Musician's Strategy: The Anti-Genre of Psychographics

A note from TuneCore founder Jeff Price:

Before I give a quick two-second preamble on George Howard's article, I need something from you: WE REALLY WANT YOUR INPUT!

In the late 90's, during the Dot Com boom, there were scores of new companies, funded with lots of money, who entered the music business and started telling the labels and artists what they "had to have." They claimed, "You need DRM encrypted music files that self destruct after three plays," and so on. I got into arguments with them, and they would literally scoff at me. After all, they had the $50 million and they knew everything. My final point to them: "Stop telling me what I need and listen to what I want: after all, I am the "customer" you are going after."

And now I run TuneCore, and we are starting a complete site overhaul, and I WANT YOUR INPUT! I do now want to tell you what you need, I want YOU to tell me what you want. We will listen to your ideas, and things you want will end up in the site. Your input will shape what we do. So please, if you have a moment, visit our Forum (didn't know we had one did you!) and rant, constructively criticize, present your ideas of what you like, don't like, what you want changed and what new things you want. Your comments will build this site: its our job to work for you. We want to build you the site and features you want to make TuneCore yours.

That being said, below is this week's article, written by my friend George Howard. George was there in my father's living room with Peter, Gary and Gian in November, 2005, and he helped us take this brainstorm of an idea called TuneCore and turn it into a reality. George kicks butt. He is a musician, a professor, ran Ryko Disc and his own indie label, and remains one of the people out there in the world who really has something of value to say. He's also great in an argument. He is the senior editor for Artists House Music, and a board member and advisor for a number of companies including Wolfgang's Vault and Daytrotter. He has written two books on the music business for Berklee Media. Check out his personal blog at www.9giantsteps.com.

One of the great unintended consequences of the massive success of iTunes is the way it has irrefutably demonstrated that people simply do not align with one genre of music. Take a look at a random iTunes playlist sometime, and you’ll find Jay Z sitting alongside Janis Joplin and, even, Scott Joplin. What is going on here? Didn’t radio, record stores, and even labels long ago conclude that people could be marketed to most effectively by determining what genre of music they liked, and then deliver it to them? This is certainly the philosophy of radio formats. You have, for instance, formats like “country,” “oldies,” “classic rock,” “urban,” and even formats like “Triple A,” which is sort of a not-too-folksy singer-songwriter format. Of course, the most profound example of this attempted categorization of customers is found on Amazon.com. As soon as you hit the site, you’re bombarded with products “Recommended for you.” How are these recommendations picked? Well, it’s a process of algorithms based on things you’ve bought in the past, and things other people who have bought that you have also bought. These so-called “preference engines” represent sort of the Holy Grail for Internet retailers and marketers. They’re at the heart of many new music related web applications, such as Pandora, Last.fm, LaLa and many others including the new “Genius” technology embedded in iTunes. The thinking goes, if these marketers can get inside your head and tell you what you like, it represents a sale for them.

An argument against Algorithms

While this approach is pretty transparently mercenary, and can be a bit distasteful, there is something to be learned from it apropos of musician’s strategy. The first thing to know—and you’ve likely seen this for yourself—is that these “preference engines” are flawed. Either they recommend something that is totally off base, or—more often—they recommend something that is “shallow.” That is, something that you either already have, or something that you are aware of and have chosen not to purchase. In other words, they’re not really exposing you to anything new. This is because, with the power of the Internet, our own “preference engines” are already pretty sophisticated. We easily jump from subject to subject, item to item, and don’t really benefit from someone attempting to do this for us via an algorithm. The problem gets exponentially worse when you’re passionate about a subject. It’s one thing if you’re new to a particular genre of music; then Amazon’s preference engines may very well introduce you to something (of course, a blog writer who does not have an economic imperative, but is instead motivated by a maven-esque desire to share her knowledge for no other reason than because she derives pleasure from doing so is a more trusted source, and more likely to really educate and inform you). However, once you have gotten below the surface on a particular subject, these preference engines largely become worthless. As stated, you already either have the items being recommended or have ruled them out because you’re not interested. Therefore, the preference engine marketing strategy shows us that genres are largely irrelevant. People are too complex to be easily put into categories with titles like “demographic,” and “geographic.”

