To many control things will destroy you.

No you can't control everything! There is no chance that you can do that so if you have that urge to control everything I actually would suggest you to not work in the musicindustry. The problem that a perosn with to much need for control destrys to much to makea career.

In the end you have to deligate work to other people. There no way that Rolling Stones would have the time to go down to the areana and check ythe presets on the sound tabel or count the T-shirts or check who is getting free tickets.

There is no chance that you can control whata  jounralist writes about you or that kind of story they do. No you won't know whitch kind of program they will use to make your wav to Mp3.

You can't control that the pictures you took will be some how edited. You can't control the ugly picture dosent get traction.

Most cases there is just a sence of control. In reality there is no control and if you can't handle that you probbably should do something else.

Mistakes are not bad.

One of the most common comments I get when artist ask questions is, I want to do the right thing/choice. The question is understandable, still, this industry doesn't work under such rules. If it was so simple that you follow certain steps, went to certain schools you will be the new Madonna I guess I could answer that question.

It's the fear of doing mistakes. Still here Madonna did mistakes, still does mistakes. But she will get out of them. The worst mistake is thinking that you can avoid them. It's rather that you learn from them and become stronger.

There is a bunch of rules though that you always bring up to artists when they ask questions. They are good advice no doubt about that but if you follow them like a guidebook you end up halfway career. I have seen so many of these artists that end up in nothing by following the rules thinking that if you do so you get it to go somewhere. And they hide around the fact that they did everything by the book and are grumpy over other artists success with the words, it would be my turn now.

One hit wonders are usually unprepared for the success and haven't done enough mistakes to do another hit and the career falls apart. At the same time, most of these artists take a chance somewhere that pays off. I guess the golden rule is to take chances but just enough so that you can keep up with the success. And the only answer that is right, work hard.

Sverigs okunnigaste journalist, om varför mangers behövs.

Sorry this post will be in Swedish. And since I can't translate the text that i'm writing about it will just be for Sweden. Sorry for this.

Min kompis Roger tipsade om en helt vansinnig krönika i Nolltretton. Visst ytterligare en sådan där bonnblaska som skriver om röd mattan premiärer i Vadstena och tycker det är coolt när förr förra årets Idol fyra kommer till stan. De som jobbar i branschen skrattar nog gott åt dumheterna. Jag tänkte ändå dissekera Tobias Petterssons fantastiska alster. Här är länken till sidan i Nolltretton online.

http://www.e-magin.se/paper/mgq91jbg/paper/1#/paper/mgq91jbg/56

När ett lokalband är förstort för hemorten är de faktiskt på långa vägar inte klara för ett management. I de flesta fallen är det artisten som tycker att de är större än ortens lokala scener. För ett managment är när de bemästrar runt 4 till 5 städer i Sverige som det blir intressant. 

Intressanta här är att Tobias nämner en A&R från EMI, som vi alla vet förvärvades EMI av ett annat majorbolag 2012 på grund av att de inte var så bra. På den tiden fungerade det hela väldigt annorlunda så Kjell Andersson har inte gjort något större lyft på 2010 talet och faktiskt ligger han bakom en av de största manager missarna i svensk musikhistoria (Roxettes utlandslansering är idag en legendarisk skivbolagsmiss som föll väl ut men inte hjälp av en sån som Kjell). Trots allt det mesta han gjorde var innan mobiltelefonen, internet eller något av det artisterna idag utsätts för. Att jämföra med honom är som att jämföra politikerna i dag med Per Albin Hansson, äpplen och päron. Dessutom var inte Kjell manager för Roxette utan det var en ytterst kompetent kvinna (som givetvis Tobias glömmer bort). Kjell var mer en sån där gubbe vi gjorde oss av med i början av 2010 talet då de inte behövdes längre.

Så till listan

1. Skaffa färre spelningar. Knappast, managern får mer stångas med artisten att ta spelningar som är bra för karriären som de själva inte vill ha. Bokningsbolag kan ibland sätta den där devisen att de vill ha ut mer för artisten. Men det är ovanligt och de är ofta resonliga i det hela. Mer vanligt att artisten redan spelat i hemstaden och är inte mer känd att den kan få likartade spelningar i nästa stad. Sen när en tant ringer och tycker att artisten ska spela gratis på deras skolavslutning för att de tycker de är lite käcka, jo då säger man nej.

