New year resolution

This year it will actually be very easy to make a New Year Resolution.

Take off all small things that are just there for fun, just work with the bigger projects and don't bother with the DIY people that are going nowhere. No more people that you have to clean up their mess.

In fact, the new in word will be NO.

I just have to say no to a lot more things. Sorry, I don't have time to do friendly stuff that leads to nothing.

So easy the New Year Resolution will be that I will say no to more things.

To much information, and I will kill you!

You know too much so I guess we have to kill you!
a sentence you probably hear in the movies time to time. And it's not that bad in this case. Still many times I wonder how much info is really needed. Also, knowledge is good in many cases.

But to do the work you can't really explain everything to the artists. Take an example that you should buy a package of milk in the grocery store. the basic fact you need to know, like how much does it cost. what kind of milk is it ( fat, skin etc)? How long will it be good, when do you think it will go sour.

This usually you kind find along with the package, The price is on the shelf, the best before date is on there. But if it was missing no one would look strange on you for asking.

This information should be enough to get you to make a decision to buy this milk or not. Same in the music industry this basic fact you really need to know, and if you don't know how to read the date we will help you to learn that.

If the went to the cashier and started to ask questions like, Witch farm does this milk come from? And to be exact witch cow? I also want the name of the driver that brings the milk to the grocery store. Also, who was the person that started the milking machine that day? If I don't get that info I won't buy this carton of milk!

I guess you just will be thrown out from the store, and you will pro0bably not purchase that milk.

In my job this is actually not that uncommon, yes it looks funny when I put it out this way but when you get this you just want to throw the person out of the office.

The person in the grocery store actually can't answer these questions. Technically it can be done. They could trace all this information and how it's done etc, etc. Still instead of just scan you milk get paid every customer would take forever and the information is not that crucial.
Instead, it is an agreement that we accept that these people that bring in the milk to the grocery store actually knows their job. The other way is to get your own cow and start milk yourself. Not very practical, but actually doable.

So when people start to ask how a song is delivered to Spotify, or how the collection societies work against each other in different matters. Or how radio is paying out the PRS.Technically I can answer that question. Timewise no! If you don't trust what we are doing, there you have the door.

These things actually work fine. same as the guy driving the milk to the store. It's done daily and almost work all the time. Here too. Sure if you get 6 boxes of milk that are sour before the date we have to go back and see if the cooling system in the truck is done. But that is NOT a job for a customer, we do that side ourselves. If one cartoon gets bad ahead of time well that can be many mistakes during the way, shit happens, get on with it.

It's time to go on Holiday!

Last day in the office, we close down until 10 of January. Well, the blog won't close, I will still update during the holidays.

Right now I'm excited to get going to make the year movie. It's great since it's a good reminder of how much things we actually got done. All these opportunities we got to our artists. Also going down memory lane and see all the pictures craziness that has happened.

This will be a short post since I need to get things wrapped up. So here is a good x-mas song.

It's a team job, not a one man show!

A problem I see too many are doing is jumping around. They believe more in one person then having the right team. Or more that one person can put a fantastic team together.
What is happening is thought that they leave one team to go to another team or going from one person to another person.

Most of the successes are actually quite big teams that are doing things all around the world. when you jump like that you are more or less go back to square one. The smart thing to do is to build people in the team to get a larger and larger team. It's not easy and you have to do quite many team bonding activities, but in the end, it's worth it.

And when a team is that good, then you won't be stepping on anyone's toes when you are moving up and need different team members.

In the old days, you could always see these artists having different record labels at every release. In the end, you just avoided those artists. you knew that they demanded that you should drop everything you where working with and just focus on there release. How much you ever did it was not enough. Even with a number one on Billboard and they still thought that you should have done more and changed record label.

So don't expect that one person can do your career. Don't forget who was doing the early stuff. And try to keep the team together.

Everything is relative.

 Everything is relative. What is big for someone is small for someone else.

I just got an email from an artist saying that she really got good numbers on Youtube with her latest video. I went in and she had 36 000 views on four months. In some cases that is really good, in some cases that are really nothing.

Right now the gap between both is widening. I spoke to a guy working ion a major record label. Their lookout was if you got a million streams on the first 48 hours of a release. Well, then your 36 000 streams on youtube are really nothing.

At the same time, I got from a manger that is struggling to get 1000 streams on Youtube. For him, 36 000 would be a success.

But then the streams is not everything. I looked on the video with 36 000 streams, on three months it has only got seven comments. So I wonder where these streams come from? One of the tricks is to measure the streams is also watching the comments.

This video The Magnettes did with Rockit Gaming last year. On one year it has done 850 000 views with 2500 comments. I link it here:


In the world of the manager and the artist, this is a smash hit. I talked to the guys in Rockit Gaming and they thought it went a bit better than normal, but not any smash hit when it comes to Youtube standards. Many of their videos have over 2 million views.

Here we go it all about perspective. In the end, though nothing of this has broken any of these artists. Hunting numbers and boosting numbers is really not getting you anywhere.

I mean look at the artist with 36 000 streams. She thinks I will be impressed with that and start working with her or book her to our festival. The thing is that I looked on her Spotify and the same song had under 1000 streams. The facebook was 140 likes. She had never really played live. And the final blow, the song really sucked.

The important day!

Tomorrow is a really important day. Well, when you read it it was yesterday and I will know the outcome.

If everything goes as planned I'm about to start a couple of new festivals around the world. My already crazy schedule will be crazier than ever. I don't know what to feel about it. I would love to have some time off just one day a week (I sit and write this on Sunday night, try to be quick since I need to get up really early tomorrow). I guess though I have the right mental state. this is what I want to do. I love my job, and it's the results of years of testing and trying things out.

I have written it before, you need to catch the opportunity.

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?

Yes, it's the lyrics from "Lose Yourself" with Eminem. Tomorrow is that day where everything can change. It's time to try to catch this opportunity, time to move ahead.

When you stop to take the chances is the day you reach your peak. Tomorrow is not my peak ....I have come to drop the bombs!

The problem with updating on DIY.

The biggest problem with DIY is that you are always very late to get the latest news and smart things to do. Things that go around in the industry actually comes down to the artist level it's almost one year old. Even with an artist signed to labels we still see that the info of what is going on is not that updated.

I can just compare when I got Spotify in 2010. I got the Beta version and could try it out. I was excited and told all my artist back then around of this new system. they really never cared, the only thing in their head back then was Itunes, in the worst cases, they were still into My Space. It took at least four years before the artist was up to date with what Spotify is and they started to be interested in the new thing. That is four years too late, by then Spotify was already divided and DIY was not in the priority.

