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Top 5 Music Business Mistakes of 2010 (#4)

Top 5 Music Business Mistakes of 2010

#4 Apples to Oranges

On the off chance that the title of this article is a piece of slang that was unique to my parents (I ran the title by someone who was baffled by the fact that a music blog would be discussing fruit) I am speaking about comparing two things that can’t be accurately compared. I have found that is very common for artists to have the belief that exposure = sales and that all songs and all artists if given the same exposure would get the same response from the public. This issue gets especially cloudy when an artist is comparing his or her own career to the career of someone in the public eye.

The most hate mail I ever got was from an article I wrote that contained the words “Great bands make great managers”. Musicians and managers alike hated this statement but it is one that I still stand by. What did I mean when I said it? Well, there is an old (and awful) saying I heard in my record company days – “You can’t polish a turd.” There were simply some acts back then that no matter how much a label spent on getting them on Radio, MTV and on great tours they just never connected with people.

Many things have changed in the music business but I don’t think this has changed at all – sometimes all of the exposure in the world just doesn’t matter. I get into a ton of trouble using the word “great” so let me clear that up for the comments you are writing in your head about how much Nickelback sucks and how could Lady Gaga and Kesha possibly be considered great and how I don’t know what I’m talking about… First off you should know that on any given week I actively dislike about 90% of the top 200 albums on the Billboard charts. Secondly I neither know nor do I think it is entirely knowable why something connects with a mass audience and some things don’t. I do know that some artists seem to be opportunity magnets and many more are not.

Back to the statement about managers – very few people refer to managers without successful clients as “great.” Even if a manager does everything right and gets his or her clients exposure, if they don’t yield results very few people take notice of that manager’s ability. There are other times when you can’t seem to stop opportunities from arising for a song or for an artist and contrary to popular belief this really isn’t always related to an artist’s team. Yes- a good team can bring in great opportunities and tip the balance in an artist’s favor but generally speaking it is as much the music as the artist’s handlers that makes things happen for an artist.

We see this phenomenon in a much more overt way with viral video in the digital age. People either see something and pass it on to their friends or they don’t. I always find it interesting when someone sets out to “Make a viral video”. Barring a Trojan type virus that would automatically make a video play every time someone turned on their machine (please don’t do this) there is no way of predicting what will be viral and what won’t be. You can market and spend all you want but some things catch fire and other things just don’t.

Okay, I have probably beaten this point to death and depressed a bunch of you. Not at all my intent and not at all the focus of this article. If such things are believed to be truly out of your hands then what is an artist to do? My suggestions are two-fold:

One: Acceptance-

Acceptance is not the Acceptance of failure. It is the acceptance that if you are doing everything you can to promote yourself- at this moment in time it may not be your turn to be widely embraced by mass media. Enduring and building the best you can is sometimes all you can do until the stars align for you.

Two: Growth-

It could be the passage of time alone might make the world ready for your music, stranger things have happened. If it were my music career though I would err on the side of caution and make sure that I put the time in to get better at my craft just a little bit every day. Perhaps your abilities are just a tweak away from being ready to react with people in a different way. The Plain White Tees released “Hey There Delilah” a few different times before a version of the song finally caught fire.

While I never heard the words come directly out of his mouth Ahmet Ertegun was often quoted as saying “A hit will find a way”. I think there is a very real feeling that is not at all subtle when you have hit upon a formula with a song or with a group that is really connecting. I also think that there is no telling when (or if) that moment will ever grow in to being. Until such time keep improving your craft and stop comparing yourself to others – it tends not to do any good. If all the exposure in the world was suddenly heaped on you- you might not be ready for it yet.

Originally Posted and Written by MusicianCoaching.com

Top 5 Music Business Mistakes of 2010 (#2)

#2 – Unreasonable Expectations

Roughly twice per day I get an email from a musician who tells me that he or she “just wants to get to the next level.”

In my head my first response is usually “Oh that’s easy just press Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right A B Select Start.” (This got you many extra lives on the game Contra for Nintendo) For better or for worse – there is no special code for the elusive “next level” in the music business.

This kind of message is always a bit disheartening as I am pretty sure that when I ask people who send me these messages to clarify their needs they either will not have defined it for themselves or they have just started out promoting their businesses in the last 2-3 months and they want Jay-Z’s phone number (Which I don’t have by the way).

Yes, that is absolutely an extreme example and no- I’m not suggesting that everyone out there has such a warped perspective but I do find that people unfairly compare themselves to people who have become icons. If you look around long enough you will find that most overnight successes were not so overnight.

I was fortunate enough to work with Kid Rock in the 90s and most people remember when he arrived with his first big single “Bawitdaba”. What most people forget (or never knew) is that ten years earlier he was signed and subsequently dropped from Jive Records, signed an indie label deal (with a label that went out of business), put out two records on his own (before such things were as turn-key as they are now) and built up a network of over 50 very active street team members all over the U.S.. Prior to “Bawitdaba” was also a single called “I am the Bull God” that only mid charted at radio and there were moments where one could feel that the culture of Atlantic Records could have gone either way in supporting (or not supporting) his career. There is an obvious lesson in such perseverance and I know many people who would have given up over any one of those setbacks let alone the whole string of them.

Perhaps Kid Rock is another example that is too large or too exceptional.

How about this?

The majority of people I encounter don’t appreciate that it takes a long time (often many years) to get anyone to care about you or your music. Most people need the time to get better at what they do. It takes a ton of mistakes and gigs where you say to the crowd “Be sure and tip your bartend…Oh…. You are the Bartenders and waitresses…” I don’t think people appreciate that those kind of gigs are the formative gigs where musicians get better at what they do.

I keep hearing the implication that the Internet was supposed to usher in this era where anyone and everyone could make a living at music. Really? So everyone is a rock star? That means there is no one in the audience because everyone is on the stage. That would all of a sudden makes my accountant a rock star… God forbid!

This is what I’ve learned about expectations being around the business of music for the last eighteen years – I hope it takes you less time to learn these things than it took me:

1) The artists who seemed to make a living / become well known were simply the artists who were still artists ten years later

2) You can look around and compare and despair almost no matter who you are. I wonder if Chris Martin from Coldplay laments that he isn’t Bono or if Bono laments that he isn’t Elvis…

3) The awful saying “It’s a marathon – not a sprint” really does apply. Far too often I see people blowing their budgets and wrecking their credit on high cost / short term promotional strategies over the course of weeks when better investments would be strategies that endure.

4) People who don’t invest in their careers (with both their money and time) don’t grow their careers.

5) Those who were consistent in their efforts tended to fare better than those who were sporadic.

Posted By Musician Coaching on December 30th, 2010

www.musiciancoaching.com