2. Gör det mer kommersiellt gångbart. Skulle det vara dåligt? Det där är en myt och lite surt sa räven av artister som inte håller måttet. Ärligt talat många knasiga idéer som banden har börjar man diskutera. Jag hade ett band som släpade med sig fem svarta sopsäckar med gosedjur som de skulle ha på scenen. Ni kan tänka er kostnaden när vi skulle flyga på USA turné med dessa säckar, eller hur mycket plats de tog i turné bussen i Europa. Att de tog bort mjukisdjuren var att de faktiskt ville tjäna några pengar i slutändan. De flesta gånger är att managers får försöka hålla artisterna i styr då de byter stil för fort och publiken fattar inte någonting av vad de gör. Att tro att allt artisterna kommer på är bra då är man ute och cyklar. Att tro att managers toppstyr det då cyklar man utför ett stup.

3. Långsam Beslutsprocess. Problemet idag är att band inte gör det där. Det är vi som får mana på dem att få fram nytt material för nästa släpp. Sen metoden Tobias beskriver där är totalt förkastlig. Det tar längre tid att skriva en låt än en måndag. Speciellt i dagen konkurrans. Att sen spela in den på tisdag och bli klar och mastrad är som att säga att hela Nolltretton skrivs på en tisdag eftermiddag, kan ju inte vara så svårt. Slänga ut den på onsdag är som att begrava låten, kommer inte hända ett skit. Marknadsföring är a och o och det tar runt 10 veckor att göra det på riktigt sätt. Slänga ut den på soundcloud eller Spotify på onsdag är totalt meningslöst och direkt skadligt. Sedan boka fem gig på torsdagen. Jo om det vore så lätt att boka gig. Idag är de flesta spelställen en utdöende sak och att få spelningar tar klart längre tid.

4. Att ringa upp bandet är väl inget svårt, vi skickar med telefonnummren till banden. Inte fan ringer de upp det. Möjligtvis att vi får något på facebook messenger. Det där gäller om man har extremt stora band. Ja då är det någon som håller i schemat med intervjuer och ja Nolltretton är väl inte så att de hamnar överst i den listan. Om journalisterna slutar springa i flock och bara intervjua Idol fyran så skulle det bli lite bättre. 

Att banden har en informell ledare är också rent bullshit. Nej men de har oftast en talesperson men den ska också vara på turné och spela in och göra allt annat. Kate Perry skulle inte gör a något annat än att svara i telefon på korkade bonn-journalister som vill fråga om hon gillar marängtårta om hon hela tiden skulle vara talesperson. Trots allt journalisterna vill gärna ha frontpersonen att tala med medan i många fall det är någon annan i bandet som gör dessa intervjuer då frontpersonen inte känner sig bekväm.

Att Close Quarters skulle vart på gränsen till stort genombrott visar hur dåligt Tobias Petterson är påläst om musikbranschen. Close Quarters är ett sunkigt rock band som kan få lite local hero status men inte mer. En singel som lagts på några spellistor 2013 (samma tidsperiod som man kunde lätt fuska, inte för jag säger de gjorde det, men pekar åt vissa håll) är inget genombrott. Faktum med är att en miljon streams ger inget genombrott. Idag sker genombrotten på andra sätt. Dessutom läser man snabbt av att bandet hinner släppa en ep och en singel efter den där "hitten" som inte går alls. Där verkar de inte heller ha något managment. 

Sedan kopplar de på något management. Nu räknas inte dessa som managers i musiksverige men låt gå. Tror knappast de stod i vägen för intervjuer eller spelningar. Det mesta berodde på att Close Quarters inte höll någon vidare kvalité och troligvis inte gjort sitt jobb knappast på någon manager.  

I slutändan känner jag inte till något band som faktiskt tagit det hela vägen. Jobbet som managers, skivbolag, bokare gör, kan inte artisten göra. Det finns inte tiden och de är i behov av nätverken. Att sen en artist bara har en "produkt" att sälja gör också att det inte går. Har man en katalog så öppnar sig bredare kontaktytor. Vad som är skadligt är snarare Tobias Pettersson som inte kan eller har läst på om det han skriver.

