A New Approach to the Music Industry: Our Findings From Musicians Making Their Way in a Cutthroat Business
Musicians these days have it easy compared to before. With the dawn of the internet and technology and knowledge becoming much more accessible, all artists these days need is a vision and a drive to create!
In this post, we are going to go in depth on 3 main reasons why it has become so easy for artists to become successful in the modern day.
1# - The Technology at your Fingertips
Affordability & Recordability.
The technology to create and promote you music is more accessible than ever! You can even create and promote your music without even leaving your phone these days.
From the perspective of music creation, good-quality recording equipment has never been more affordable. Microphones are getting less expensive, Recording software is now available on monthly basis and an “industry-standard” quality recording setup is only going to cost you about $1000! Back in the day, you couldn’t even get a good microphone for $1000.
You don’t even need to be in a big studio these days. Bon Iver’s critically-acclaimed album “For Emma Forever Ago” was recorded in a cabin in the middle of the Wisconsin wilderness, with a cheap microphone and a semi-functional computer. New artists are aware of this. Mura Masa, artist behind the hit song, “Love$ick” recorded most of his music in his bedroom. Check this mini-doc from VOX.
Power to the people
The video about Mura Masa also highlights something else. How easy the internet has made it for artists to gain a widespread audience.
The “getting shared on a social platform and then blowing up” idea is not a new one. In fact, social platforms is how most artist these days have been discovered. Justin Bieber was discovered on Youtube by Scooter Braun, who turned Justin into one of the biggest stars in the world. Another example is The Weeknd. After artist “Drake” shared some of The Weeknd’s tracks on his blog, The Weeknd blew up, getting mentioned on larger blogs, playing major festivals and eventually becoming the major brand he is today.
With these social platforms available to you, you can reach the world. Sure, there is a little more to it than that but regardless, it has been done before, you can do it too.
#2 - Knowledge and Growth tools: Available to the Public
Anything about the Music Industry, a Search away
Much like everything now, anything you wanted to know about in the Music Industry is a Google search away. Anything about the recording process and even anything about the business side of Music is available online.
One of the most popular music industry personalities for recording & business knowledge is Graham Cochrane. Graham runs a Blog & Youtube called “The Recording Revolution”, which offers knowledge about songwriting, recording and the music business for free. Here’s a video of Graham’s titled “The New Rules of The Music Industry”, that highlights everything we have talked about up to this point.
Growth Resources
Growth resources are slowly becoming a key tools for musicians to be successful. These are tools focus on key things such as crowdfunding, business planning, marketing tools and etc.
These tools are helping artists by delegating some of the duties that they have to be responsible for a very reasonable fee. For example, Hootsuite is a Company that allows artists to post on all of their streams from one convenient app. Artists can also analyse the success of those posts within the app as well.
Another example is withIn the Canadian music industry, grants are make up a large part of an artist’s income. Private companies have stepped in to write those grant applications on behalf of artists, usually for a small percentage of the received money.
Lastly, the crowdfunding companies. These are companies that help an artist raise funds by allowing the artists to create funding campaigns. Then with these campaigns, the artist asks an external source, usually their fans to “fund” their campaign. This is actually something that our company specializes in. Eufor.io has a crowdfunding platform created with artists in mind, with a focus towards an artist's “superfans”
#3 - Artists Control the Art
Ship Yourself
With the online revolution, artists are now in control of their own music. At Last!
With distribution platforms such as Bandcamp, CDbaby and Distrokid. Artists can now distribute their own music to online markets, the newest and most-impressive out of that list being Distrokid. With Distrokid, you can upload Unlimited uploads to major streaming service and receive analytics of your content’s performance, while keeping %100 of royalties. All of that for one, low yearly fee. This is huge because before Distrokid you would have to pay for Every release and you sometimes, the companies even took a percentage off the top!
You don’t need to sign to a record label to release your content to the world anymore! This makes it incredibly easy for artists.
Final Words
As you can see, the music industry has never been more accessible.
There are some considerations. You still need make original and engaging content that people want to consume. So take the time to master the craft, to identify your brand, message and what makes you unique.
Another reason why some people still fail is because of their work ethic. This still is not an easy career path and you need to be willing to put in the work. Your music is a business and you need to act like a business to be successful.
Make good content then market it effectively. Have a vision and work towards that vision. If you do that, there is no reason why you can’t succeed in today’s music industry.