Psychographics

Therefore, the goal for the musician or the marketer of music is to, first, realize these complexities, and, second, move away from genre-specific models. Instead, the savvy marketer will look to psychographics. Thinking in terms of psychographics is relatively new, but it is emerging as a uniquely effective way to target marketing. As an example of finding psychographics, I’ll describe myself and my niece Ellie. I really like the movie Little Miss Sunshine. I’m in my thirties, live in Massachusetts, and have a moderate income. Ellie also really likes the movie Little Miss Sunshine. She’s nine and lives with her parents in Utah. Ellie and I really couldn’t be more different, but we have this one thing in common that is independent of our demographics and geographics; it’s a shared psychographic.

Now, this one, shared element between us is not enough to situate us easily into a clear target market. We have too many distinct psychographic qualifiers (she likes dolls, I like scotch). But if you can find a number of shared psychographic qualifiers among a group of people, you can quickly start viewing them as a target market.

For a more concrete explanation, have a look, for example, at Delicious.com. This site allows you to explore subjects that are interesting to you by connecting you to others who have similar interests. For example, if I bookmark (add) a Web site on economic theory into my Delicious.com account, I can see other Delicious.com members who have bookmarked this same Web site. I can then see which other sites they’ve bookmarked (not only sites they’ve bookmarked on economic theory, but every bookmarked site they’ve included on Delicious.com, irrespective of subject. After a while, you begin to see that other people are hunting for similar subject matter as you are, and you can therefore focus your search based on the group’s collective exploration and filtering. Importantly, because there is no commercial driver here, you are dealing with a “trusted source” for your information (like a blog). No one is trying to up-sell you on an item (as Amazon.com must do to survive), and therefore, the information you receive is unfettered from bias. It is a pure mechanism for connecting people with similar psychographics. Using Delicious.com (and other services such as iLike, Stumbleupon, etc.), you have no idea of the other member’s age, gender, or any other demographic or geographic information—all you have is pure psychographics.

Using psychographics to get your music heard

You note, that this moves us away from genre—think back to the iTunes example; people’s playlists are rarely very genre specific. So, when you are considering how to market you music, you should, therefore, spend the lion’s share of your time thinking about psychographics. The quickest way to do this is to look at yourself. What are your habits? Think about not only the music you listen to, but also the books, magazines, and blogs you read, the movies you see, the places you eat—anything really that you can discern as a trend. Then, begin looking for others who overlap with a significant number of your trends. These people are your target market. It sounds obvious, and yet, very few musicians and marketers think this way; instead, they rely solely on thinking about the genre, or demographic that their music might appeal to. As you’ve hopefully seen, this is way too broad a way of thinking. You can’t effectively target anyone with this thinking, because you necessarily assume that your market is vast. Unless you’re a major label, you don’t have the resources to market to vast audiences (and, I’d argue, that major labels are in the sorry state they’re in, because they consistently have to try to market to the masses). Instead, focus, focus, focus. Identify very specific customers, and then determine where they are, and then find a way to put your music in front of them. If you’re concerned that this somehow will limit your potential target base, don’t be. On the contrary, it will allow you to establish a firm base of passionate customers who will evangelize on your behalf, because you axiomatically have targeted people who are likely to have an emotional connection with your music, and they’re going to want to tell others. It ain’t about genres, it ain’t about geography or demographics. Today’s marketing is all about looking for powerful, shared interests, irrespective of age and location…psychographics.

Comments

[nizguyk]

Thanks, very informative.

[Mary Egunyu]

Hi, interesting and definitely the article of the year for me as far as Music marketing and positioning is concerned. I am a director at, a start-up label. In using the limited resources to break into an 'overcrowded' market where there is 'big money' marketing, you loose if you board any bandwagon, loose as soon as you jump into genre descriptions.
I have suspected and now it has been confirmed that trying desparately to market an artist on a small budget or near non-existant one is never going to work if you box their music with demographics and geographics because someone else is 'glossing' the market with what that genre should be or is at any given moment in time, drowning your feeble calls for attention with, the bigger money operating as a mass marketing trump card.
Thanks Jeff and George.

[Jeff Price]

I wish I could take credit for the article, but it was all George!