People has to talk about you in a genuine way.

Some people went nuts that Facebook will change their algorithms so that you see more messages from friends and close relatives and not so much from groups or pages that you follow.

Of course, that affects all the fan pages for artists. And it will affect the things you send out for free as an artist, especially if you are an independent smaller artist.

At the same time, we are now really talking about the different bubbles. Everything has its own bubble and social media is getting these bubbles much stronger. I have talked a bit about the Spotify bubble. People tend to look to Spotify for the figures. The problem is that it really tells you nothing. I know several artists with very high numbers but no useful fanbase. Much of the music on Spotify is used as background music which makes the numbers not telling what is really popular.

Same with Facebook, your friend will like the kind of same music as you do. The chit-chat will be around that concert that everyone likes or the new that all your friends like. And the friends that are not into it the system will put off and tag along with people that like the same music. In the end, you get a bubble with people that are all thinking the same. And of course, in that bubble, it will look that this artist is very big.

So forcing people to talk about it or spread your stuff will not be that effective. In reality, you need people talking about you in a very natural way so you reach out in different bubbles. Suddenly when enough bubbles are reached if will just flood out. The problem here is the algorithms change so it's not certain how this is done. Persistence is one thing and also making good music that people like to tip off about is another. Also showing up in unexpected places is something that takes people to talk about you. What is not working is ad:s, newspapers. Even TV has problems nowadays.

The facebook groups will be more a place for superfans to gather and really indulge in an artist. But the superfans is usually just 5% of the whole audience. At the same time, I like Taylor Swift but I have no desire to read about her love life or what clothes she is wearing. I could go to a concert it would be fun, but I don't I would queue to get tickets. I'm the fanbase that will be hard to reach, the mediocre fanbase that is needed for the numbers. Still, I talk about Talyor Swift here so she has done it right.

The last hope

The past days have been conversations with artists that don't know what is big or not big.
Sure if you send your music to hundreds of  small blogs and radio stations someone will play you. That doesn't mean that you are going somewhere. Even with support of bigger stations you might going nowhere.

Still I get these conversations, we are hitting it big in Croatia. It's really time to invest in us. How much money are we making?

You tell them, you are not making any money from a very local digital radio station.

That message won't get in their head. And they try to find ways to find these money that not exist. I guess hope is the last that leaves the career.

Eurosonic and P3 Gold

I have been on Eurosonic this past week and made some business. Then we went for the first award for the year P3 Gold. Both very fun and got a lot of things done. My schedule is very hectic right now. Tomorrow it's another gala in Stockholm where The Magnettes play. Then on Wednesday another industry event, Sweden Live. Board meeting on Thursday.

I hope to get some insights out.

Let's extinct the dinosaurs

I see the shift very close now. Specially on this high profile event. The smaller events this will never happen.

I bumped into an old guy. One I before really looked upon, a bit like a hero. I always thought he was a key to be able to break artists. Over the years I have seen thou that the names he has is more of pure luck. He is famous for old work. In reality of today he stands the same chance as an intern at our place to break something.

I always speak with me, but I guess still see me as a small player. The players he looks into are the dinosaur era.

But he try to get info from me. So he asked for a event also done by dinosaurs. In his eyes cool. Usually I would be saying nice things just to keep him happy. But you know what? It's time to extinct the dinosaurs. So told him what really was going on.

He became very pale. You could see that he relized once more he was not in the winning team. And it feels great to put these old farts on the retirement home where they belong.

An hour later a really new innovative festival came up and gave me very much credit for my work with the new development. I got a receipt that I'm totally part of the new stuff.

Here is how you get all Spotify:s playlists

I would guess this is the most popular question I get. How do I get into Spotifys playlists? It seems so hard!

It's really not that hard. On average 80% of my releases get placed the first week by Spotify staff. They are really supportive of new music. So if you present it in the right way and with something interesting facts you have a pretty good chance. No I won't go into how that is done, and it doesn't matter, not in the long run.

In reality Spotify is build to lit up when fans are passionate and listening to a song. Getting on their own human created playlists like new music friday is more to get the song tested and that can be dangerous. The people that are on these lists maybe is not the audience that would support this track. In reality these tests only will give you around 10 000 streams and you take quite a risk to get bad rating.

