in.” – Carly Rios, Babetalk
“Do it for yourself and have fun. Don’t do this just to be “cool” or “to get hot guys or hot chicks”. That sounds so fucking stupid, but you would be surprised by the amount of people who have that mentality after they interview a few bigger bands like they are celebrities or gods.” – Patrick Walford, Rock The Walls / idobi
“Just do it. Thanks, Shia” – Kyle Gaddo, Save/Continue
Our pal Gary Suarez developed a great exercise for music writers in early 2015 that has since been resurrected for February 2016. We plan to participate and hope the rest of you will as well. Here are the rules:
Each day in February, listen to 1 full album you’ve never heard, from start to finish. Once complete, write one tweet about the album you just heard and tag it with #MWE so others can follow your efforts.
You can choose any album you wish, but if you’re stumped please do not hesitate to ask us and other for recommendations. In fact, we may post some on here just in case.
The following guest blog was written by up and coming rapper Marco Pavé.
What does music mean to you? According to Huffington Post writer Selena May Santos and participants of her 2013 survey music is far more important than meets the eye, or better yet, the ear. One anonymous participant responded with, “Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.“ For me, music is a means to discuss issues that you have experienced or have heard others experience. There’s always a lesson in every song, even if the writer wasn’t explicitly trying to teach that lesson. For example, the singer/songwriter, rapper, modern-day blues man—Future. Who recently was quoted saying, “Yeah because I feel like that’s the number one thing everybody likes to talk about. It’s a catch,” after an interviewer asked him, why he portrays himself as a drug addict. For me as person who knows numerous people who have some form of drug addiction, this is jarring for me. Not because I think that he is making people want to do drugs (even though there are kids that are going to experiment with drugs because, future), but because drug addiction, or any addiction for that matter is a serious issue in communities around the country.
Artists need to be a bit more socially conscious, and no I am not saying that everyone needs to make a heal the world song, I’m just saying think about the message that you are sending and have a better fucking answer to why you’re sending said message than, “it’s a catch.” It’s not a catch when teens are being admitted into rehab for prescription pain medication overdoses. It’s not a catch when father pawns his kid’s bikes to get money for his next fix. It’s not a catch, period. Some may disagree, and say that it’s fine for it to be a catch, but the fact that we do have so many artists who have overdosed on drugs and who are currently addicted he walks a fine line between being a straight up sell out and a liar (maybe he is actually addicted and is trying to backtrack now that we are catching on).
To me being a socially conscious artist doesn’t take much, I believe 100 percent that Future’s music is already socially conscious. Okay, before you call me a hypocrite, let me finish. He is using his music and his brand as an artist to talk about all the problems of being a drug addict. He is also walking the line of having a shit load of survivor’s guilt– he made it from a crazy place and now he’s a multi-millionaire, it takes tremendous strength to handle all that emotionally. His music is very socially conscious it features everything from, drugs addiction, to hyper-sexuality, to misogyny, and the occasional person (groupie) with ulterior motives, these are all social issues. But what makes him not a socially conscious artists, is future outside the studio, in an interview where he can say, speaking someone’s truth is “a catch.” Even if he is playing a character, as any novice acting coach can tell you, “NEVER, break character.” When he stated that it was a catch, he stopped being a social conscious artist that is aware of people pains and is going through, or at least pretending to be going through similar pains, and became a sellout, because this means that he is only making music about drugs because it sells and not because he is thinking about the social effects of drugs and addiction.