Just got a message from one of my friends in the industry explaining to one of our bands that the first hours on Youtube is the most critical one. So hide a video and then do it visible is not that good for the algorithms.
Things like this are the stuff that DIY need to know to be able to make a good release. I guess when this info reaches them it's already out of date. and this one is very small we are talking about hundreds of tricks like this to make things happen.

Many think this info is accessible online. Yes, it is but it's also drowned in thousands of posts of other DIY people with the most strange ideas which are not correct. Finding what is good and not good here is impossible.

I have said it before that DIY is dead. Right now I feel it's more dead then ever. The industry is moving so far ahead that it makes it impossible to do it DIY as an artist and reach any bigger level. Even starting up a new record label and try to fit in the information stream has become really hard. It's all down to the team nowadays.

This is what you need to focus on the living from your music.

I got one of those "set your mind to it" where they start by explaining that all that you do is overwhelming and takes time and what should you focus on?

Most artists fall for this. Maybe you fall for the headline I wrote?

I mean we all have that question. This is not just the artist asking this question all the time, the professionals have the same doubt. Everything is overwhelming and the day only has 24 hours, and you need to sleep and eat. But even with a team with 100 people doing all that stuff that should be done, it's still not enough. When you get to that point you tell the world that you would need 200 people to make the task, why? Well, the more you do the more gets in as opportunities.

In this video, they talk about your goals, that you need to know your goals and stick to that than running around like a chicken. I agree to keep the goals and yes stop running around like chicken. You need to focus where you find it good to be. For example, I don't spend any time on Twitter. My post goes up there just if someone that likes twitter wants to fins me. Same with Linked in my posts are there too but I don't follow that much. I used to do a lot of Facebook. The new algorithm though has destroyed the good part there sop I had to go over to make a business account, still, Facebook only let through 10% so right now I focus more on e-mail. See when I change that, depends on the outcome in six months which is the time period I want to test out.

In a way, though nothing of this is important. The real importance is the mindset. The reason I'm in the position I'm is totally mindset. I want to work behind the scenes in the music industry. I don't have any desire to be on the stage, but I'm deeply interested in the business around it.
And I wake up every morning to just work with that. That curiosity is what drives me and make me go places. The people that fail are the ones that just do a bit of this. It's fun to work but you go home 5 a clock to your family and treat it like a 9 to 5 job.

An artist like Ed Sheeran was doing the same. I bet there are thousands that are better than ED Sheeran out there. But few have the determination like Ed. And keep going all the time is the key factor that took him where he is. He created the luck that got him there.

The problem is that many do a lot very fast. Suddenly they releasing a lot of music, posting a lot and are in your face for six months. Then they just cool off. And then they do the same race three years later. Like I said so many times it's a marathon not a sprinter race. You just have to do things all the time. And some periods of the year you do certain things like right now is high time to seek out festivals for the summer. So contacting those would be a good mission right now. Still, to contact them you need a good story why they should have your band so planning in a release later in the spring must be done at the same time. And on top of that don't forget the other stuff you were doing before.

Suddenly it's overwhelming. Then you think it over, take the things that work, keep with those and drop the stuff that doesn't. But with the right mindset you will come quickly up with new stuff to do so when it's overwhelmed it's temporary.

Active or passive listners? How to detect fake numbers.

I have been writing about fake numbers, here and here before. So how do you check fake numbers? Many artists just ask for certain things but if you fake one thing it shows on other things.

Normally I don't hang out bands, but in this case, I have to. Nothing wrong with these bands, probably they don't know it, it might be done by their label, management or something. But to learn how things work I have to do it.

The artist KIDDO, it's a Swedish artist, pretty few have her of her before. I would guess most of my friends would say KIDDO who?
I just looked on her Spotify numbers. KIDDO has 323 463 listeners a month on Spotify Her first single trouble has 500 000 streams, her second single 1,8 million streams and her new one released 7 of September 3,5 million streams.
Good numbers and this is what many artists thinks that we should focus on. It looks really good with three singles and that many streams.

Yes if you are an amateur booker or people not from the industry it looks perfect. But right now the whole industry is learning how to look into this fake numbers, because yes they are fake. Or not fake, they are passive streams. Passive means that it's used as background music, like music in the roof of a store. Active is when you go in and type in the song you want to listen to.

To check the streams you just sweep to another channel to see if these numbers collaborate with Spotify. So we check her facebook page. And here you easily find that she only has 1136 people following. Yes, all these streams are coming from passive listening on playlists on Spotify. The real followers are more like this number on facebook and that is what a normal new beginning artist has. Clearly, someone has pushed something just for Spotify.

Then we have Instagram, she is young so she would have more here, 2398 followers, but only 61 posts, so she is not very active.

Then we go to the real killer, Youtube. It used to be the cheating channel but it's harder to do it now so it has become a check tool to Spotify. Only one video out, but it's the last single that had over 3,5 million streams. Here you got a 54 000 and only 73 comments since September. Usually the mistake is that they only go for one channel, in this case Spotify, then forget the other channels. With real fans, the numbers actually go up on all channels at the same time.

I was on a panel on Viva Sounds this weekend and they were discussing this and the biggest booker said. Yes, they might have many streams but that doesn't indicate that they are a good live. KIDDO don't have any live videos! Booking this artist could be a really big gamble, and many have lost a lot of money by test the numbers out. In reality, KIDDO is just a small artist on her way up. But if you look on just Spotify she would be a top 50 artist.

So how did she get so many playlists (a thing artists always ask for), well, one thing her social media reveals is that she is part of a Spotify program for female producers. That can help, I'm not saying that is the reason. Also, some bigger lables has put in their playlists just to pump numbers. Still, they just put on playlist where we know there are fake accounts just listen to the list over and over. And the Spotify playlist she has is mainly the ones where people use it as background music. The active listeners are revealed in the other social media numbers. So the numbers are probably pumped by her record label and maybe also her connection to Spotify.

Many artists wish that they had a company pumping numbers. But look out for what you ask for. The booking industry will be harder and harder that the numbers make sense, so if your company cheat like this it might cost you other stuff. Just good numbers on one site is not good enough. It has to be on all platforms.

Another example is Noëp from Estonia. He was signed to Sony music in Sweden. He released a couple of singles there. "Move" with 8,1 million streams, "Rooftop" with 5,1 million streams and "New Heights" with 1,7 million streams. The rest of his catalog have a couple of hundred thousand streams each. But these three sticks out. and yes those are the one released of Sony. It's pretty evident that Sony pumped the numbers.