Yes to understand Spotify you have to get that they measure everything. They take notes how people are reacting and if it's positive they present the song to more people. This however is done by algorithms so there is no one to call up and ask for the favour.

The best way is to get real people to listen to the song and like it and listen some more.

It's actually the same with radio back in the days. Their problem was that they can't measure the audience reaction. Yes of course if 100 people start to call the station asking for one song because it's so good they would know. Radio is more built on what the person build the playlist thinks.

Also back in the days people asked to be on rotation on all radiostations at once. Then thy would have a massive hit. That is very rare. If not possible. The stations have different audience called formats. So if one station would play a song, that would indicate to another station not to play that song. A crossover hit on all stations is kind of utopian.

Same when you think of Spotify. Their lists are generated on the listeners choice of the moment. A listener would choose on list for the jogging and another for the romantic dinner. You song won't fit on both. In Spotifys case it's very fine line between the lists so the chances are slimmer to get on everyone.

Of course both radio and Spotify will test out things that has worked before. A new U2 song will be tested on more places since they have a large audience that likes them. So more fame will affect.

Still what they really seek is things that people like. If a radio station would get hundreds of people asking to hear one song, yes they will put it on. Same on Spotify if they see that people reacts good on a song they put it on lists.

What you have to do is getting people to like your song. Get them to put it in their own playlists and listen to it much and talk about it. The promotion should be aimed and done that way. No, its not easy, but clearly the best way.

Of course it would be wonderful if Spotify put your song into 100 playlists so people can hear it. The problem is that it would come in so much music that people would stop listening since the majority of the music wouldn't attract them. Spotify is there for the audience in the first line.

Traveling.

I'm out again traveling. Now I'm on a train from Amsterdam to Groningen in the Neatherlands. With my job you travel all the time and I'm amazed that everything really works out.

I know people that has travel fever for weeks before a trip. Even if it is with a travel company in a group. The one thing there they transport you around like cattle and won't let you do any mistakes. Still they need to know everything. Small things that in the end will solve by it self. For example how to find the bus from the airport. Sometimes it's so severe that they really want a map for just that.

It's a bit the same when you develop artists. First time you send them to a gig abroad they need to know everything. Of course this is the first time and you are nervous.

This time I'm out with the Magnettes. And they are really experienced. They know most things will be solved and they know how to solve an issue.

There are people that always has that travel fear and never evolves. The ones that loves the stage but hate the travel.

Right now I find the travel and meetings really exciting. I guess I have the best job in the world.

It's now, do not wait!

One of the worst things to do is to sit down and do nothing. I know that the record label doesn't want you to release things while they are preparing the next single or album. Don't hang up on that do other things. Do more gigs with your old songs.
Then if they say that you should do no gigs for some reasons (this is the silliest excuse, it is usually that they can't deliver) still you can do things like blog posts, going hard on social media, take new photos.

There are reasons why they want to wait. Some are real reasons some are just that they want to have control. But don't wait for everything there is always ways to always work your fanbase.

If you sit down through the momentum is slowed down. I know release things is the easiest way to get eyes on you. Still, you have the job before this. If a release should be successful you can't hie everything and then one day just jump out from the closet screaming it's here now. You have to work up an expectation with the audience to be able to jump out from the closet.

One warning I have to give though. You have to move all the time. It's a marathon not a 100 meters race.

In the end, it's always something to do. Sitting still and waiting is getting you nowhere.

There is no point of cheating!

When I explain all the steps you have to do to get to certain point in your career, they just stare at you. Then they say "I can't do all that it won't work out". Then they come with "Is there a quicker way, a shortcut".

No there is no shortcut. You can take off things you should do, but that only ends up that things are lacking. One of the more common believes is that money would solve the problem with the gaps in the career. That you invest more in the parts you are really doing. I had that thought as well but when I tested it never worked out. It's like you can see when a  thing is fake.

One of the more obvious things is interviews. The artist that does all the stuff in the way of a career will learn on the way to make good interviews. It's a trial and error thing. If you cheat and jump these steps you have to pay a media consultant to teach you to do interviews. But even that becomes kind of not good. There is no story!