[Bruce Warila]

Hi Jeff,

I agree that social recommendation leads to unintended and often unwanted results. However, machine recommendation (for music) is remarkably different. Machine recommendation uses audio processing, math, statistics and/or artificial intelligence to make sounds-alike recommendations.

Most people's first reaction to the term "sounds-alike" is negative. However, like you stated above, a change in direction, to a different sound for example, is only a click away.

If you imagine any number of songs in a three dimensional square filled with rows of dots; each dot representing a song; every song is a starting point, an end point, or way point in a sounds-alike, connected stream of music; clicking any one of these dots takes the user in a different listening direction; albeit, songs in the new path sound alike. The point is, the user is just a click away from shaping/controlling his or her sounds-alike experience.

Machine recommendation coupled to social data is going to change all music marketing; I believe it will eliminate the need for marketing/promotion all together.

Demographics and psychographics are all part of the music marketing push-paradigm, whereas machine recommendation + social data + powerful user interfaces are all part of the un-marketing, pull-paradigm of music discovery/acquisition.

Before I have another cup of coffee, I'll conclude by advising artists to skip marketing and make great songs; push is ending and pull is on the way!

[George Howard]

@Bruce Warila

Dear Bruce,

Respectfully, I could not disagree more. Your "advice" for artists to skip marketing and make great songs could not be more wrong. The technological advances that have led to the ability for artists to enter the marketplace more efficiently and in greater numbers have also led to the heightened challenge of attempting to get your music (great or otherwise) to cut through the clutter.

Every word in the article I wrote above is an attempt (apparently failed) to get artists to determine (via psychographics) who has a shared set of values and interests as they do, and thus be able to more efficiently get their music in front of these people.

In short: figure out what it is that the artist loves; figure out who else loves the same thing; figure out WHERE these people are; devise strategy to get the music in front of these people; assess the costs involved in doing so; refine the plan vis-à-vis the costs; get out there and do it. That's it. That's marketing. Nowhere in this is there any qulatative measurement.

How can there be? You advise artists make "great" songs. What is a "great" song. I can pretty much guarantee you that my definition of a "great" song is not the same as your definition. Labels have failed in being arbiters of taste. They can not predict what a great song is. Don't believe me? Explain how an Orthodox Jewish Rapper had a number two Billboard Hit?

It has little to nothing to do with making great songs. Instead, success in this business has everything to do with discerning what it is that you as an artist do well and care deeply about (not judged by externalities), and then attempting to find others who appreciate what you do and also care deeply about it.

This requires making your music available (via TuneCore, natch), but it also requires getting out and performing and making real emotional connections with a constituency.

My mantra for the last 20 years in the music business has been: "Distribution follows marketing!" Artists always want it the other way: "If my records were in the store, people would buy them." Wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

TuneCore provides the distribution. In order to succeed, an artist must market. Now more than ever, in an age of overwhelming amounts of data being hurled at consumers, artists must actively and passionately seek ways to connect with people in a meaningful way. There simply is no more meaningful way to connect that performing in front of them. Discerning whom you should make the effort to perform in front of - by using psychographic marketing approaches - is what separates successful artists/tours from failed/frustrated artists.

Waiting around for Apple's Genius or any of the other affinity/preference engine to recommend your music to random strangers who have no connection to you or your music will be as useless and ineffective as putting an ad for an unknown artist in Rolling Stone. When was the last time you saw an ad for an artist you never heard of in a magazine and went out and bought/downloaded the CD?

Again, thank you for your comment.

George

[Jeff Price]

I think both George and Bruce are correct

Many artists believe that if they just had the proper marketing and promotion their music would get heard and their careers would take off.

When a major releases an album they are NOT looking to sell 50,000, 100,000, 250,000 copies of an album. They want to have a "grand slam", sell millions of copies and have a multi-platinum mega global hit. In order for them to have a "grand slam" they have to swing hard and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, on marketing and promotion - print ads, radio spots, videos, expensive re-mixes by top producers, flier campaigns, street teams, placement in record stores, independent radio promoters, posters, stickers and on and on. They go for it. Majors have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 50 years marketing and promoting bands yet 98% of major record label releases fail (this is such an important point, I am going to state it again - 98% of major record label releases fail!)

How could this be possible, after all, they are marketing it aggressively.