Also here you can easily see how Sony went for streams on the first one. Of course, it was massive but Sony also knows that the streams are passive listeners. They test out if the audience like it. But it seems no they didn't. I guess it actually cost Sony more then they got on these 8 million streams, they try one more with the second one and you can see that the third one they just add it to some smaller one.

After that, they seem to have dropped the artist? All releases after that are on the artist own label. Here you can easily see that they just go up to a couple of hundred thousand which is the capacity for Noëp. This match his Facebook following of 17 000 people. Or does it?
I guess he has cheated here too. Yes, he has 17 000 followers but on average all post he does just get around 60 likes or interactions. yes, another tool is to check the interactions on posts.
On Instagram, he has 15 000 followers with an average of 1500 interactions, better and more likely and actually fits with a hundred thousand streams. A good key point is that the interaction should be 10% of the followers.

Then we go to Youtube and it gives it away, the channel only has 7000 followers. The videos are around 25 000 views each. Then "Move" stands out, the single Sony bought numbers on and that has 1,2 million views, still far from the 8 million on Spotify.

Of course like I wrote nothing bad about the artists and in many cases we see that they're not in it. Still by doing numbers and it can be so easily checked and now is the trend that you can hunt that on live side. The live side is now taking over just because it's more money there and harder to cheat. So be careful what you wish for. Get real fans that is what will keep you alive in all weathers, even on Spotify.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Can I borrow you network?

I'm going to this place, can you set up some meetings for me?

I get this from my own bands as well as professionals around me. It seems kind of easy to just share your network and help someone out, but it's not. I used to do that, and it is an idea of that yes you can work as a group sharing things.
The problem that arouses is that in many cases it's personal contacts. It's a personal relationship. In the bottom, you actually put your personal brand on the line by doing this. In some cases when I have done it the person screws up the relationship because they say the wrong things or ask for the wrong stuff in the meeting.

One example long ago was when I got a really big Japanese label to Sweden. They were in Stockholm and an artist had nagged me to meet them. I didn't have time to take that meeting so I let the artist go by themselves. Then after that meeting, the label was a bit weird to talk to. Of course, the artist had been totally crazy and just went into the meeting demanding tours and stuff in Japan thinking that everything was easy to demand. In the end, it took me two years to get the trust back from the Japanese company.

Sure you can get my network, but I rather do the introduction when you are around. that is my principle right now. Then, of course, the people I have a super connection too I can give you.

And the problem is that networks are personal. You can easy her stories how an artist gets signed to a label and a month later that person leaves the company and the artist is stuck in limbo since the contacts that should be used for that artist went the person that was leaving.

Then you have to give something back. I built up a network for the past twenty years and paid quite much to get into things to get this. Sure I want to help you out but it is a give and takes. So for an artist, it's harder, they usually don't have much to give. Sure we are in the same boat and try to push your music forward. It's better though if you go for your own network and we use both then you tapping into mine so we both have the same.

Another thing is also that music professionals talk differently when they speak to an artist. They don't want to be rude so they really just be positive to all that your a saying. When you are in other terms you get a whole other story from them.

This is also why artists can't really do showcases by themselves. First, they are too busy playing and do what they should do. On the other side, it's hard for them to pick up your contacts and also know how to work them.

I get the contacts are a tool, a tool that you don't borrow out just like that.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

The hard work is after the signing!

Never strikes wrong, when you leave an artist since they mainly just sit on the sofa and sends you messages like " how is it going" they start to work. Suddenly they do these things they should have done all along, these smaller things that the professional can use to leverage to the second level. Now they do the small things and there is no one to take it to a next stage.

All the time when I speak with professionals they have experienced that they sign an artist that is really active and things are starting to happen. they take a chance and get the artist signed and suddenly everything stops. The artist is just expecting for you to pick up where they stopped and start doing all these smaller things they were working on. And you actually can't really do these smaller things. Okay yes in the artist's eyes these things are bigger, but in reality to get small blogs writing of you or update your homepage and get out and seeking fans is the smaller stuff you should really do on a daily basis. But these small things are the petrol we need for the engine to make the bigger stuff.

So then they come off again as active and someone else steps up and thinks, oh here is something happening and signs them. And suddenly they are back on the sofa sending messages "how is it going". Been there done that.

The thing is that when you get someone interested you actually have to step up all that work you're where doing before ten times. I guess many just expect that they should take over and you can just follow along, but that is totally different. The only time you do that is when you have a smaller manager that is new that is taking care of everything, I rather call these managers butlers then managers though. The problem with that is that these managers can never leverage anything since they are preoccupied to do all the things that the artist should do.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

I want artistic freedom!

-We are signed to a label that is run by artists for artists, a place where we can have our creative freedom.

The line is from an artist asking me to help them professionally to get forward in their career. I looked into their things and realized yes they were just standing still. All their efforts where merely crazy small attempts to do things that have already been proven to not work (things like fundraising campaigns, just releasing on SoundCloud, do their own tours in their own places). Then I checked out where everything was released and found the label with that saying in the top.

It's a nice thought that you can get together as a collective and do that. Sharing all your contacts ( a thing that never works, I hope to write a piece on that later next week). The problem with these things is that they just do the mistakes that have already been done. To be honest, the artist has their creative freedom even on normal labels, is just that someone is saying no to the most stupid ideas like sending a 10 minutes long song to radio and pay for PR doing it.

The problem is that it seems easy to release music. well, it looks easy to have a restaurant as well. You just cook food that people like and then you make money, right?
Of course not it's all the things having contacts to market the restaurant, getting the right suppliers of the ingredients to cook with. Having the right staff, and be very very persistent.
Imagine that 5 different home chefs open a restaurant doing exactly what they want. That menu would be something to see! Should they have different styles in the restaurant, ohh I want a table in the Mexican part far away from the rustic Swedish food section?

Of course, it could work out over time when they find common mistakes and agree on things, but then they are just like any other restaurant just taking some detour doing mistakes.

Back to the artist seeking us out. The funny part here is that now suddenly they seek out this professional side and think we can help out on these ideas we already know doesn't work. You have taken a path that you want all control, all the money, but also all the freedom. That really can´t be totally teamed up with someone that will say no to crazy ideas, already have a kind of strategy how to get you forward. To be able to work with professionals you have to be very open and very curious to try new things and be very very persistent.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Do it perfect, and never do anything! Slimy cod in a toaster!

