Welcome to the tenth edition of The Hum! In this edition we continue talking about how artist work with Part 2 of Artist Verticals. You can check out Part 1 here. We are also excited to share the results of our first musician survey, where we asked 30 emerging musicians about their experience in music.
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Breaking Through: Confidence and Challenges for Emerging Musicians
We are happy to share the results of a recent survey we conducted with 30 emerging musicians, most of whom are actively trying to establish themselves and build a fanbase. We wanted to understand their biggest hurdles and areas of confidence, and the results paint an interesting picture.
First, a little background on our respondent musicians:
Most of our 30 respondents are independent musicians not currently on any label, with only about 30% of total participants working with a small to medium label. Furthermore, 77% of our respondents have been making music for over 6 years.
Artistic Confidence Shines
The good news is clear: the musicians surveyed are confident in their artistic and creative output! Releasing music (63.3% reporting feeling very confident), booking local shows (50% very confident) and making and selling merch (33% very confident and 47% somewhat confident) are all areas where a majority of respondents felt very or somewhat confident. This bodes well for the artistic future of our industry, hinting at a strong foundation of artistic vision and talent among our respondents.
However, the survey also identified some areas where confidence dips. Many musicians reported feeling not confident at all in securing a record deal, finding grants, increasing followers and streams and growing their fanbase. This highlights a key challenge for many emerging artists: the business of music. While the passion and creativity are there, the financial and logistical aspects of navigating a music career can feel overwhelming.
Live music is the financial lifeblood of emerging acts
Unsurprisingly, our survey uncovered that the main source of income for our participating musicians is live music, followed by merch and record sales. Streaming income came in fourth place with 67% of respondents reporting they make no money from streaming whatsoever.
Streaming payouts are seen as a place where the industry needs to improve
Given the low number of respondents who reported making any income from streaming, it wasn’t surprising to learn how they are feeling about streaming payouts—respondents overwhelmingly ranking increased streaming income as the key change needed to improve the industry. With 67% of respondents prioritizing this issue, it's clear that fair compensation from streaming services is a top concern. This suggests a need for reevaluation of the current model to ensure emerging musicians are able to sustainably grow from new listening options, like streaming.
So, what can we take away from this data? The music industry thrives on the creative work of passionate artists. Our survey shows that many early-career musicians have the talent and drive to succeed. However, there is still a need for more support from the industry for better resources, tools, and education on the business of music, fan engagement, and the realities of growing a fanbase in the age of streaming and social media.
Artist Verticals: How artists work
In this piece we continue our discussion from our last issue about how artists work towards their definition of success. What are the avenues they often take that lead them to growing their audience, and which tools do they use to get there. We narrowed it down to 9 core activities, but contact us if you think of others.
Part 2
For the second half of this piece, we’ll describe the tactical activities artists must engage in. As we heard from our survey respondents and articles linked below, artists are often learning to be their own managers, publicists, and merch distributors without having prior training or experience in doing so. These activities aren’t so much desired by artists as they are necessary for growing their audience and gaining exposure.
Social Media
It goes without saying that most artists promote their music using social media platforms. Artists use social media tools to share posts, images, videos, and live updates to generate engagement and connect with their fans (or potential fans). The data from social media can be leveraged to understand more about the artist’s fans, their demographics, where they are located, and the type of content they are most interested in. The platform of choice is a topic of discussion. The genre of music, the influence of the platform on the genre’s trends, and the type of content the artist is able to generate play a role in successful engagement. Still, others suggest that if you want the most people to engage in the shortest amount of time, TikTok is the place.
Social media is also used to connect to venues, booking or touring organizations, labels, graphic artists, music journals, and other artists. As mentioned in the touring section, artists may keep in touch with artists they’ve performed with to identify opportunities to tour together, share a bill, and collaborate. This need to keep connections and pay it forward is even more critical for independent artists who plan their own DIY tours. David “Spoonboy” Combs calls this Reciprocity and explains its significance in his article about the real costs of DIY tours.
The challenge: As social media has enabled anyone to be a “creator” of sorts, it has shifted the power to individuals to self-promote and grow an audience. While this is useful for artists, it has the detrimental effect of requiring time, energy, and content to keep it running. And most importantly, artists are up against the biases of social media algorithms. Identifying what works and what doesn’t isn’t easy. High profile artists may afford to have social media managers assist in developing content and tracking engagement. Small profile, independent artists typically figure it out through trial and error.
Publishing
Music publishing is a core part of generating revenue from music. It is the business of producing, protecting, and administering copyrights for musical compositions. After an artist has finalized the details of their song(s) (title, credits, length of recording, album, etc.) they can copyright their music.