Artists create art - music, paintings, poems, books, graphic drawings, movies, short films etc. People love art. We need it. It makes us human, it inspires us, it moves us, it defines us. We want to find the art in the world that makes us react - somehow. Hate it, love it, worship it, inspire to be as good as it, cause us to laugh, cry, scream....but it makes us react. People aspire to be the artist that can impact the world - and the lucky few have the talent and skills to create it.

In the world of music, the first steps are to create the songs and record them, then get it out to the world. In the "old" days, the way to get music out to the world was through the media outlets that people listened to, watched and read - commercial radio, television and magazines.

Access to these media outlets was primarily provided by the record label. Many many artists and songs got played on the radio, videos played on MTV and feature articles in Rolling Stone and yet they did not take off. Why? Because people did not react to the music.

Take Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit". If the song or video did not cause people to react it would not have mattered how many times people heard it or saw it. It became a hit NOT because it got exposure, but because the exposure allowed people to see it and hear it and upon seeing and hearing it, it caused a reaction.

The magic is not in the exposure, its in the art!

In the old days, there was a huge fundamental problem, art could not gain access to the media outlets to get exposure UNLESS a gatekeeper let it in. But the media outlets have, and continue, to change thanks to the internet.

YouTube replaced MTV, and anyone can upload a video to YouTube. There is no gatekeeper. Your video is available to be seen. And when one person sees it, and likes it, they have the instant ability to share it with an unlimited amount of others via email, embedding it on their own webpage or rating it.

Commercial radio is being replaced by web-based radio stations like iMeem, LastFM, MySpace Music and more. And anyone can have their songs available to hear at those "stations".

Playlists of music are not being programmed by an individual "Program Director" or "Music Director" but by algorithm based software and friend recommendations.

Magazines have been replaced by Blogs and MP3 Blogs. Anyone can be a worldwide publisher around things they like. People search for things on the internet based on what THEY like, and search engines like Google scour the net to smallest crevices to provide specific links and results to what people they are looking for.

The point is, anyone now has access to the media outlets. Once in those outlets, the art can be seen, shared and discovered.

The trick to all of this is you need to have art that causes a reaction. If you can do that, you can now directly put it into the new media outlets where it will have a profound and significant impact. You will become famous, and from there, well, you will need to figure out what to do next.

And if you think I am nuts and this just does not happen - here's some links to some things that has caused "reaction" and fame for its creators. Some are TuneCore customers, some are not. Some created fame accidentally, others intentionally. Some are straight up music videos (Boyce Avenue), some are people singing on top of other people's songs (Numma Numma), some have the action on top of the song causing the reaction (OK GO), some are funny (Kelly) others are just, well, I am not sure...but they do cause reaction (and one I just put in because I love it - and look how many people I get to share it with!)

The trick is no longer in getting access to the outlets, but in creating the art that reacts

Kelly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA
Sick Puppies - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4
Boyce Avenue - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOasai3_Vo
Chocolate Rain - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
Star Wars Kid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU
Charlie Bite Me - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4FJL2IDEs
OK GO - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI
Mentos - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM
Numa Numa - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPirDlJ1HO8

[Bruce Warila]

Hi George,

I always enjoy a lively debate. I am going to provide my rebuttal in the form of a blog post that I wrote last month. Here you go...

Not long ago, record labels raked in profits by being experts at packaging and marketing music. Real and imagined benefits were shrink-wrapped into jewel cases, slick marketing coupled to payola pushed the product onto consumers by the billions, and lack of quality was a promotion problem solved by the marketing department. Digital music is changing all this. Everyone’s ability to promote and market music is eroding rapidly.

Music is now the most naked product on earth, and this nakedness is driving down overall music sales. Music sits upon the shelf unwrapped, raw and void of packaging. Consumers can fully try it before they buy it, they can take it home, and they can pay for it randomly, or not at all. I can’t think of another product that is so fully exposed and vulnerable to quick and precise, pre-purchase decision-making as music. You click. You listen. You buy. It doesn’t get any quicker or more precise than that.

Yes, exposure leads to sales, but exposure costs money, and some reasonable rate of return is expected on every dollar spent on exposure. Because music is so exposed, raw and naked, the return on investment (ROI) on every marketing dollar spent, generates the worst marketing ROI of any product I have ever marketed.