Why don't you check your post with Grammarly? I do most of the time, on the phone it sometimes not work, then I try to check it later on the computer, and try to spell well on a phone! Still, errors occur, I know that and English is not my native language.

So I have two choices. I can do it much slower, just writing everything correct and also get the text corrected with someone else. Yes, but then I would do a post every second week. Sure it will be very polished. But would it be better? I guess not, you still get what I'm writing even with the errors. Part of the fun is that I can post Monday to Friday all week. A lot more is done and shared.

If we take this to the music level. All tracks that should be sent to me should be perfect produced in a very big famous studio and written by professional songwriters. I guess that would be really stupid to have that kind of expectation. Yes, the demos we get contains errors and faults, but hey that is okay. I can still listen to it and make a 99% judgment anyway. because if every song should be expected that flawless I would get a song sent to me every year. and the chances that the song is crap anyway is quite high.

Why? It comes down to the inside. what the song is telling you, what it contains. A good song is never about how good you play your instrument. Many times I meet perfect musicians that are lousy songwriters. These musicians usually just end up in the opera or big orchestras. And for me, that is the second place, they are not good enough. To be good on an instrument you just have to practice, to write a song you have to show real skills. And here it is about the story, not how it's spelled.

I usually compare it with Ramones and Yngwie Malmsteen. Ramones could never play any instrument very good. And I can only recall two solos in their songs ever, and one of these solos has it rumor that it's done by their producer. When Hilly Kristal saw Ramones the first time at CBGB:s he wasn't sure they just were some hoodlums that stolen their instruments.

Still, they wrote songs that would change generations. Look on the video when Metallica hear about Dee Dee:s death. Many other bands have also talked about how much Ramones meant to them like The Clash, Pearl Jam, U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers. And they were voted into Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of fame 2002.

Yngwie Malmsteen, well he can play guitar. But that can so many others, and there is probably some small Japanese kid that plays faster and better than him. But you never hear of this small Japanese kid writing good songs. And did Yngwie inspire a generation, hell no! Did he write classic songs that are done by superstars, not that I know? And the reason is that he only play fast, there is really no songs there. Even how much Yngwie thinks he is Rock 'n' Roll the chances that he gets into Rock 'n' Roll hall of fame is very slim.

And I will rather be the blog Ramones then Yngwie. I guess less is not more, more is more.

You can also use this method to write songs. Write five songs a week. If you think you can write five perfect songs all the time you are so stupid that I urge you to stop playing music. But over time you will get better. And out of a hundred written songs, you will end up with some really good ones. If you only write one song and polish that song over and over. You might don't see it but that song can be a turd from the beginning and you are polishing a turd so you will end up with a polished turd.

Same here, some of my posts are turds, badly spelled and not good. But if I write a lot then I get better and I will write some really good ones, witch my readers has shown me over and over. So if I start to polish a turd post yes I end up with a polished turd post. Better to move on just write more and learn to be better.

I have written this before when I just changed the blog from Swedish to English to get the blog accessible to more people. I just realized it was over two years ago, so I guess with new readers I can take this again. On that old blogpost, I ended with a quote from one of the first punk bands in Sweden:

" Jag sjunger vad jag vill, slemmig torsk i en brödrost" and I did my free version, "I write what I want, slimy cod in a toaster".

Still, I love that people write back on errors, it means you care. But don't write ohh you have so many spelling errors or grammar errors in an email with no reference. Rather if you see an error put it in the comment section and I will change it and thank you.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Do some PR for your release!

No, it's not just to get the music "out there". Yes technically it is that way, you can release your single in 24 hours and get it online (technically I can do it in 3 hours, but that is another thing). But what is the point?

You see more and more that the services use more algorithms to pick up what should be on the playlists, And not just the algorithms, I see many of the bloggers and tastemakers also want to have a build up before the release.

Quite frankly your singles success will depend on how much and what kind of PR you are doing. The more and broader you will do it the more your release will succeed. this is actually not any new science. I would be that Coca-Cola is not the best soft drink in the world. Still, it's the most sold and they are masters of doing PR in many levels and things. By that they are the most sold soft drink, the best well that is totally another debate.

Yes, I know you can't do the PR as Briney Spears or Kate Perry. These are massive campaigns. No, what I mainly see is that most artists actually don't do any PR. They seem to think that a Facebook post will do it, or even worse a paid facebook post. Yes, you have to work for it around a release. You have to hit up all the people you have meet in your career, all the people you know and in some way or another be able to present this new music you have done. Yes, you will get 2% answer on it.

Of course, this goes easier if you have been smart collecting these people during the way and been small communicating with them. Here is the first mistake the artist do, they don't collect fans. No the followers on Facebook are not yours, you in fact only reach 10% of them with your posts. And you can't control how Facebook is flip around posts so they won't appear in the right time and place. In all words forget Facebook as a good PR channel, forget Instagram as well. You would probably be more successful in picking up your phone and call twenty people and tell them to talk about your new release.

I tell my artist to have all their release ready 10 weeks it goes live. Yes, 10 weeks. That is the time you need to set up all channels you have to be on before the release. You are not able to do the work faster than that.

Then also look into some PR that cost money! Too much people try to take all the free routes. Well, they are nice but it also gathers all other free routers. And in the end, you won't get anywhere just because every tool you use is for free.

And save mone6y for it. May I ask how much the recording cost? Calculate to use 50% of that sum for PR. Or actually, double it and use the rest for PR. Did the recording cost a million dollar (which probably Kate Perry cost) well then you have 2 million dollars and spend the other on PR. In Kate Perrys case they probably spend 10 million. But hey that is later. Did your recording cost 10 bucks well spend then bucks on PR. In the ned, I can tell you that 99% of the reason why your release flopped is PR. Even with the worst song, you can do a great release with PR.

- If I only had two dollars left I would spend one dollar on PR - Bill Gates

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

The small details

I'm back with the details, I know I have been writing around them before. To many artist has to much focus on details in stead of the whole picture.

Today it was  a guy totally obsessed if it should be a big letter in the English words or the title and small in the Swedish one. what he totally forgot was that he had misspelled the song in general, there was no mastering done on the song and the frontcover was poorly done and in wrong format.

I mean it's like complaining on the paint of a car when it doesn't have a engine or wheels.

And it has become more and more of this. The full picture is left with a frag mental overview where the small fragments in the whole has no meaning at all. I guess it has to do with the big stars, there the details counts and everything has to be perfect.