In 2016, artists don’t have to make the next “We are the world,” they don’t have to enlist the help of all the neighborhood kids like Nas in, “I Know I Can,” they don’t even have to donate to charities and start foundations, they just need to be more aware of their messages and how they are socially affecting people. Jay-Z, one of the notorious know drug dealing rappers in hip-hop history once said “As a youngin, dumb and, gun in the waist / Sold crack to those who couldn’t take the pain and had to numb it with base.” But when asked about the repeated mention of drugs and crack in his music in 2013 by a reporter with Vanity Fair Jay-Z said, "There wasn’t any place you could go for isolation or a break. You go in the hallway; [there are] crackheads in the hallway. You look out in the puddles on the curbs—crack vials are littered in the side of the curbs. You could smell it in the hallways, that putrid smell; I can’t explain it, but it’s still in my mind when I think about it.” That’s socially conscious, we can tell that even through all the fucked up things that Jay-Z had to do he still has a heart and he fells pain just like any of us. Being a socially conscious artist doesn’t mean that you play holier than thou, it just means that you don’t make a mockery of people who are dealing with issues that you are rapping or singing about, even if it is just a catch.
The following editorial comes from aspiring music professional Emma Guido.
As that soap opera comes to a commercial break, the TV screen lights up with the Pepsi logo and a familiar, yet slightly off-putting sound engages with the advertisement. It’s the Foo Fighters. The new Fall Out Boy album came out this week, but when it blares on the radio, it sounds like a debut pop star’s newest hit. The passionate subculture of music fans, the group outside of society’s mainstream radio listeners, can’t help but ask themselves, “What’s going on?” The dramatic and infamous words “sell out” have haunted the rock music community for years in its days of intense solidarity and common purpose. The intention of art for its pure enjoyment and appreciation was simple for these musicians to live off of. Anything else was selfish and greedy. “This suggests that, once artists become successful, no matter what their prior beliefs were regarding making money from music, they become very concerned about it. In the impression of some, they ‘sell out’” (Gans). The stigma associated with “selling out” left artists at a loss for how to approach their music career. However, times have changed and opinions are swaying. The question of an artist’s integrity in the issue of selling out is a conversation of the fans and music community, however a lack of understanding of the industry’s atmosphere can blur perspective. The new wave of piracy, streaming services, and other listening platforms highlights a gap in pocket that used to flourish with money. The very low income that highly successful musicians have been getting is proof that the lack of profit in one area of the industry needs to be compensated elsewhere. As these changing commercial opportunities enter the music industry, today’s musicians need these ways of income in order to survive as a culture, and the remaining cries of “selling out” are left to bitter fans who are trying to resist their own subculture’s means of survival.
At one time, the thought of altering style for mainstream engagement or advertising with Pepsi was infuriating to the subculture of music fans; those “sell outs” made their art for their own income and not for the meaning of rock and roll. This opinion holds strong even for many older artists, like Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel, who stated iIn Tom Hawking’s article on the issue of “selling out,””, “They’ve taken the music of my generation, and all this music I treasured so much and they’ve associated it entirely with selling and I actually really deeply resent it… The fact that the culture is co-opted and made to be entirely about money, that’s what I resent most of all.”. This statement assumes that a commercial use of his treasured music is strictly used as a method to sell an item or brand, stripping the song of any greater value or integrity. However, the fact that this song is being broadcasted to mainstream audiences, or the dominant culture, can be a sign of appreciation over appropriation. He is leaving out any argument for the significance of the subculture’s exposure to this group and how the artist can benefit from it. The belief that the culture of music has been corrupted by the industry and the desire for money is what rock and roll fans mean thrive off of when they use the term “sell out.””. It is a call for resistance against the interaction between mainstream society and their sacred subculture that lacks full and proper understanding. Long time musician Henry Rollins stated, “I wonder if it ever occurred to people that the reason the music of these interesting and alternative bands is being recruited [for advertisements] is because their fans are now the ones calling the shots. In other words, we have arrived.” This begs the question of the real issue at hand; the music subculture supporting these bands are not as concerned about how they are making money, but of their ownership of the band’s music once it reaches mainstream audiences. The moment that their culture collides with a hit radio channel or mainstream brands on the television screen, it creates a “contact zone” (Pratt) that this subculture is uncomfortable with facing. In her text Arts of the Contact Zone, Mary Louise Pratt explains this conflict: “The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done in the academy” (525). In the eyes of the diehard music fans who have lived by the rules of rock and roll, this exposure of their treasured culture to mainstream audiences is immediately assumed to be a shocking sign of betrayal to what they have loved about the music. Calling these adaptive musicians “sell outs” is the community’s way of dissociating themselves from a changing culture; it’s an act of resistance serving as an attempt to survive without surviving.