How many dollars do you have to spend on promotion, to generate a single dollar of music revenue?

Marketing and promotion is really just a form of navigation now, it can help people LOCATE a great song, but it can't budge rubbish beyond a core fan group or the teen demographic. If marketing still worked, every single record label would not be cutting back on staff and expenses.

The truth is, the only promotion that works now is…the play button.

In the naked digital music world, the solution for record labels is to increase marketing ROI through perfect targeting. The problem: extremely low margins force your targeting to be dead correct. You have to be picking the exact songs to promote to the exact audience, and without a high rate of failure. (Record labels have to become information driven businesses.) Or, if cutting down on the failure rate is not an option, you have to have a workable per-unit cost basis (thus the cutbacks), plus enough volume/velocity to make it all work (obvious right?).

Fortunately for artists that make great songs, the same naked qualities that make music impossible to market, also make music the easiest product in the world to recommend. Once again, I can’t think of another product that has the viral qualities that are inherent in music. It’s the only product where the entire product (the MP3) can be easily attached to the recommendation. Try doing that with chicken nuggets.

I fully believe, of the five billion tracks sold on iTunes to date, a billion (20% or FAR more) have been sold to consumers that have NEVER seen the artist, have NEVER visited the artist’s website or MySpace page, and have NEVER had any interaction with the artist…other than exposure to a thirty second clip. A billion(s) of iTunes purchase decisions have been driven off simple recommendation algorithms (those that liked X, also liked Y). For those that doubt this estimate, look at how much real estate the recommendation space occupies on iTunes; including the front of iTunes. If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be there.

My advice to artists is as follows: it's far better to focus your time and money on song quality and on making lots of songs, than it is to focus on any type of typical promotion (other than putting your songs everywhere and anywhere). Time spent in the studio, or money spent on a quality producer, will yield more return than the same investment spent on marketing tricks or promotion "experts". Anyone that tells you otherwise, doesn’t realize how much music information retrieval will change the marketplace over the next five years.

If abstaining from aggressive promotion seems odd to you, the best thing you can do, is to form a consortium, or a brand of artists that brand together to promote an umbrella brand. This is a form of recommendation, and it will stretch your marketing further by having thirty or forty artists all promoting one destination; which I would argue, should be a blogsite which features artists that have sonic synergy. This strategy will improve your targeting, decrease your per-unit marketing costs, and it will drive up the sales volume of everything the brand sells.

[Jacquelin Tomaschko]

What an eye-opener! Its certainly given me a LOT to think about and digest. Here in Kenya, where not even 0.1% of the population have access to broadband and iTunes and the likes are completely off the board (unavailable), its been murder trying to tap in. Thanks to you and all your tips and links, I will re-strategise, using psychographics. On behalf of all struggling artists, we hail you! 'Asante Sana' - "Thanks".

[David Cousino]

I agree with the psychographics idea, because I believe that, that's exactly what happens when a band or song becomes a "hit", which by default defines it as "a good song". At least to the 1000's of people who like it and bought it. Follow this through. A band that has developed the ability to perform live, and puts on a show that doesn't appeal to anyone has a choice to make. Do they continue to fail, or adjust accordingly? Hopefully, they adjust, but what adjustment can they make to guarantee success? Maybe psychographics gives a few clues, which is certainly better than a sharp stick in the eye. You will know if you get it right, because you will have the desirable problem of too many people lined up down the street to get into the venue to hear your live performance. Not unlike the experience the Beatles had at the Cavern Club back in the day, and they managed to sell a few albums, and they still sell. How often have you purchased and repurchased albums of music that resonates with you as the format changed from, albums, 8 tracks, 45's, cassettes, md, cd, dvd audio etc? Most of the bands that I enjoy, I have or will see live at some point. I really believe that live performance is a huge key, and that artists working together using psychographic data to create 'festival' concepts for collective promotion of new music and artists would be hugely beneficial and successful. If you had a variety of acts based on psychographic data, you would draw just as many fans, likely more, and you would please more of the people more of the time. Demographic marketing divides and discriminates, in a variety of ways. If the old adage "birds of a feather flock together" is still true, then age, gender, creed, nationality, and race become obsolete because psychographic compatibility will bring the flock together for a shared experience. If you don't perform live, there is no way to develop the relationship with individual audience members who may then want a "keepsake" like a cd from the event. The Beatles were able to release albums without touring because they had a firm foundation from earlier live performance efforts, but mostly because they found the audience. I also think in hindsight that psychographics could be responsible for the success of the record and radio industry of the 60's and early 70's. Because of the galvanizing factors of politics, the Vietnam war, drug culture etc.(psychographics if I'm understanding the concept). Part of the problem is that artists by nature don't look at adjusting their art to help establish marketability as an art in it's own right. Artists create, then hope somebody gets it, and that's fine. But, that's also an argument for psychographics to help identify and uncover your audience. So, which ever approach you take, create art and throw it against the wall to see what sticks, or adjust to accommodate your developing market, psychographics may be a valuable tool. I think it's actually at the root of what developed into genre specific marketing. But, now the parameters of the market are too rigid, and the consumers are sending a clear message to the industry by not buying it anymore. The biggest challenge for me as a music creator and consumer is creating and finding music that actually resonates emotionally and/or intellectually with me. If it were as simple as these 100 people love it and so will you, I would be finding more music I love by that method, but I'm not.

