Surviving the 2024 Music Industry: A Hilarious Yet Honest Account of the Trials and Triumphs of Independent Artists
Trust me, you will need some praying.
Alright, gather 'round, fellow artist dreamers, for a story that's equal parts cautionary and comedic.
Imagine this: you, a bold and proud independent artist armed with nothing but your passion, your music and your guitar...ready to take on the music industry worldwide.
But hold onto your drumsticks, because the odds are about as friendly as winning the lotto while not having played it at all.
First off, let's talk visibility.
In a world where everyone and their cousin is an artist and has a Spotify playlist, standing out is like trying to find a single raindrop in a monsoon crashing on Florida. 🌪️🌨️
Sure, you could spend hours posting your Distrokid Generated Artwork on your social media and call it "music marketing" (Please...don't do that)
And begging your friends and grandma with countless of Instagram's stories to share your tunes, but chances are your masterpiece will end up buried under a mountain of cat videos and food content. (Positive Thinking)
In all seriousness, every year Spotify sees a whopping 9 million independently released songs, along with an extra 1 million from major labels.
Yet, only a fraction of these tracks will ever reach a million streams, and the ones that do; particularly on Spotify; often do it through the help of a clandestine Instagram account named "playlist4all" based in New Delhi charging $5 for playlist submissions to its 100 million followers, amidst a pool of 3 million songs from 53 million different artists and 3 Instagram followers.
Your song has now got a million streams on Spotify 🔥🔥🔥 CONGRATS, if Spotify didn't kill it soon enough for bots 🤖 use, they might at some point.
But let's say, by some miracle, you catch the eye of a manager and/or a record label or a music exec.
Congrats!!! you've just entered the ring!
Get ready to duke it out in a world of contracts, deals, and compromises...faster than you can say
"Wait...what's recoupables? Does it mean I have to pay you at the end? WHAT?...I am an artist, artists don't pay 😡 "
Suddenly, your so much sweated artistic vision takes a backseat to profit margins and marketability.
But hey; you are living the time of your life!
And don't even get me started on touring.
While pop stars are living it up in luxury jet planes
stowing in unrecouped record deals and impeding bankruptcies (yes, your favorite artists might be broke) and partying like there's no tomorrow (life's too short) you'll be crammed into a beat-up van with your bandmates, surviving on a diet of fast food and energy drinks. Ah, the glamorous life!
But fear not, my fellow indie warriors, for there's a glimmer of hope in this bleak landscape.
For every hundred failures, there's that one shining success story, made out of strategy and marketing that underdog who defies the odds and makes it big. An Actual Example Here
So keep strumming those chords, banging those drums, and belting out those lyrics. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be the one headlining sold-out shows and living the dream. Or at least you'll have some epic stories to tell at open mic nights.
For the rest of you, 99.9999991%. Good luck!
Making it in the music business today requires more than just luck—it's like getting struck by lightning while winning the lottery.
Without a solid foundation of strategy, development, and market research, the odds are stacked against you.
Cheers to chasing those dreams, folks.
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