The subculture of rock music has immense ties to itstheir past; the values of integrity and respect are highly regarded and the intensity of their feelings towards the art they commonly admire has formed into camaraderie and loyalty like no other. “A generation ago, refusing these kinds of offers was a way for bands to telegraph where they stood, the sort of thing that showed their allegiance to the underground and their community” (Hopper). This attitude they have towards their ownership of the culture results in their strict cultural mediation of it. Pratt describes this as “ways for people to engage with suppressed aspects of history (including their own histories), ways to move into and out of rhetorics of authenticity; ground rules for communication across lines of difference and hierarchy that go beyond politeness but maintain mutual respect; a systematic approach to the all-important concept of cultural mediation” (529). Their culture’s exposure to the mainstream audiences that they have nothing in common with is against everything they believed they had the power to control and maintain. With this in mind, it seems to be evident that the issue of “selling out” is from the use of the term itself. The subculture tries to mediate what the mainstream gets to have exposure to by making that part of their culture no longer a part of their community anymore, otherwise calling them a “sell out.””. As Duncombe explains in his text, “Ccultural resistance can also be seen as an escape from politics and a way to release discontent that might otherwise be expressed through political activity” (161). The music community is discontent over the ways their favorite musicians, and leaders of their culture, are using their art as their career, and and therefore acting against their decisions by verbally casting them from the culture with a term like “sell out”. Though a sense of betrayal is common for the subculture’s group when their favorite musician takes a turn towards mainstream audiences, the contact zone that comes of “selling out” provides cultural insight and critical adaptation for musical communities. Though the protective and headstrong nature of the music community is commendable and an important part of its presence in today’s society, ignorance towards the realities of the music industry can poison their own purpose.
As a group that takes and appreciates art for what it is, the music subculture relies on their head, the musician, to take a stand for them through this art. However, the fans live in a one sided world of passion, whereas the musician needs to balance their passion and their business behind it. Because of this, the leaders of these communities and the communities themselves can never be on the same page. The music industry has massively changed since rock and roll ruled the world; the new forms of music consumption haves left most musicians struggling to make money, and therefore struggling to keep their art alive in their culture. Author of the scholarly article “"Selling Out" and the impact of music piracy on artist entry,””, Joshua S. Gans, analyzes how music piracy and less lucrative, or anti-artist, platforms affect the ways musicians format their business, stating that “this decline in revenue may be associated with a decline in costs as well as a diminished role for publishers. Consequently, the relevant welfare issue is whether there has been a reduction in the supply of quality music or the entry of artists” (Gans). This suggests the near fatal position that the culture of music is in, due to a lack of care for the art. The musicians who do care, and their fans that have the same passion, need to be financially supported by outside sources like advertisements to keep the cultural spirit of music in tact. In the Buzzfeed article, “How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock” (2013), author Jessica Hopper, consistent contributor to Buzzfeed, asserts that the change of income in the music industry forces its musicians to “sell out” and suggests that the blind accusations from the fan community is not grasping how this act of resistance is harmful to their culture. She talks with indie artists Tegan and Sara about their recent search for the right brands to represent: “‘A tiny sliver of bands are doing well,’ says the duo’s Sara Quin. ‘The rest of us are just middle class, looking for a way to break through that glass ceiling. The second ‘Closer’ got Top 40 radio play, we were involved in meetings with radio and marketing people who said, ‘The next step is getting a commercial.’ I can see why some bands might find that grotesque, but it’s part of the business now’” (Hopper). She supports this claim by comparing and contrasting the values of rock culture in the past and present, presenting facts about the current changes in the music industry, and evoking ethos from interviews with real, surviving musicians of the industry. Hopper’s purpose is to provide readers with an understanding of how “selling out” is today’s musicians’ way of survival in order to diminish the sting of the infamous term. Because of the author’s sincere and fair minded tone, she writes for an audience who are uneducated on the topic, yet open to learn more about the reality behind their own culture. Selling their music to successful advertisements and reaching bigger audiences needs to be the goal for musicians at this time in the music industry if they want to stay relevant.