 Also it has been a day with the excuses. If you tell people that their frontcover is to small, and you can't read what it says and that will effect certain things. Instead of just change it they try to come up with excuses, and ways around the error. Well you don't need to, you can have the error front cover, but don't expect to get all the treatments that you otherwise would get. Getting back with excuses to me won't change anything, I'm not the ones that make the rules. I'm just telling you what can happen.

If you have a front cover of a fully erect penis, yes there will be services and sites not using your songs or even put them up. Don't come back with a new picture where the cock is blue, it doesn't matter, the results will be the same as the first one, the blue colour is not making any difference. And no it is still a real penis you can't get away that it belongs to a smurf.

Easy solution, change the picture. Kind of easy solution, blur it so you can get a hint of what it is. But don't try to go around it and keep it and then complain when the things I said happens.

Yes that also came today, a person that complaint of things I already from the beginning told them would happen. In the end start like this, make good music (most 95% fail on that one), do nice pictures (95% fail on that one), have everything ready (80% fail on that one). After you mange these three ones, then let's talk details.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Doing the impossible

I was just down to the local grocery store to pick up some breakfast. I was standing in the queue line to pay when an older lady just pushed her way through up to the cashier.

- My bank card is stuck in the ATM!

Of course, the cashier can't just stop what they are doing and go and help the lady. So she picks up her phone and calls for someone in the staff to come and aid her. Then the old lady just says.

- Can you hurry up, I have an appointment at the hairdresser.

Like that is the cashier's fault. The ATM machine, in this case, is just on their premises, it's not even their machine. Second, if the card gets stuck, well it's because you have pressed your code wrong three times, then the machine takes the card. So most likely this situation is created by the old lady's own fault. Now though she is just blaming the poor cashier that has nothing to do with it.

She tries several numbers but since this early seems like no one is in the office to help the cashier. So she makes a call in the speakers, then she keeps on bleeping the stuff that the other customers that are there shopping. You can just see the little lady become more and more agitated.

- I'm in a hurry you know, I have my appointment!

I mean it hasn't gone even two minutes, and yet she is demanding things from a person that has nothing to do with it. Then a guy from the shop arrives and goes out with the lady to the ATM. On my way out I need to stop to get a thing where the ATM is and overheard the conversation. of course, the lady had punched the wrong code three times and for safety, the machine kept the card. And of course, the guy from the shop floor have not authority to open that machine. Witch, in fact, is like asking anyone in the street to open a random ATM. Still, the lady blames him and is kind of rude and annoying. She wants help now and goes before everyone else even though the mess she is in is created by herself.

This is so common right now. It seems like people think that the earth is spinning with them in the center of the whole thing. And any obstacle is just to lay down like a three-year-old kid and scream on the floor.

Fix this! Seems to be the mantra people think everybody else should do, even if it is darn impossible. A friend got ordered yesterday to fix "some festivals". The point is that is not his job, he work with other things for this artist, but not booking. But just because he have once fixed a gig, suddenly the lack of festival bookings are his problem. and he know that the artist will think he is not good enough or work hard enough if he doesn't do that. He pointed out that they need a booker. Well, then the question went over that he should fix a booker for them.

Right now I probably will be a very impopular person, but I will start just saying, sorry I can't help you.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Ohh Eurovision....

They just released the competitors to be the entry for Sweden in Eurovision. The people that follow me on Facebook usually had a good time with me writing really mean, witty things around the whole process.

Now the media in Sweden has taken over and are more or less competing with each other to tell mean witty things around it. And yes it is smaller than ever. Before when the artist was presented it was headlined, today it was hardly even on the entertainment pages. And yes 19 out of 26 was also artists that have competed before and have lost.

So the point of writing means things are not just there. This year I will only write nice things around Eurovision. You just don't kick on people laying down, and I won't be mean to tv programs that just gonna be totally humiliated.

Still, I wonder how they manage to pick out so many "not" interesting artists. I guess there is a game here I really don't get, still good for the festival season it will be less artist to compete for the spots. One good thing is this will definitely be judged on the quality of the song, not on a famous artist.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

As you make your bed so you must lie, Zara Larsson

 As you make your bed so you must lie is Swedish proverb. I don't know if it has something equal in English, well you get the point. You get what comes for you.

In this case, it's the Swedish artist Zara Larsson who is releasing a new single and are complaining that all the questions that she gets are about her boyfriend and how they meet on twitter.

Well not that strange, and yes I know she is doing this as a strategy to leach out that women artist only get questions about their love life. But that is not true.

First Zara is not writing her own songs. She is credited yes but that is just because she adds some oh and ahs here and there. It's professional teams who write the songs and really not any deeper meaning behind them either. For that case, it would be as useless to have an interview with the model on the catwalk about the collection. It's the designer that knows the whole story, the choice of fabric and all that. That interview with the model would be rather boring, same here.

At the same time having an interview around the music on a family show would be utterly boring as well. What should they talk about? The plugins that were used or the computer or program that was there making it? Much of that magic and smart solutions are gone with the digital age. So these questions are not just for women I hear it from my male artist as well. Still the process today how to make a song is not that interesting. Only if it is a sole writer and a good point behind it, which nowadays is very rare. It's not like a song like "One" with U2 is written.

Then if you build your whole career around relationships and are mainly famous for getting a condom on your foot, well then marketing your single is not the number one question. Many media trained artists are good to get the subject back on track when they want to speak about their new single or music. I guess Zara is that but a bit annoyed around the interviews. Yes, it can be hard since marketing today is on social media and there the relationships are the number one thing. And it will keep following you. So for the journalist to raise their numbers they really can't post

In a reality check, this is what we will get when we market artist in the way we do. They put up all their life on social media and there it is, in most cases that is what keeps them in the feed in between releases of songs. Today artist is as much docusoaps stars as they are artists. The artist that doesn't go along with this is fast forgotten and will with the help of the algorithms just pass into the unknown.

One of my projects would be to make an artist like that. An artist with phony feeds, different in different streams. It would be interesting, and I bet it will come.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

The right person might be in front of you.

I was out with a good colleague during the weekend. He is doing some really cool stuff with his label and is developing some new things that might be a big thing in just a couple of years. In one place we visited we meet an artist that we both know a little.

Pretty fast in the conversation, the artist started to ask us about contacts to good labels that he could hook up with. Things like...oh do you know anyone that is good on Spotify playlisting?

The thing is though that my friend is really the expert on that, he is probably the best in Sweden right now. So it becomes pretty absurd to think of another label that could do it as well as him.