It's like I said before it's all about the story. The cheating artist jumps in the story so it is just one topic. The artist that take all steps has a lot of things to talk about and it becomes natural to bring views up in an interview for example.

Now I can just hear people say "what is cheating". It's a lot of things. For example, you buy a lot streams from some source. Yes, your streams will be up but since they re not real people listening, in the end, it will jump up and bite you. Normally a lot of streams comes that you are entering different circles and that comes with good stories.

Another cheat is to enter a big competition like Eurovision song contest. It's not really cheating, but if you are a new artist you jump too many steps to handle it after the competition. In reality, your only story is that you have been in the competition.

Also getting a number one hit can be cheating. The thing goes to fast and in the end, it's easy to just become a one hit wonder. It's the same mechanism you jump steps that you have to take since you are in a hurry.

So should you always slow down? No, you should do everything. And to do that it will take time. Slow down is another thing that kills your career. That is tomorrows blog post.

I hate phone persons!

I was discussing the other week if mail or facebook was best to contact people. And I got some answers that older people liked mail but younger people preferred Facebook. In my case, I don't care I'm equally good on both. What I really hate is when they use this to make a phone call. They are the biggest time thieves. You get a message saying "call me". And when you call them up they have a question that they could have asked in the message. For example, "how many streams did we have last year", for me to get that answer I have to get into the statistics and check. So I have to tell the person to hang up so I can log in and find that out. Much easier just asked that question and got the answer in the message.

The phone person also then demands me to call back the answer, mainly because it is a phone person. Then comes the really annoying part. Phone people always ask the second question later. So the question would be "Oh how many of these streams are from Apple". Now I have to hang up again and take on that fact. Yes, in this case, I might have the page open, but the question is usually that I have to find the information. The worst part is that the information is actually on the same page that this person would find it. They often have a login seeing the exact same things I do.

Also, they come with the saying "oh while I speak to you, on this matter bla bla" suddenly they have other questions and the whole thing become a full damn investigation and when you call back you forget half the info they wanted.

There is also another reason why I really hate phone persons. There is no evidence. You can say to a phone person several times "the streams on Apple was 50 000". Later on, when something has fucked up and the person suddenly thinks it's 1 million streams they will claim that you have told them a million streams in the phone. This is uallay just becuse they hear what they want to hear. In a message, it's pretty clear if it says 50 000 or a million. And phone people hates when you can prove such things.

So if you really want to get me pissed, just leave a message saying "call me".

The best is actually to meet in person but that includes so much practical social etiquette that is proven that meetings are not getting things done.

My good working artists.

So much work right now I don't have time to make another Vlog. I hope to make it up in the next weeks. At least I got out a blog post.

Right now we are doing so many things and have a release each Friday until the middle of February. And all our hard-working artists are getting in new stuff at a fast speed that we can't really keep up with all news that is going out.

A luxury problem for sure. But glad that my team of artists right now is doing very well and we have reached some kind of job feed where everything goes smooth.

I guess my tip today is to write about that it takes time before you get a good working flow with a new artist. It's always kind of rocky road when you bring in a new artist. It takes around three releases until you really know what to expect and knows everybody's different job tasks.

I think the mistake both parties do is that you have to high expectations and you assume that the other part is doing things or you wait for them to do things and in that miscommunication, you split ways. Most artists we lose is usually quite early. Sometimes we are not the right team, but I think it often has to do that it's more the communication or expectation that fails. Someone you have worked a long time with you has a bigger understanding when they don't do some things. It's you have a bigger excuse value to hold on to.

The circles are to small

Right now it seems like everything are in small circles. Social media is feeding you from a very narrow audience and also let you just reach a narrow audience. And it's not easy to get into the new circles.

I just saw some nominations for awards in Sweden and you can see this affects the nominations. Some manage to reach out in many circles, the impact though varies. But most are just in one circle. In this case, you have the circle with indie people in Stockholm. All nominations are on bands in their own circle. There are so much bigger acts that have done so much more but they re not in these people circles and with social media they really not getting any new stuff getting their way. I got nominations for some of my really small releases, but these are the kind that really fits into their circle.

It's not just to be reaching the circle it's reaching it several times on different levels. Here these nominated bands are getting around in this circle several times, but not with my help, by there own social media.Still, they are so small and will never breakout outside the circle.