In any career where the identity and presentation of a person is important to their success, accusations of “selling out” are just a part of the job. The profitable changes in the music industry forces musicians to craft a “commodified persona” (Bunten), in which they balance their integrity with marketability. In the scholarly article, “Sharing Culture or Selling Out? Developing the Commodified Persona in the Heritage Industry” (2008), author Alexis Celeste Bunten, senior researcher with the FrameWorks Institute, asserts that the self-commodification of tour guides is rather a way of sharing and interpreting a culture than selling it out, and does this with her specific created terms like “commodified persona.” Bunten appears to write in hopes of explaining the intentions of people within the industry to the people outside of it. Her ideas parallel the similar issue in the music industry. “Self-commodification can be broadly defined as a set of beliefs and practices in which an individual chooses to construct a marketable identity product while striving to avoid alienating him- or herself” (Bunten). A music career strives on self-commodification, regardless of the culture it surrounds. If a musician wants to make their art as a career, this process of finding market value is a necessary component, whether they like it or not. It is crucial for the community of music fans to understand the career dynamics of these artists in order to keep their culture alive. Though some think that acceptance of self-commodification or selling out is tarnishing the name of their culture, it’s important to consider the notion that this attention-grabbing, money-making tactic is one of the last remaining ways to preserve the culture. If musicians are adapting to the demands of society while still trying to remain true to their artistic mission, they need to be able to rely on their following in order to grow it and maintain the influence of rock, especially if their growth is purely due to the fact that their artistic vision changes its style. During the transition of commercializing ideals in the music community, especially in the 90s, this issue was damaging to the accused or conflicted musicians, only damaging the culture they were trying to contribute to. “Kurt Cobain went through this conflict up until his tragic death in 1994, taking the accusations of being a sell out very hard. Having the ability to write great hooks and catchy melodies should not be criticized but commended. As one community figure remarked to me recently, ‘“art is a state of mind; and for one person to slag another person’s vision or opinion is crap’” (McMartin). The fans that shame the leaders of the subculture for creating a commodified persona are blindly picking off the advocators for their cause and only diminishing the unified strength of the community.
The desperation for survival in the harsh and fast paced music industry has dropped many musicians’ need to prove their integrity among the community. This embrace of consumerism and commercial profit has blanketed a lot of the music industry, but has been simultaneously saving the very culture that is fighting it. These uneasy fans are not realizing the good that can come from change and mass exposure; a contact zone can turn into a safe haven if approached correctly. Pratt explores the complexities of this idea when explaining an observation of clashed groups: “Along with rage, incomprehension, and pain, there were exhilarating moments of wonder and revelation, mutual understanding, and new wisdom – the joys of the contact zone” (529). The resistance of the music subculture will miss out on the unpredictable experiences and feeling that can come out of this cultural fusion. Their contact zone with mainstream culture should not be intimidating or off-putting, but relieving in the fact that another group can appreciate their culture and keep the music going. Musician Macklemore observed this conflict first hand with his single “Wings”: “If there was any trace of irony by Wings being one of the official songs of the 2013 All Star Game, that’s great. That means that we won. The song about consumerism was embraced on a national level, and played to the entire country of sports fans that tuned in. More people download the song, got the truth (the actual/full song) and we converted strangers that didn’t know who we were into fans. If that’s selling out to you, word. But to me that’s nothing but an all around win” (Hawking). Commodified musicians have created a combination of culture and an appreciation of art that goes far beyond selling an item or just pleasing society. It’s a hard reality for stubborn music fans to accept, but the artist’s utilization of the music is all in favor of the community. Duncombe had this experience in the punk rock community and came to a significant observation: “When I heard Iggy Pop’s proto-punk anthem “Search and Destroy” used to sell Nike sneakers I felt sick, but I also learned another important lesson: the politics of culture is not predetermined. Culture is pliable; it’s how it is used that matters” (161). It’s normal to feel uncomfortable by change from your own culture or community, but if the use of the culture is in favor of a community’s self expression and survival, it needs to be recognized. A Toyota commercial with an uplifting and inspirational indie rock song isn’t there for background noise; it drives emotion, captures attention, and gives meaning to the moving picture on the screen. Bringing these artistic visions into a new setting utilizes the culture in a significant and progressive way without dirtily exploiting it, so that more of the world can support the movement of music.