When the artist left, I told my friend that he probably was the best choice for that artist. He replied:
- Yes, I know but it's hard to tell the artist that you are the best on something. It doesn't sound trustworthy to go out and tell that you are the best on something. And on the other hand, if I got to work with him it's not certain that I would be able to get the best for him since his whole story doesn't add up.

- Doesn't add up?

- Yes, he just started and really want a miracle to happen, to be able to get the most out of if you need to have everything together. You can't take anything small and then think you can get big things straight away.

- So you have seen the artist before?

- Yes I know his figures and songs and, sorry it's not up to standard, but I really can't tell him that. He needs to work on things before I would be able to do something.

Later in the evening, I got a chance to speak to the artist. He was still looking for someone that could level his things up and was keep on going on that. I was more or less telling him that the best was my friend, still, he needed to get some more solid platform before it could happen. He still couldn't get it, it was still just to find that right person to level it up that counted. That the right person was before him he couldn't grasp.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Know your position!

When you are negotiating you really need to know your position. If you don't you will be passed straight away.

Right now I read a lot of applications for our festival next year. It clearly says on several places that we don't pay a fee and we don't pay transportation. In actually on the site, you can't even choose that option. Still bands add-on in the extra info that they want payment, hotel, and food.

Okay if you are a really famous band, it could be interesting. But the bands doing this probably never make it. Now they actually not even have a chance, these are taken off before they even go to the booking comitté. They even not make it to the progress. It is a good way to not getting anywhere.

One funny band even said if they were going abroad they also had to travel a day before the show to be ready for it so you had to be prepared to have hotels for five people for at least two days and have a dressing room ready for the show with a hot shower (like that exists on a showcase festival).
Come on! Okay if you are in that position you can ask for these things. I looked in on the band's stats.
To be able to claim things like this, one you have to have more than 26 listeners on Spotify a month. It's probably good if you have over a 1000 listings also on the last the ep:s. Just one song that has 1232 streams, but was released in 2014, yay you got a thousand streams on four years.
On top of that, has never played outside their hometown, the past years they have played over a year approximately played twice a year.

It's pretty clear this artist is not in the position to negotiate like they do. In reality, they probably should be lucky if they even get a gig. On top of it, they are middle age and I guess that has part of the problem. In many cases, there are people telling the artist that they should stand up for their rights and get what they want. The problem with that is just this, yes you can do that if you are in that position. Seems like with age this become more relevant, at the same time you become more not in the position to make the claims.

Then you have the bands thinking that they put a overprice. Last year when we really had the option that you could ask for a price, there was unknown bands that asked for 20 000 euro to play on a showcase festival. Of course, these were also taken off direct. No, the industry really doesn't want to have negotiations like a bazaar in the middle east. We don't have time for that when you are on to book 200 acts t a festival. So just getting us a overprice is a good way to be thrown off the whole process.

Sure when you draw 3000 people to a show and the organizers make money, you can do claims for things you really need to make a better show.

But this I have also seen very often in other parts as well. Artists that are seeking out record deals with totally unrealistic goals. Same here if you are named Talyor Swift yes you can do a nice record deal with Republic Records. But if you are our example band above well you are not in the position to have the same claims, in fact, you can't do any claims. If a record label took you at that point they need to develop you and put in so much money they probably have to sign you for 10 albums and have 99,9% back to even make it. In fact, they would never make an offer to a band like that.

So stop, try to know your position. Trying to play cool or a wiseguy won't take you anywhere.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

PR companies that don't know PR!

I was just in on a page for a PR company. Okay, this company doesn't do PR for music but still, I have seen the same on these pages as well. In this case, they invited me to some party with a presentation of a company that I want to know more about. They send out this flashy email but forget to tell where the party is and witch time, just the place. No links either. the only thing you have to go on is their homepage, so type that in.

Then you come to a flashy page with really no content, just flashy pictures, and the only thing is a link to their Instagram. On Instagram is no info, in the end, you find some sort of email.

This is really common for the PR agency that their own shit is really not informative or in a PR way really sucky.

I'm thinking to get over to just e-mail on the blog. The latest changes in Facebook have made it impossible to have links to a place outside their system. So bye bye facebook and I will build my own database.

Then I got an offer on a course to learn how to be good on e-mail PR and newsletters. Of course, I checked it out. If I'm gonna do this I want to be as good as possible on it. What happens is that this PR girl sends me a newsletter a day. And with really no content that is relevant to what I asked for. So how should I trust her advice when she can't do it good her self? Well, I just unsubscribed and thought what was wrong and will now try to do it better myself.

If it ends here, i'm still happy!

Maybe I should just be trendy and get some psycho problem? It seems the thing that all influencers are doing.

Well, I usually say that stupidity is also a handicap when people see my handicap license.

I guess though that sometimes happiness can be distorted. You might not get happy on the things you wish after.

Its not all fame, money and glory.

I usually just ask myself, If you end it now, was it worth it? And as long as the answer is yes I should keep doing it.

I have had wonderful times and memories with all the artists I have been touring with. I have experienced a lot of things and seen some incredible stuff. Worth every minute of it.

Do I want more? Yes of course, but If it ends here I'm still happy.

One of my best tools to not go insane is to have a "I don't give a fuck account". Even if that e-mail should have been answered or that song uploaded, no I can just fuck that and play with my dog for an hour. It can all wait, at least 90% can wait. Its all these must things that drive you nuts. You can do it your way, there is no road that is the same in life. Keep that road happy and inspiration and you will be fine.

Don't stress you gonna keep it for life.

Every week there is an artist that wants to take something off the distribution. If you ask why in 80% they are redoing it or improve the release.

- we will just master the track, we didn't have time for that when we released.

- we want to change the picture, we have done a much better one now.

Both things I hear very often.

Stop stress out releases. No one is really waiting. Just because your best friend think it was a while ago you released something you don't have to act on it. You have to live with this release for eternity so make it right from the beginning. Wait to get the right mix and master. Have time to take the right pictures for the cover (as well as press).

It's not good to take releases up and down all the time just because you want to change things.
Do it right from the beginning so keep calm and don't be to excited the product should stay for life.

No, a business plan doesn't make you professional!

When I meet other people in the industry, there are certain things you can just say and they all nod and roll their eyes.

First is the planning. Artist seems to think to have a well-structured plan will make them look professional. The big mistake is that the plan is not correct in any way and can easily put into pieces seems to be nothing they are afraid of.

