(Read part 1 here.)
In the previous post, singer/songwriter Angie Stevens gave an independent artist’s take on the music business. Today, we continue with the same Q&A from a manager’s perspective, with Angie’s manager and Boss Koala Records co-owner, Mike Lavelle.
Q: What’s happening in the music industry these days?
MIKE: That’s pretty much the million dollar question. The industry is clearly changing, but where it is headed is anyone’s guess. There is an abundance of music, with most available free in some form. Pandora, Spotify and the like are making almost all music available to everyone, for free. And with the ability for practically anyone to record music, there’s virtually more than any one person can take in.
Photo: Shelby McQuilkin
For this post and the next, we have the opportunity to get an insider’s look at the state of the music business, from two distinct viewpoints: artist and management.
With all the self-promotion tools available to DIY artists, the bottom-line goal with all of them is simple: get your music noticed. Get your act on the radar with as many people as possible, both consumers and industry professionals. The question is how to do it–and despite what anyone might tell you, there’s no single formula to get it done.
If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you have probably come across a post where I encourage musicians to think outside of the box to find success. Despite all the seemingly bad news about the music business out there, all the talk about low record sales, all the stories of hard-working indie artists struggling to make it, and well-established label artists having to drop their ticket prices just to get people to come to the shows–the fact is that there are some bright spots out there.
Do I have your attention? Ahem.
With the current state of the music business in so much upheaval, and with the advent of digital technology and social networking enabling the number of DIY and indie musicians to mushroom in recent years, the path to musical success has seemingly become a bit clouded. There are lots of people giving advice, lots of blogs like this one discussing the issues, even an increasing number of colleges offering courses on the music biz–all trying to clear the pathway, so to speak. Lots of voices out there spitting out information, but nobody really seems to know for sure where this is going, or what to do about it.
I don’t know about you, but in my background, the term “self-promotion” was kind of like a four-letter word. Except with 13 letters. And a hyphen.
Really, promotion wasn’t a bad thing. It was the “self” in front of it that made it a four-letter word. It just seems distasteful to blow one’s own horn. Better to have someone else do it for you…right?
But here’s the thing. In the indie music business, especially starting out in it, nobody knows who you are–and hiring someone to promote you is usually out of the question. So if you don’t tell people who you are–who else will?
Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending a special music seminar here in Denver, geared toward helping local indie musicians navigate the current musical landscape. It’s going to take me awhile to digest all the good information I heard, but one thing that struck me above anything else is that while the instructor was honest about the difficulties DIY musicians have today, he was still very positive and hopeful. Rather than tell these musicians how bad things were, he challenged them to think outside the box, and encouraged them that eventually things will find their balance again.
From ArtistHouseMusic…the widget below contains a series of video clips of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records (think U2) as he talks about various aspects of the music industry today–including a lot of insight for independent artists. These clips were filmed at a seminar at Loyola University in New Orleans. There are a lot of clips here, but it’s worth taking the time to watch them. See what you think.
Did you know you can learn something from rejection?
One time early in my career, I was given a music industry “in”, a friend of a friend in the A&R department at a record label in Nashville. I called and got permission to send in a demo of some songs I’d written, which I thought (on a purely objective level, of course) were pretty good.
A few weeks later, I got a rejection letter. It definitely stung, but I didn’t let it end there. I actually had the nerve to call the guy at the A&R department to ask what it was that caused him to turn me down.