There has been a distinct lack of understanding between musicians and their fans in the changing tides of the music business, and with this comes a blurred perspective of an artist’s integrity that is tearing the community apart. It is crucial for music subcultures to accept the intertwining of business into their culture, and to open their minds to change. If given the chance, recognizing these cultural interactions can lead to “the joys of the contact zone” (Pratt) and even bring their beloved culture to a new level of appreciation and expression. As these changing commercial opportunities enter the music industry, today’s musicians are responsible to do what they need to in order to survive as a culture, and headstrong fans have to leave the term “sell out” behind and explore the possibilities of this change in order to support their survival.
We are now more than one full week into the new year, and there is a decent chance some of you reading this have already failed to stay true to your new year’s resolution. If so, do not fret. Millions make resolutions on or around January 1 that they are unable to maintain for a variety of reasons, and countless more never even try to make a change in their lives. The fact you recognize your desire to be better than you are today is the first step towards achieving meaningful change, and with a little hard work and dedication we believe you can accomplish practically anything. That may sound a bit too altruistic for some, but our experience has proven this to be true, especially in the world of entertainment.
As writers, we should each be striving to improve our skills with each passing day. We should be hunting for stories and other creative challenges that take us out of our comfort zone and force us to approach our audience from new or unfamiliar angles that, in time, will give us a greatest perspective on the world of music. Desiring this and doing this are two very different things, and we have found that the hardest part for most writers is finding place to start. So, with this in mind, we have come up with three creative challenges that will better your ability to not only discuss music, but appreciate it as well.
Spend more time with music released by independent artists
Everyone trying to quote/unquote ‘make it’ in the world of music has a dream of landing a job that finds them covering the biggest releases and having their words positive reactions used in future marketing materials. After all, how cool would it be to have your words printed on a sticker that was stuck to the next album from your favorite band? It would be awesome, that’s how cool it would be.
That said, if you want to further establish yourself as a unique voice in the world of music criticism in 2016 we advise that you stray from the Billboard charts and spend more time seeking out the next big thing. A&R used to be a job that one or more people held at essentially every record label, but in the age of social media most A&R work is done by the influential voices that drive internet discussion. You no doubt receive dozens of pitches from aspiring musicians every week, so take advantage of that fact and use your inbox as a source for new music discovery. Find something great and write about it. Not just once, but every chance you get until you’re sick of discussing that band. Use whatever knowledge you have regarding how to break artists in the modern day and apply it to your coverage of that artist. Interview them, list their best work, cover their tours, and most importantly, share how their art makes you feel. If you can help even one person to discover a new talent they love, others will follow.
Choose an upcoming release to know nothing about
Many artists rely on singles to sell albums because they don’t believe the record as a whole would be considered quite as good as one really catchy song. This is why most artists release the best song off their record first, as they believe many in the press won’t give their new album a second thought unless they’re hooked by some earlier marketing materials. While this may be true for some, it’s kind of a shame that artists today don’t believe people will care about their albums if the singles don’t dominate conversation and radio play for weeks, or even months on end.