So to make it bigger you have to be in many circles and for that, you have to use so many people. It's like hiring five pr agencies that reach different circles all the time to get your message out.
Then if you manage to do that you will be quite established and have no worries to reach all the circles.

See it my way

Yes, this blog is really from the view of the record company and it's for artists or interested people to see why and what is going on. Also, it's because there are millions of blogs around how it is to be a struggling artist. With that, the blog becomes really polarized.

So when I will write about this topic of seeing it one way, have that in mind. I really know that what the industry says are equal offending and hurting and many times should see it the artist way.

Don't insult the people that you work with, or buy services. I had a huge laugh with one of my A&R friends. He called me up after an artist had been in contact and wanted a meeting about future plans. It's not strange that the artist wants that and totally understandable. Still, there are so many times they insult you in this process.

Of course, this record label has just done a great job for this artist and got her on top charts and millions of streams. Now she wanted to know what the future plans were. My friend asked back what kind of plans do you wanna know we are not finished working on this hit single yet.
Of course, the artist was tired of this single it has been out for two months. It still breaks new audiences so the label has been still focussing on it. She wanted a new release where they should do the really big stuff.

My friend was laughing "big stuff" what is the "big stuff". Have I not done "the big" stuff with this single. What she is saying is that we just did a small job on this single and now we are taking forward the big sledgehammer and just push it out. Why shouldn't I have done that with my first releases?

Of course the single has not hit all channels there is, you never do that. I have been in a conversation where the record has been number one on the selling chart and the artist still thinks that radio should have it in a top rotation, or they should have more big interviews on TV.

That is really a way insulting us probably know it. It's like my friend didn't have to present the stuff for TV and magazines and just focused on selling. In reality, he had nagged these people to death to expand the success. In reality, we started that even before the selling picked up speed. These people would have taken it up if they were interested. Nagging again would be just contra productive.

But releasing a  new single could be even more contra productive and kill the first one. This is a thing that the label takes decisions around, not the artist.

We know the artist I just concerned about its career and want it as fast as they can get it. But going into a locker room and yell at the team that just won a match and gave all they got, that it was not good enough you wanted more goals can be very contra productive.



 

The first festival for the year, Folk at Heart

I was on the first festival of the year this weekend. It's called Folk at Heart (not connected with Live at Heart accept some people work on both) in Örebro. It's a bit like Folk Alliance, a folk festival in the USA. It's like small hotel rooms that bands can play and people walk around and see many bands in one night.

It primarily for folk music. But I really see the need of festivals like this. More pop bands were doing down scaled acoustic sessions in the rooms that were really cool. And I think the concept is also very good that you get more bands playing in small capacity venues (hotel room in this case). Then it's easier to get get the room filled, and you have to be creative to get things to work. I was impressed with many acts of the creativity fo using such a small space and doing a hell of a show. We need more of this for sure.

Here is Osten af and Dimpker Brothers who combined acoustic stuff with Hip Hop, amazing.

I'm not that important, neither is you.

When Joey Ramone died I spoke briefly with Johnny and he couldn't grasp how many articles and people around the world who was giving tribute to The Ramones and their legacy. he said that they were never that big and never had anything on the charts so he was amazed at how many people that it really concerned.

I guess Johnny never realized how big The Ramones really was. And that is really hard also to understand how big the storm is when you are in the center of it. At the same time is equally hard to understand how small a storm is when you are in the center of it. I was in a discussion with some colleagues and one was supporting a small party in Sweden, but he thought they were bigger. In the last vote in Sweden in his social media, that party was everywhere and he was sure that they would get over 4% of the votes which is the figure to get into the parliament of Sweden when he saw it they would get about 8 to 10 % of the votes. When the vote was over, this party had 3,5% and never got in.

This is the backside of social media. The storm is around you so you might think it's bigger than it is. Before this, it was the opposite around. Then your fame could be out there but you didn't know it in full scales, like The Ramones. They never got a hit but were big anyway. Ther positive side is that today its kind of easy to find out around social media where people are talking around you. The negative side is that you can easily kill the dream that you are big in Japan by checking it out fast.

The problem I see now is that people think that they should get treated like there were big just because they have created a small storm. In the old days the storm had to be in that size to be bigger but yes the storm has to be so much bigger today to count to the same degree.

