I need some action.

 Last post I wrote was about numbers. I said there that numbers are different than statistics. I have a problem also with statistics in one way. You can get things out of statistics so don’t discard them use all the tools to collect whatever fact that is out there. Still have one thing in your mind.

Statistics are only available on action taken. There won’t be any statistics if you don’t do anything. More or less no action, zero statistics. Or even just a small bit of action the data that comes in will be too little to draw any conclusions. And of course, if you cheat your data will be not correct either.

I think many today are not using the data that is actually out there. You should monitor a release and see what is getting any tractions Most of the time I mainly see artists just count interviews or anything where they can pose and be a star counting. They newer check if that interview is read or even lead to some new people getting to the music. That is so easy today, but yes vain is still big in many ways.

Another thing is that the artists are too fast to quit the marketing giving up reaching something. It seems they are mainly releasing a song just to be able to make a Facebook and Instagram post about it.

Then we have the big thing around statistics. Statistics can never say if a song is a hit or not beforehand. Since it’s only monitoring things in the past it has a very hard time predicting what is going on. If I have a song that is one year old and only has a couple of thousand streams the statistics will be quite boring. If I know though that my song will be used in the next blockbuster movie in the USA as the lead theme next summer I know it will be exposed to millions of people.

Here the statistics would tell us that this song is useless but with my other information the song is glowing hot and many people would jump on that train. This is why statistics really can’t predict that much of the future just the past. In reality, a song might just be a hit if millions of people would have a chance to hear it. Possibly also not be a hit if millions of people hear it. Of course, the exposure makes a possibility for people to discover the song and liked it. If the song is bland and not that attractive there still will be people attracted to the song but not so many would be picked up by the exposure.

Here the statistics could come in handy. Even if you get exposure to millions of people. How do you keep those that really liked your music? You can see in the statistics where they came from and you can try to get them to follow your channels.

The problem I have today is that people are talking like statistics can predict a future. Even with my music in that movie that is nothing certain. The movie itself might flop then fewer people will listen to it. The song is placed in a way that it’s just in the background and not that prominent. Nothing is certain until it has happened. The only thing you can rely on is that you need to do quite many things and sign up to get your data to be able to get something out of it. At the same time doing a lot of things with your music is the only way for many people to listen to it. It’s in the actions, not the statistics.

Fans or just numbers?

 You know what, your song might not be a flop just because it doesn’t have any numbers. The numbers just show how much marketing that has been done. The numbers don’t tell you if the song is good or bad. The numbers just tell you how many people that started it, don’t even tell how long they spent the time to listen to the song.

We have a problem in the music industry because too many people believe that they can find the next thing by numbers. Not statistics, you can actually get info from statistics. Only information on things that have been not the future, yet. I have seen new programs that can predict a bit of how songs will perform in the future from the statistics, but just if nothing major happens.

The problem is the number crunching. People just go in on Spotify and see that wow this has 12 million listings and automatically think it is a hit. To be honest you can easily get those numbers with a crappy song and put it in the right channels to get the numbers. The problem is that the fans are not fans they are just people getting shot in a drive-by music shooting in the different digital outlets. A victim of that someone managed to fool the algorithm to place the song in front of you and you click on it just to listen the first 20 seconds and realize this is so bad I just want o turn it off. Switch the channel to something else and forget about the song. The problem is that mistake is now a figure in the listing’s statistics for that song. Another way to lure the algorithms to show it to another victim of bad music.

So now you think I will tell you that it was better before. Not really this has been this way too many years. Before this was done by blowing up your sales in cheating ways. An artist in Sweden for example sold his new single for one cent in the ice cream trucks. Then reported the sales. One way to cheat the algorithms. At the same time Virgin used housewives in the 70: s and the 80: s. Gave them money to go down to buy the records they wanted in the charts. The phenomena are not new in any way. The problem here is that now it’s so easy and cheap that every average joe can do it online suddenly it’s easier to cheat than actually having a real career.

The thing usually then was exposed when the artist went on tour. Suddenly even the most streamed artist in the world could only get 500 people to a show in a major city. A good marker was if an artist could draw an audience on a live show if they really had any fans or just numbers. Now during Covid this function is off. There are no measurements at all. There are no live shows and no real audience. This has never happened before and the reactions I see right now is very strange. Okey a lot more PR is done for each release. The cheating is mainly through the roof. At the same time, nothing new comes out from the noise. No new artists are on the horizon. It’s mainly the old that we already had and are trusted that gets any attention. If any the noise is so loud so even that AC/DC gave out a new single witch people never thought it would since members have died and so on. Still, the noise was so loud that they were drowned. It passed me I found out by mistake that there was a new single out.

I just looked at the numbers. The song has been out in a month and has just passed 6 million streams. That is what an average joe rapper from Hackensack can cheat up to in a week. Okey the song will climb on if it gets traction. But my guess is that if they manage to tour again the song will reach quite much. Like I wrote in the beginning it’s all about marketing, the problem right now is that the number one tool is shut down and we don’t know for how long.

One thing I will be thrilled to see is what happens when Covid is over and how will the live change the top lists.

The mega festivals are over!