This year, choose one release you know you will be interested in and do everything in your power to avoid its promotional cycle. Skip the singles, the cover art, and any interview that aims to build hype for the release until the entire album has been made available for your consumption. Then, and only then, give the record a listen. Allow yourself to become fully emerged in that artist’s world of sound without any preconceived notions of what it will sound like or how it will make you feel. Let the art speak for itself, and then share that experience with those around you.
Read one music critic you disagree with regularly
We struggle with this challenge more than probably any other task in this feature. It’s not that we don’t enjoy reading, as we very much do, but it takes a lot for us to sit and read something we don’t necessarily agree with and accept it as valid criticism. That fact is probably true for anyone in life, but there is an added degree of necessity to do so when it is comes to being a great critic. After all, your goal as a music writer is to sell people on music they may or may not be interested in. Sure, some readers will be fans of the artists you’re covering, but hopefully there are also many who are newcomers or who are otherwise new to that particular artist. Your job as a critic is to express your opinion in such a way that it influences buying or listening habits. The same can be said for your competition, which is why it’s important that you know their work and understand what gives it meaning to those who read it.
You don’t have to be sold on something you don’t enjoy when reading the work of a critic with opinions different than your own, but you should be able to understand the good and bad qualities of their writing. Furthermore, you should be able to deconstruct their work, compare it to your own, and see what, if any similarities there may be. Perhaps you disagree on certain artists, but you both tend to use the same phrasing when describing something you enjoy, or maybe you both use far too many adjectives in your work. Whatever the case, there is more to learn about yourself and the industry at large from enjoying the work of your peers than there is in the comments section of your last article. You become a better writer by reading the work of other writers. Never forget this fact.
James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator 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.
Anyone trying to make a living with their creativity, from music to marketing, will tell you there are few times in life more frustrating than those moments when you feel as if your inspiration has run dry. You know the feeling. It’s usually something that hits you settle into work on your passion project at night, or perhaps just after you have arrived at the office, and try as you might to get something meaningful accomplished you pretty much just spin your wheels until you feel comfortable excusing yourself in order to spend the rest of the day in a ball of self-loathing introversion on your living room floor, praying to any deity willing to listen that you have enough episode of The West Wing left to avoid you work for one more day. We’ve all been there, or at least those of us who have been working long enough to burn through the first 50 or 100 ideas that we had, and if you feel you’ve yet to reach that point then trust me – It’s on the horizon.
We don’t bring up those uncomfortable times in order to scare. We face the same thing on a fairly regular basis, and we like to refer to it as what author Steven Pressfield calls “Resistance.” That is, a universal force that works against human creativity on a daily basis. We all face it in our own ways, much like we all fight our own battles most the world never knows of. There are a million anecdotes and essays on overcoming Resistance, and we’ve offered several here on this blog. Whether or not it works for you can only be learned through application. Yes, good old fashioned trial and error.
The next time you’re confronted with a creative roadblock in your professional life, take time away from your forced search for inspiration and try losing yourself in an alternate path. Develop an alternative path for yourself, your music, your agency, your label, or that secret side business you always hope to one day attempt. These adventures can sometimes be the source of new real life paths, such is the case with many so-called ‘side projects’ in music. Artists from various genres take a break from their day-to-day career to pursue other creative avenues just like anyone else, and sometimes their efforts lead to new financial avenues that certainly don’t hurt their bottom line.
Developing alternative paths to success for yourself can allow your mind to relax and consider options you might not have been able to adequately access when attempting to force creativity. Let’s explore a few examples to better illustrate this point:
Musicians –
Let’s say you’re the lead guitarist and songwriter for an aspiring rock band. Your first demo went over well with local audiences, and the second was good enough to help you secure a few opening slots on national tours when they roll through your region’s bigger venues. You may have even been able to tour, albeit without the benefits of a bus or guaranteed sell out crowds. Still, you’re making progress and you can feel your dreams of stardom starting to come together.