[Andrew Ingkavet]

This is wonderful. I was just having this conversation with a producing partner yesterday!

As a former ad agency creative, I was explaining that we need to think of our audience (for our film project) in terms of psychographics. "What's that she says?" Well you gave me a great link for her.

And, more food for thought, at the IFP conference last week (Independent Feature Project) in NY, there was great case study for the film called Helvetica, which was a classic example of knowing the psychographics of your audience and then delivering them what they want. The film industry is just coming together on this whole digital distribution with aggregators like TuneCore starting to emerge. As a Film Composer, I feel like a man in 2 worlds with all of these changes brought on by technology.

Thanks for the great article and for the lovely service of Tunecore!

best
Andrew Ingkavet
Film Composer
http://ingkavet.org

[George Howard]

@Bruce Warila

Bruce,

I appreciate the discourse. My specific issue is that artists who spend all their time, money, energy, etc. in making a "great" song will be sorely disappointed when no one ever hears said song.

Yes, as you state, a majority of the songs that are purchased via iTunes are likely from people who have not seen this artist perform live. Respectfully, you're missing the point.

While these purchasers may or may not have seen the artist perform live, they likely have been turned on (either directly or indirectly) by someone who did. For example, an artist does a great show (i.e. creates an emotional connection with an audience). the day after that show some percentage (typically following the 80/20 rule) of the attendees will become mavens and tell people (either in fact or virtually; i.e. via word of mouth or via blogging, posting on FB, etc.). These "mavens" (cf. Gladwell's Tipping Point") inform those who were not present about something they are moved by (i.e. the live performance). because these mavens are "trusted sources," those with whom they are connected CARE about what they have to say, and are then more likely to go purchase the music.

so...again, it comes down to the emotional connection that begins at a live performance that leads to sales. it has NOTHING to do with making a great song. the quality of the song is informed/defined by the context of the experience, and further defined by the word of mouth from the trusted sources.

best,

George

[George Howard]

@Bruce Waril

Bruce,

Sorry for chunking my response in two parts. I had to cut my last post short.

Again, I appreciate the discourse, and while we clearly disagree on a (to use a currently over-used word) fundamental level, I do respect your take.

My last point on this is that I fear your advice will perpetuate the longest-running, greatest, and most dangerous fallacy of the music business: if you build it, they will come. Or, to use your phrasing, if you write/produce a great song, you will sell it.

My problem with this isn't with regards to the "great" song part. Though, again, a great song isn't a priori great, it's "greatness" emerges out of context (a posteriori ). In other words, without context, it's debatable that much of Phish's music would be considered "great"; Butthole Surfers; Velvet Underground, etc.

Rather, my main point is that while you use terms such as ROI that hint that strategy exists somewhere in your thinking, you greatly betray any real hopes of strategic thinking by suggesting that "if you build it, they will come."