They start off with, we should release a new album by may.
- Okay, do you have the songs ready?
- No, we will write those next month.
- Well, maybe you won't write that good song next mouth. And what makes you so sure that you can write as many as twelve good songs?
- We have planned to have an album out in may!
- Good but you plan things that are not there. The songs are not written, produced, recorded. And that is ALWAYS delayed. On top of that, you need promo pictures a couple of videos and a PR budget. In the end, we start planning your release when you have all these assets in your hand?

You can never really plan these things. In the end, may next year maybe is a shitty place to release on for some reason. Also release in may is a kind of crappy place to release on anyway because it's too late to book on the album to festivals. The only time you can do that is the album is ready now and you can already send it to bookers and talk that the release will happen, but to do that you need everything ready. So saying to release in may you need to have týour shit together in November.

Somewhere someone has told these people that a business plan is a thing to do. And yes it is but they are structured totally different than your average seven eleven. An artist career is depending on so many things that will come along the way that these plans just wishful thinking and nothing you really can work with. 

Second is our music is great. I guess deep down inside they have doubts, but on the outside, they all seem to think they are god gift to mankind on the music front. The truth is, no they are not. And even if they where it will need a hell of a lot of PR to get it out there anyway. And also if everything is perfect there is nothing to learn and it will be really really boring.

Right now when there are more channels than ever to get out to. The plans will be longer and harder to predict. At the same time, the most artist has learned by digital standards you can release stuff instantly. These worlds will collide it's the time for that right now.

The answers you really don't say

I don't know but people so many times don't get what they give away when they answer things. How the answer just gives away that this we shouldn't use.

Today it was an artist asking about that they need to seek out our festival through submit system. The argument was that the subsystem cost money to be on. The truth is that it dosen't, yes you need to start a subscription but the first month is free so you can start the subscription and the cancel it and you will have a totally free application.
So the artist thought it cost money, okey the cost is like 15 dollar or 15 euro for a whole year. Still the artist thought that was too much money for a indie artist.

Wait, so 15 euro is much money? If you want to apply to our festival, you still have to pay for the travel accommodation and food. I guess if you are from the south of Europe that sum will be so much larger then 15 euro. So if 15 euro is too much I can't see how on earth you are gonna manage to get to the festival if you were chosen?

The artist just gave away that yes they are really not want to invest any money in their career. Just that is a good reason not to take them into a showcase festival, they are not serious enough.

This year we also have this question:
We would like to know how you plan to tackle the music conference. Showcase festivals attracts music industry investors from across the globe, and, if selected, you will be in competition with the other selected showcasing artists who will also be trying to get the attention of the same industry reps. Our experience tells us that artists who make the most of the conference are the artists securing deals at the festival. So please tell us in a few words how you plan to make the most of the conference to ensure that you engage with and promote yourself direct to the industry reps, and ensure that you entice the industry along to your showcase?

Not an easy question but good to see what people answer. Some give really good answers to this question. Full plans and strategies and stuff, and those really impress me. then you have the ones that give it away in the answer. Look on these ones:


1. Quality!


2. We will play a great gig.


3. The power of our live show seeps through the audience in one intense blast.


4. We take the band and us very serious and have a business plan for the next 3 years.


5. Look awesome and play great music!


What I can read here is that they probably also believe in Santa Claus. If it was only depending on that you are good it wouldn't be that hard, all top chart would be topped by the philharmonic orchestra from any major city. These people are highly trained and really good. If it was just skilled to play.

And if was just looks, hey Brad Pitt could have a great career as a guitarist. If it was just looks.

Now it's so much more. These are actually not even good components. It's all about hard work and that hard work gives the right skills (not just playing music) and a suitable image ( it's not all looking good). It's about meetings and taking opportunities.

The funny part is most of the artists that write like this is usually not even have a good live show to compete with or a good song. And the fault is that they believe that they are already there when the truth is that they are far away from what they think they are.

I also love that a serious band has a business plan, I wonder how that should help if your songs are not good enough?

Quilty, says who?

I wonder how they will do an intense blast if there is no audience, you still have to attract an audience, they are not just magically there.

The perfect storm is created, don´t just happens.

- Then you just release the single without telling anyone, Beyonce did that and got a lot of attention.

After that quote of a PR agent on a panel on a showcase festival a couple weeks ago, I just stopped listening. Yes, you can release things by just put them out there if you are Beyonce. Since your fanbase is so big the single itself will get promoted by your superfans. Still, I haven't seen that single, and I doubt that Beyonce would go for that tactic if it was an important album she has to release. I guess that was some kind of b-side where she didn't want to spend that much PR money and with her position in the music world she can do that.

Since you are not Beyonce (if you are, send me a note I have some good collaborations for you) that advice is the most crappy ever given (thank god my friend that was on the panel said just that). Still, this is how many actually behave. They wait for the perfect moment to release a song or an album. You know what? That moment never exists, so if you want for that you will never release it and in the end, it will be released in the wrong moment anyway.

You will always read about people that in the biography released everything in the perfect way and created the perfect storm. Never happened, what they did was working things up so the perfect storm happened. And that is so many things that they really can't put it in a book. One reason is that they are so many but also that they really don't know them all.

Think of everything like a staircase, if you just stand there waiting to take a step you won't get up to the top. Yes sometimes you run back and forward on the same step and that is okay as long you, in the end, get one step ahead. Most of the time when that step happens it starts to get more and more steps to get on and in the end, you are running until you stop on a step and look on the staircase again.

Back to release something, yes you need to build it up. Not just make a Facebook post the same day as you release. Here must be so much more material and it has to start at least ten weeks before the release. And you have to be smart it can't be like an x-mas calender where you every day tells people that its' 8 days left until release then 7 days until release. You have to work on many different ways to remind people that are coming. Also, remind different people in different ways. In the end, you get the perfect storm, you build it, not step into it.

A picture with me and Matthew Knowles, well he did the perfect storm at some places.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Putting makeup on a pig!

I really got a writer's block for a couple of days. The topics that have come up has already been written about. And the topics have really not been at the grassroots level either.

So I took over the uploading section on our artist site. Yes, we also have a distribution system where we let DIY artists upload to get distribution. Mainly because most distributions really don't do a good job for the artists. In fact, many of them do a terrible job. At the same time, our staff is really tired of an artist thinking that they are so important when they upload something and can be quite rude against them.

Just for inspiration and also to help out I uploaded from the queue line that had piled up since yesterday. And yes self-roaming artists have no clue what so ever what they are doing sometimes.