The copyright consists of two components: the master rights to the sound recording and the publishing rights to the composition. The master rights refer to the original sound recordings of their music. When the artist holds the master rights to the original sound recording, they will earn royalties whenever that song’s recording is broadcast or reproduced, like through streaming and downloads. The publishing rights to the composition refer to the writer of the underlying musical elements which may or may not include lyrics. It is the publishing rights that garner the artist three types of royalties: performing, mechanical, and sync licensing.
If an artist has signed a publishing deal, they have determined what share of revenue they receive from royalties with the publishing company. There are a few types of publishing deals you can learn more about in this article, but essentially the deals depend on the notoriety of the artist. According to the article from Ditto, “it’s practically impossible for artists with smaller back catalogs to build the relationships they need to claim all the royalties they’re owed. This can end up leaving potential revenue unclaimed.” Publishers work with performing rights organizations (PROs) to collect performing royalties on behalf of composers and songwriters in a given region.
The challenge: Publishing is a complex process with various organizations involved. Because of this artists may struggle to fully understand the process and its implications. Additionally, the nature of publishing is dependent on the reputation and notoriety of the artist, which can leave independent artists with less control and profitability from their copyright.
Streaming
As the popular way to listen to music, artists use digital streaming platforms (DSPs) primarily as a way to make their music accessible to listeners. As we wrote in earlier issues, artists struggle with earning revenue from DSPs except those at the top. Digital distribution services such as Distrokid have allowed individuals and indie artists to take the power of distribution into their own hands for relatively little cost, an ability that would previously have been out of reach to all but those on labels with distribution deals built in. While the most popular DSP is Spotify, artists may also make their music available on Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Bandcamp (which has a very different payout model), and, if it counts, SoundCloud. As noted in issue 8, some artists are trying out independent subscription services like Vault, however it’s likely that only artists with an established following will draw their audience to a new platform.
The challenge: As we’ve covered in previous issues, new payout models for DSPs will change the ability for artists to earn money from streaming where the high profile artists can earn more and the independent artists may earn nothing if streams fall below 1000. Artists need to consider the accessibility to fans and the possibility of taking a loss when it comes to adding their music to DSPs.
Merchandise
Merchandise, or merch as it's typically called, refers to items for sale at live shows, often music (CDs, vinyl records, cassette tapes) or memorabilia items (shirts, sweatshirts, tote bags). In addition to being sold at shows, merch is often made available online through an artist or labels website. Merch is the primary means of an independent artist even breaking even while on tour due to the costs and potential fluctuations in food, lodging, and travel. For music releases, artists who are signed to record labels often rely on the label to pay for the production of records, CDs, tapes, etc. The label may or may not take a share of the revenue from record sales and the mechanical royalties they carry. For artists who self-release, they may work with the record pressing plant, CD/cassette duplicator directly, or duplicate cassettes themself if they are motivated to physically release their music. For memorabilia items, once an artist has artwork (often commissioned by a graphic designer, but sometimes made by the artist themself) they usually work with a screen printer to produce shirts, tote bags, or other items. To do this the artist must estimate the amount they need and purchase the merchandise in bulk, hoping to turn a profit through markup.
The challenge: Artists must consider the budget they have to spend on merchandise, the quantity needed, and the markup required to turn a profit. For those that purchase too much, they may not deplete stock for years, for others who purchase too little, they may not fulfill demand and need to backorder items.
Press
Articles, interviews, album reviews, album previews, video performances, and radio spots are all elements that fall under the purview of public relations (PR) and marketing. This is how legitimacy, critical reputation and in many cases even the existence of an artist is established in the eyes of the public. Traditional journalism that is published in newspapers, magazines, and music journals has become less critical as people turn to social media to find news and other current events, but for some artists a review in Rolling Stone, The Wire, or Billboard would be akin to an Oscar nomination. Online music journals such as Pitchfork, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and others are desired for album announcements and reviews. Radio has become less important in the past two decades, no longer being able to literally “break” an artist as was the case in the past, but it is by no means obsolete. Getting an interview on NPR or getting a song into rotation at a radio station can still have a huge boost on an artist's visibility, which doesn’t always directly translate into revenue.
Artists often rely on a publicist, their label, or marketer to assist with connecting with press opportunities, creating and sharing their press kit (which includes photos, videos, and description of the band’s sound), and disseminating the resulting article or feature on the artist’s social channels. For artists who do not have a PR professional assisting them, they may establish relationships with music journalists directly and send their songs or videos to music journals themselves.
The challenge: While the press opportunities mentioned above may not launch an artist’s career at the singular level, amassing more and more features makes the artist more easily known and creates documentation for the artist and the organizations they work with to point back to. Similar to social media, the struggle for artists in generating press is to either identify the right publicity who can connect them to the right opportunities, or figure it out on their own in the increasingly stratified state of journalism.