MUSICIANS: 5 things you need to say no to
Whether it’s time, money, or both, you have a finite number of resources available to you as an artist, meaning not every “opportunity” is one you should necessarily say yes to. Here, we look at five things most artists would do well to take a pass on.
Openness and curiosity are important positive traits for serious musicians to have. However, saying yes to every opportunity that comes your way is a bad idea. Whether you make music full-time for your job or during every spare moment you can, you have a limited amount of resources and time as a musician. Committing your time and attention to the wrong things in music means missing out on the things that will actually make a difference in your career. Here are five examples of things you should probably say no to in music:
6 types of record label contracts
The legal aspects of the music industry can often be difficult to fully understand, particularly where contracts are concerned. Here, we explain what the six main types of record label contracts are, and how they work.The legal aspects of this industry aren’t always so straightforward. That’s why we place the utmost importance on providing as much information as we can to help you navigate through it with ease. There are many different types of contracts artists and labels will encounter throughout their careers, so let’s break it down a bit. In this post, you’ll learn about 6 major types of record label contracts you should definitely know about.
YouTube Exec Says 25% of All Viewer Hours Are Spent on Music — For Over 250 Million Hours of Music Consumption
Daily
A full 25 percent of YouTube’s viewer hours are spent enjoying music, the Google-owned video-sharing platform’s chief business officer has revealed – for over 250 million hours of music consumption per day.
Regarding the YouTube viewer-hour breakdown, one-quarter of the platform’s global watch time is now attributable to music, with another 25 percent deriving from media companies and the remaining half coming from user-generated content.
Streaming and Radio Listening Habits for 2021 – Report
A new report highlights how Gen Z is driving music streaming growth – but don’t count out traditional radio, either.
Gen Z is the generation that has embraced music streaming the most, with nearly 60% saying they stream music daily. It’s an important look at how each generation is consuming audio content and which platform they prefer.
A new report detailing US Media Consumption looked at several factors that have changed American adult behavior since the pandemic. It reveals that for the first time, more Americans are streaming video content than watching live TV. But it also contains some important insights into how 18-24 year-olds interact with audio
content.
Middle-class musicians need niche, not scale
While streaming means less revenue than physical goods for middle-class musicians, it does deliver a larger and very monetizable audience writes Mark Mulligan of MIDiA.Streaming continues to grow strongly, as evidenced by the 28% growth reported by the RIAA for H1 2021 in the U.S. But there is no increase that could transform the outlook for most of these creators without potentially breaking the entire streaming economy. The crucial, emerging dynamic is that most mid-tier creators are never going to be big enough to gain adequate streaming scale to use as a reliable income source. In fact, they need the opposite of scale – they need niche.
4 steps for creating a music marketing budget – 2021 edition
When you’re getting serious about your music career, one of the most important things you can do is create a marketing budget. This might seem both boring and intimidating, so we’ve broken it down into four easy stepsPerhaps you’re starting back up as a musician after a pandemic hiatus. Maybe you’ve decided now is the time to finally take the plunge and turn your musical interests into a career. In any case, one of the most important things you can do as a musician is to create a budget for your musical activities.
A music marketing budget will help to create a clear roadmap of your financial goals, how you’ll reach them, and help you to monitor your progress along the way.
Activating ‘studio mode’ – How musicians should prep for recording
Whether you’re a seasoned industry veteran or it’s your first time setting foot in a recording studio, proper preparation is essential in making sure you don’t your time, the engineer’s, or your time and money. Here, we look at how to get yourself “studio ready”Whether you’re about to lay down your first single or you’re a band confidently sailing into your third full-length album, it’s just as important to make certain practical and mental preparations before entering any recording studio session. Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting your time, or that of the engineer(s), your money, and all the energy and efforts that got you here.
How To Handle Rejection As A
Songwriter
Being a songwriter is both the best job in the world and one of the hardest. It’s the best because we make songs. We make order out of chaos, and find harmony within the dissonance. We give meaning to an increasingly crazy world, and create something timeless in a time when nothing seems to last more than a moment. And we get to live inside of music, which remains one of mankind’s most beautiful forces, as mysterious as ever, and powerful.
But it’s also forever arduous, not only for the decimation and reconstruction of this industry we once knew, but because being a songwriter is a vulnerable position to be in. Songwriters necessarily feel things deeply. They have to in order to reach down into that well of emotion and swirl of ideas and capture it with the abstractions of music combined with the specificities of language. And the kind of person who wants to do that, who connects so directly with sorrow, or any intense emotion, is
deeply hurt by criticism and rejection. So this songwriting thing can be painful. But it’s a necessary pain.