I got this guy that in the subject line (we have a line where you can add something around the release) wrote like three times that the song has to be under his artist name on Spotify. Also, he wrote that someone from the staff already told him that if he used the same name the song will go under the same account. So what's the point of making that out?

In the end, it's actually Spotifys system that makes that decision, not us. If it goes wrong (you never know) it's something around Spotify, can be that easy that just that day they changed something and all new songs got a new account, it has happened. In this case, I'm 99% sure it will go under the same account since the name is very special. But if you use a name that several artists have, it can mess up.

So it was very important what it looked on Spotify. The artist is always vain, very vain, and vain not for their own good either. The funny part here is that the Spotify thing is very important. that he had uploaded the song without an ISRC code, with the wrong format on the picture, put the writer's name in the wrong format. That the release date was on a sunday and was uploaded a day before release. That he only choose some sites instead of all just to be chaep. Well, that doesn't seem to count.

In swedish we have an expression that says "It's like putting makeup on a pig", I guess English has around the same if you see my picture down below. In reality, it dosne't matter if you get under the same Spotify profile. And our team is making miracles that you are even getting out there. If people started to listen to the song your rights will be all over the place. I looked on the earlier songs on the profile, and they hadn't been over a 1000 listings so I guess in reality we are uploading stuff that actually would get more attention as a facebook post.

So here is the stupid error that I corrected. Still, when I correct them it won't be totally correct, I just fix it so it works, not that it looks good.

The picture was to small, that is a normal problem. Here though it was in totally wrong format, so I made the picture bigger and with that more pixilated. Also, need to change the size so now all are a bit distorted by that.

ISRC code, I put in my code. I guess it will end up in the pockets of IFPI, hope they can get extra champagne on their Grammy award for it.

The writer's name I just kept, well they won't find that on PRS so that money I don't know where it ends up.

Release date on a Sunday. All releases go on Fridays, that is the official day to release stuff. Sure you can release on a Sunday, but you will miss out all marketing you could have done.

Having just 24 hours for upload is also just making that you can't promote the song in the right way.

So what's the point of nagging that you should be on the same artist profile when you do mistakes like this? In reality, a pig can upload a song to Spotify (and probably do it better). This artist is just vain, cheap and stupid. The problem today is that these artists clog the system with their shit.

Fake numbers

I have been talking about numbers and that they really don't mean anything. Well here is a proof of both sides. I got this from a friend (no it has to do with ticket sales not that metal sucks).

http://www.metalsucks.net/2018/11/09/l-a-band-threatin-faked-a-fanbase-to-land-a-european-tour-no-one-attended/

In this case, people probably think of the clubs that they lose money, at the same time I'm more baffled that the booking person on the clubs really can't read numbers. Second that they care about numbers at all. It's a fact they went on numbers and never checked them.

On the same hand, this is nothing really new and the club people should know better. The numbers can be blown up, and most times are. When I worked around Major Lazer that was an issue. They were at the time the most streamed band in the world. And yet they could only sell 800 tickets in Stockholm ( this is at least 6 months after Lean On). Major Lazer though didn't lie about it, but I heard many bookers in a panic that they had guessed the band should sell out an arena for 16 000 people at least.

The next thing like that is Chainsmokers. Same here the organizers thought they would draw around 10 000 people, in reality, they just draw around 1000. A band that has 5 266 882969 streams and with a 3306 3633 monthly listeners on Spotify alone should do better. Of course, they cheat, or the record label does.

Let's make a comparison with Rammstein who plays in Stockholm next summer and sold out Stockholm stadium in one day 32 000 people in capacity. 441 882070 they have 33 10267 monthly listeners. That is 30 million less than Chainsmokers.
But when it comes to the real ticket sales Rammstein sold 31 000 more live tickets then Chainsmokers in Stockholm, and they sold out, Chainsmokers couldn't even do that.

The bigger booking agents I speak to have stopped looking into these numbers. Most record labels look at numbers but also understand how to read them (except for old people on certain labels that still think that the numbers count).
And yes when I get back from people that a certain artist doesn't have the numbers I usually just blacklist that person for being an idiot.

The real idiots here are the clubs, the artist yes but he has just used some of the stupid tactics that the industry in general use, but then did it a bit too big. Still, the clubs should have done their homework and just asked if the numbers could be even real. And second just check if these pre-sales are real. A good alarm clock would be 43 monthly listeners and most of the songs under a 1000 listings on an album released last year on Spotify should make you think twice. I guess greed is what it is.

I guess though that Threatin has their fifteen minutes of fame. The story is like a wildfire and people will check out his music. So in PR standpoint "All PR is good PR". I can tell that yesterday he had 43 monthly listeners on Spotify, today he has 1846 and the first song has jumped a thousand listings. And if the algorithms on Spotify is correct they will start to add him to playlists since the name is mention online so many times.

I was in meetings yesterday and numbers were discussed but in very broad forms. Right now is welcome to the digital side number two, leave the internet.

You will never break with numbers and don't ever try to boost them in a fake way.
---
A month later, wen this post gets on our newsletter I just checked Thretins numbers on Spotify. Today he has 11000 monthly listeners and the top song has 15 000 streams and most the others has a couple of thousand. Yes, even bad PR is good PR.

Get this blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Work hard is just not enough!

We work really hard! I get that from artists quite often, especially when they seek us out to work with us. Here is the same rule as in the numbers game it all depends on what you do as well as what kind of numbers you got.

Working hard seems for many artists be to rehearsal quite much. That is the number one answer when I ask back what are you working hard with. And yes rehearsal is good also writing songs which is usually the second answer. Still, if you write just mediocre songs and then rehearsal them a lot won't really take you any forward. I ask if they are actively seeking out other writers or go to writing camps or write songs for other artists? I can't remember if I ever got a yes on that follow up question.

Then they work hard on the style. That is also a trap, that style doesn't mean anything if you don't have the gigs. And when I ask how hard they work on gigs the answer usually is: It's hard to get gigs you know.
Yes that is why you need to work hard to get them and when you get them you need to prove that you are so good they want you back, and there comes the rehearsal in again and we are back if the songs are good.

Then it comes to social media where they don't treat social media as social it's just screaming come and listen to my new song or today we had a rehearsal.

In the end yes you can work hard but as long as you work hard on the wrong things it won't matter. And I would say that quite many are just doing that. They work hard on the things they things is fun to do when you should work on the things that actually is kind of boring and struggling.

I know that is hard, I too usually just jump the shit and goes for the fun ones, still, I start to think to get things going as well and keep things rolling.