You are not important just because you work on Universals PR department in Denmark. Just because Universal creates a lot of big artists every year, you still just a small part of a big machinery. even that one of the songs even got number one in Denmark is actually your work it could be the waves of someones work in the USA.

Just because they rotated your song on 25 college radio stations makes your music in the position that every radio station should play that song.

Just because you where in the biggest TV program in Sweden, not everyone in Sweden knows about you. In reality, pretty few know about you.

I can relate to this. When you work on a label you are the worst storm builder there is. With the smallest success and you build up that everyone in this region should know about my latest release. How the fuck hasn't they never heard about the band that had the 10th most played song on Swedish national radio this year, I think? Of course, all people in your social media network (around 2500 people) knows about it. They are probably tired of you telling about it. But since the world is much bigger just Sweden 10 millions of people they don't know about it. I meet a lady that is middle age but live in the countryside and haven't heard about the metoo hashtag. So your release is kind of unknown.

Right now I really don't know how big storm you have to create. More important how to create it. Also if I know when it's created? Is still that I can't really check on social media where I have some traction. Can I still be big in Japan since they re using other systems to listen to music? I guess one of my hopes is there.

And that hope sometimes gives people the urge to think that you should celebrate someone that really haven't achieved much and that is bothering me right now. There are too many false prophets out there.

The perfect list!

My A&R friend Tommy posted this. And this is what i'm talking about the whole year. This is what you need to do to get somehwere. It's boiled down to a single list of 12 points, so no it's not like go here and do this and everything will work out. If you stop spending time of looking for that and do this list you will get somewhere.

All the errors we encounter every day is here. Is just that I disect it in the blog and goes in to every little detail. Some one wrote I was rude against artist in my blog. Well since they fuck up these simple 12 rules ALL THE TIME and ask what is wrong, you get what you ask for in many cases.

People think they really have checked all in this list, no you have not. Neither have I in many cases.

This is how you get a big fan base!

If you have this your career will go to the next level and you can make a living out of your music.

Yes, I have done this before. Writing a sassy headliner and it will attract musicians like flies to a cowshit. Last time the headline was Here is the secret homepage that makes your career! and I got A LOT of clicks on that one.

I guess it's natural you want that secret little inside tip that can take you to make a living off your music. The problem is that you want THE tip, just one perfect one. It's the same I see artists looking for the perfect person to work with inside the industry. Usually, they always think that person sits in an office somewhere on a big label waiting for them to appear.

The funny part is that statistics show that most of the right persons will just be smaller people working really hard. Thos people they usually just jump over.

The whole thing is that you are working with dreams and perspectives. People build up this fantasy inside their head what it should be like. This is what keeps their dream alive. Many times my job is to break down this myth that is built up in your head and try to replace it with a closer to reality, without breaking your dreams into thousand pieces.

I just figured out that this is the hardest part. Of course, if you release a new single, that single is the best in the world. You have so much confidence in that song and with the right exposure, it would be played on every radio station in the world.

To be honest, I have the same dreams when I release some of my new singles, so the artist is not alone. There is a reality though. The chances that you would get the song to all radio stations and they will play it is not a realistic goal. Actually just that a couple of stations will play it is not realistic. And it has nothing how good your song is or how good your marketing is. It just won't fit in all stations. 

When reality sets in, and you don't get a single radio station to play it you just feel like the world is shitting on you. Believe me, I'm there with you! The game you have to play is to fast pick up the pieces and do it again, and again. And in that process, it will happen. Never thought through one person or one homepage or one tip-off.

2018

So here we are 2018. I'm a little behind schedule since I got some bigger obstacles during the holidays. I guess a new year is a period when you start new things. You decide all the stuff that you should do over the year and thinks it's a lot of time.

Or you decide to start something fresh since it's a new year?

I really do the same and fall into the trap every year. The past days I have been thinking of just do this, or do that.  In the end, I know I will change the whole thing when someone calls me up with a cool proposition and all my plans goes out the window.

I should change it this year and really stick to my plans, will I do it, hell no. So should I not give any new years resolutions? I guess I will but I also know that everything can be changed in a heartbeat. Like I wrote a couple of days ago, it's better to do something than nothing at all.