Recorded Music Revenues Climbed 27% — and Vinyl Sales Skyrocketed 94% — in First Half of 2021, Per RIAA
Recorded music revenues in the U.S. grew 27% in the first half of 2021 over 2020, according to the RIAA’s mid-year report. Paid subscriptions continued to be the strongest contributor to growth, comprising nearly two-thirds of total revenue, and more than 80 million paid subscriptions for the first time. Revenue rose from $5.6 to $7.1 billion at retail value. At wholesale value revenues rose 25% from $3.7 billion in the first half of 2020 to $4.6 billion in the same period of 2021.
Of course, year-over-year figures are skewed by the pandemic, which has had a devastating effect on the industry in the form of store closures, tour postponements and cancelations and other disruptions.
BMI
Reports Record Revenue, Distributions in FY 2021 As Domestic
Digital Licensing Income Jumps 47%
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) has announced that its 2021 fiscal year brought an all-time high of $1.409 billion in revenue – with over $1 billion having derived from domestic licensing.
The 82-year-old performance rights organization (PRO) detailed its financial specifics from the recently ended 2021 fiscal year in a formal release that was emailed to DMN. The aforementioned $1.409 billion in total revenue from the 12-month stretch marked a seven percent year-over-year increase – though BMI intends to report the figure as only $1.361 billion “due to new ASC 606 accounting guidance” adopted in the 2021 fiscal year.
“The ASC 606 accounting guidance modified BMI’s revenue recognition policies,” the document elaborates on the latter front. “As a result, any revenue earned by BMI in a previous fiscal year, but that was collected and distributed in the current fiscal year, does not factor into the final reported revenue total,” with the change having chiefly impacted the slower-moving digital and international revenues.
What Are Marketing Drivers And Why Do I Need Them?
The
underlying forces that compel you to buy or pay for certain
products and services are called marketing drivers. As an
artist, these are the key details you want to be shared with
DSP’s like Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, YouTube,
Soundcloud, Pandora, etc. to help you stand out. In this
post, we’ll break down everything you need to know and
more. What Are Marketing Drivers And Why Do I Need Them?
7 Avoidable Mistakes That Can Cost You Gigs
Closing gigs isn’t always easy – it takes practice, patience, and perseverance. As with anything in life, you’re bound to make mistakes. The key is learning from them and making sure you don’t repeat them over and over again. Check out our practical tips for avoiding seven common gigging mistakes.
YouTube Music passes 50M subscribers making it the ‘fastest-growing music subscription service’
YouTube Music has passed 50 million subscribers, adding 20 million in less than a year. That 50 million total includes both direct YouTube Music subscriptions and those bundled with a YouTube Premium subscription.
While still smaller than Spotify (165 million paying subscribers) and Apple Music (60 million as of mid-2019), YouTube Music’s rapid gains are notable at a time when the pace of subscriber growth at its rivals appears to be slowing.
How
to Release an Album So People Actually Want to Buy It
Sometimes
I look around at the single-dominated music landscape and
think I’m the only geek on the planet who still
exclusively listens to full albums anymore. Then
I remember that most serious musicians still release full
albums, even if (or especially
if) they’ve already released a series of singles leading
up to it. Yes, even mega-selling pop titans who barrage the
market with single after single eventually combine those
songs on one release. If
you’re here, that means you’ve decided to release an
album. This is a major milestone in your music career,
whether it’s your first or 10th. We’re here to outline
all the steps to make your new album a success. But
first, what does releasing an album actually do for your
music career?
Is Country Radio Rigged? Bobby Bones Claims “Half of Number One Songs Aren’t Legitimate”
Country radio DJ Bobby Bones says popular country music is rigged and based heavily on politics.
“Here’s the truth about number one songs on the radio – it’s basically politics,” Bones says on TikTok. “They trade them out like baseball cards. A record label will talk to another record label and go, ‘Okay, I’ll give you this number one on this date, you give me that number one on that date.’ Which really, it should just be the song that’s the most wanted, the most listened to, the song that people demand. That should be the only number one song.”
Bobby Bones also called out the practice of using bots to boost iTunes sales. He also ripped into awards shows and explained what he calls ‘strategic manipulation’ of block voting at these award shows. Bones says the ‘politics’ he’s referring to are entirely those of the label.