As you find yourself beginning to thinking about your third release, which would probably be your first full length, you discover you have hit a creative wall. Writing riffs and lyrics was never something you found all the difficult before, but for whatever reason everything you’re coming up with at this current point in time is clearly not good enough to help you get you ahead.
To clear your head and relax your thoughts it might be wise to consider an alternative career in, say, top 40 radio pop. Ask yourself, “What would it take to make it in pop music today?” Think about the songs and artists topping the charts, the themes found in their music, and what it is about tracks like Bieber’s “What Do You Mean” or The Weeknd’s “I Can’t Feel My Face” that keeps people reaching for the repeat button again and again. Some answers will come fast, but others will take time. Think about what these artists do that you do not and ask yourself whether or not their approach to marketing or songwriting could aide your personal efforts. Heck, you may even try penning a song or two. Why not? Trial and error is part of any healthy exploration.
By the time you realize how lost in your pretend career you’ve become enough time should have passed for you to return to your real work with clear eyes and an open mind. Remember the things you learned about yourself and your peers during your brainstorming session and use it to influence your future work.
Industry professionals (label owners, site editors, publicists) –
Maybe you’re a label owner, struggling to keep your costs low while hustling around the clock to not only bring attention to the talent on your roster, but also to sell records. The grind required to keep a small business afloat, let alone build a new music empire, can be devastating on the mind of a creative person. One the one hand, your spirit and soul desire constant exercise and exploration. On the other hand, you need to find what works for your business and stick with it.
On those days when you cannot seem to focus on emails, accounting, marketing, or anything in between, it might be best to allow yourself to unwind with by exploring an alternate professional path. Just like the example for musicians above, you should stay within the realm of what you do (aka – running/building a business), but what it is your fake company does is entirely up to you.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s say your secret wish is to start a subscription box company that offers consumers the chance to receive 1 new album in the mail each month, along with an explanation for the record’s selection. The first thing you need for this business is a name. You decide ‘New Music Monthly’ is a good name and from there set to outlining what would be needed in order to get your business off the ground. You need a web host, a logo, and a cost estimate sheet. You know boxes can be bought in bulk, but you will have to contact the labels/artists you wish to work with in order to know if they would be willing to offer you a discount in order for buying X amount of records. You also need startup cash, which can be earned through launching pre-orders for your first box.
After the basic business details are ironed out, you should then turn your focus to understanding the type of customer who would want this product. Assume that your first few music shipments will be products from your own label, then outline what kind of music fan would be interested in whatever release you might choose. Be specific. Narrow down your fans to a specific age group (teens, young adults, adults 25-35, 35+, senior citizens, etc). Do (or did) these people go to secondary school? Do they attend a lot of concerts?
Once you figure this out you can begin to brainstorming how to accomplish the difficult task of targeting these consumers. Do they frequent Facebook? Twitter? Would placement in a magazine be a wise choice? Depending on which method of outreach you choose, how much will it cost? Can you advertise this way regularly, or do you only have the budget for a single campaign? Again, be specific.
Once you iron out your faux business plan you will not only have a potential new path to financial success, but you will have inadvertently developed marketing tools that could also be used for the real problems facing your actual business. The target market for your faux company will likely be the same, or close to the same, as your actual business. The plans you made to reach those made up customers can be applied in one way or another to the customers you are hoping to reach in with your label. You will have more or less done the work you needed to do in a way that tricked your mind into doing work it might not have wanted to do otherwise.
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There are a million potential paths through life available to all of us, but far too few ever make much, if any, effort to explore their options. We would never advise you to abandon your dream(s), but we do believe that exploring alternative career paths can lead to success in your current field. What matters most is that you keep an open mind and try as much as you are able without jeopardizing your current professional/financial situation. You can use the examples laid out in the post to get you started, but don’t hesitate to make up your own adventure whenever time allows.
James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator 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 on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.