Artists cling to this belief, and, frankly, I feel that those of us who - for whatever reason (but hopefully from actual experience in the market place selling records for some period of time - have their (the artist's) ears, we have a deep and profound responsibility to disabuse them of the idea that all they have to do is write great songs. Instead, it is our responsibility to inform that the quality of the song is frankly de minimis when compared with the importance of a sound strategy that requires, planning, execution, measurement, refinement (basically, the Deming Cycle). Anything less, and CERTAINLY focusing your energy on just writing great songs and assuming the magical technology in the sky will connect you with listeners, is irresponsible, and leads to the crippling effect that artists feel that their music is not great because it hasn't been validated by sales.

Artists need strategy above all else. The "greatness" of their music will be conferred upon them (or not) only after they have managed to realisitically place their music into a context where it can be judged. the only way this begins is by developing a strategic plan to get your music out there in front of people.

Your "method" of just writing a great song, and the rest will take care of itself only reinforces a very dangerous mis-belief that artists tent to tilt to naturally: i.e. they just worry about writing the song, and leave the strategy/business up to others. Not only does this approach disempower artists, it puts them in positions where they can easily be taken advantage of.

Anyway, enough of this. the only reason I keep going on here, is, as I said above, I feel a duty to do so.

best,

George

[JeffCore]

Want my opion (well no one asked but here it is anyway)

A (subjective) "Good" song is needed in the context of a strategy

if the song is not (again subjective) "good" but has a great strategy, it will not succeed

if the song IS (again subjective) "good" but has a poor strategy, it will not succeed

it needs both - or gradations of both - to achieve success

[Lee Berg]

@Bruce

Let us take a look at some of the artists that have become quite successful in the "i-Tunes"/"recommendation" age.

1. The Whigs- Recorded their first album with used equipment bought from piggy bank money, in an empty fraternity house in Athens, GA. Toured tirelessly on weekends, school breaks, and summers. Created enough hype touring to land them in Rolling Stone's "top un-signed bands you should know about." Self-released the first album after graduating from UGA. Sold the equipment used to record the album on eBay in order to pay for a self-promoted, self-booked tour. Toured, and toured, and toured... Eventually signed by ATO. Continuing to tour relentlessly and sell records.

2. Arcade Fire- Close to the same story as the Whigs, but in Montreal. Extensive touring with outstanding live shows. Perfection of the live show leads to the attention of reputable indie Merge Records. Aggressive viral marketing online, coupled with rave blog reviews lead this band to sell many records and land two Grammy nominations.

3. Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, the Shins... etc, etc, etc.

I hate to be sarcastic, but instead of all of their tireless efforts maybe they should have just thrown their music onto iTunes and waited for something to happen.

I simply do not see the logic in your advice to drop promotion and just make "great" songs.

Perplexed,
Lee

[Andrew Goodrich]

This article about MADE TO STICK would seem to side with the argument saying the inherent quality of a product does not determine whether it will stick. Shit sticks; gems fall down the storm drain; what determines the "stick factor" is communication (and in the case of music, context).

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/the_stickiness_.html

[Adam]

Hey folks,

I just wanted to add in a few thoughts on this.

I don't think that the notion of ignoring genre in favor of psychographics is a wise thing, nor is it wise to assume that a person will only listen to one genre.

I would argue that both schools of thought are equally important, and that by ignoring one you are in effect throwing the baby out with the bath water (a great saying!).

Fabri created five genre rules. These were based on looking at a genre and describing the conventions assosiated with it. This is very importsnt because people expect certain things from certain music. If you present your music in the wrong way (from what you wear to what your artwork looks like and even what you say and do) you run the risk of falling outside of the range of vision of those looking for you. Of course it is possible that the person picking up you metal album that has been misplaced in the drum and bass section will not mind and may even be quite pleased with what he hears, but the chances are slim (particularly if instead of drum and bass it Classic or Jazz).

But of course genre is not all. As I understand it psychographics can be used to read further into genre. It is an additional weapon to describe and explain the people who are likely to buy your record. It's very probable that your metal record will be liked by some drum and bass fans too, but which ones? what else do they like? where else do they go / do / be / see?

Ad.

p.s. I have reservations regarding Gladwell's "Tipping Point" - I think the notion of hype spreading like an epidemic is slightly simplistic, and I also believe that particular piece to have been somewhat discredited?