Another message from a tech firm that promises me that I can find the next artists by looking at different numbers on different outlets. Outlets, well they seem more just stats from social media and streaming platforms. As I have written before that is just 25% of the artist's career. It really doesn't give any accurate picture of what is really going on. 

Sure, you can get some sales figures from these numbers, at least some pinpoint, but not what is coming, just the past. When the numbers start to reach critical levels someone has already discovered this artist and that is why you have you have those numbers.

In another email, I got a tip-off about a new sing-songwriter that just got picked up by a bigger label. And the numbers were not that special, but they were in the range where a label would pick up and start to try to market a new good artist. Still, I need this inside information to know to have an eye on this artist. It will be another year before she will enter the numbers game and if it will light up on the tech firms list and by then it's too late for me as a whatever I work as a manager, booker, or recordable. the reason the number is there is because of the work someone else already did.

Another thing is how these numbers should go over to real fans? I just read about an artist I know pretty well. Hasn't done anything really bigger. Given out some songs on a major label where we can see that they have boosted some Spotify numbers with some kind of suspect major record labels playlists like Topsify. Around 16 000 followers on Facebook and 130 000 followers on Instagram. 

Ok numbers, but with a closer look, the average Instagram post har around 7000 likes her twitter has around 30 likes on each post. Then she has gone over to the big new thing TikTok where she has a staggering over 2 million viewers, each post is around 200 000 views. There are people watching this. My knowledge though as a booker knows that she wouldn't even draw 100 people inside Stockholm. she is not a name that the bookers fight around or even talk about. 

The tech company thinks then I can see this on their stats. But you can't. Yes, you can see on Spotify she has the most listeners still in Stockholm even tough the audience on TikTok is not from Sweden. Has she bought the numbers? Not really, maybe her label has put in some extra boost ( looks like it) for TikTok not so much buying instead getting her on different lists and asking people to follow.

Here comes the crucial thing. People that follow really don't convert to fans. that just click of a button that says it's it interesting for me. We know this from the live industry that these numbers seldom can be converted. In the Eurovision song contest, they have taken several YouTubers, Spotify phenomena, and such to try to break them. This is prime time TV in Sweden. Still, most just don't even make it to the final round. The staggering numbers on social media won't even vote for the artists even though it's free. It's to much work. Imagine then to get someone out of their home to be so terminated to see you live. Yes, a much harder work. at the some time a must if you are going to access the big money from your fans, the live industry is 51% of the money going around in the music industry.

Or wait, it was. We don't know what is going to happen after Corona. One vision I  see several times and is quite keen on is that the mega festivals time is over. These are not environmentally friendly (if it's not set one construction that is already there like Summerfest) and is not good for artists. One effect from the corona will probably be that smaller venues get together to get touring for the artists. Likely these venues have an audience that is regulars, and the booker of the venue will be the tastemaker. Then the numbers really don't count, it will still be a person that promotes the stuff to the audience on a small scale, the way it used to be.

No, I deleted the email about the help I could get help to see an artist's stats. The stats don't tell me if they are good live, or even can do a live show. Just singing in the camera on TikTok will not make a big career. And I think Covid 19 just killed most of the fake artists as well. Suddenly a network of real people not bots is the way you need.

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Number crunchers

Now it's very easy to see the professionals from the amateurs. From time to time it's very easy to tell where in the industry you are for the moment. Right now is that time.

I got a submission by a manager for an artist to play at the festival. The only thing they brag about was how many streaming numbers the artist had on Spotify ( in reality not that high since I have the measure that you need a million in 48 hours). Still, it was easy to look at this artist that he had only 520 followers out of the massive streaming.

But what really struck me was that if I looked online I couldn't find any live videos. At the same time, they bragged of an outsold headline show in London just a couple of months ago. Of course, they didn't tell us which venue it was ( it could have been the local pub with just 50 seats) also it was strange there was no live footage on youtube. None what so ever. This only means that this artist probably isn't playing that much live or is bad live.

All they have is that the artist went into some playlists. You know what that won't drag any audience it just means that you haven't done your homework and got down and done some really good live shows because that is the new thing. You really need to be good live, not any social media numbers.

Yes, I actually check out how many videos on Youtube there is on live shows. That is what I can see how they interact with the audience. How many people and if they look good live. This is the next big thing in the industry. Here is where you easy can tell who is just faking their careers behind the screen and who really have a good fanbase.

It doesn't matter if this or that radio station thought it was good. It doesn't matter if you bought a thousand Chinese click on your song. It's down to the live scene to break artists.

Just amateurs are number-crunching and tell how much they had on their last release in Spotify. Take a lesson the pros don't even discuss social media numbers any longer.

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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.

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.
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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.

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Numbers that dosen't matter.

Numbers, numbers, and numbers. People still think numbers matters. In some cases yes, but in many cases no.

Like a successful showcase is a filled gig room? I get that a lot. It was a great gig, it was packed with people. That is good but in this case, it depends on witch people. If it just a bunch of new fans and the room takes 150 people, hey not that good.
Is it 150 people that will affect your career? Supergood. But usually, that packed gig can be the reason that person that change your career never got in and missed the whole thing. So filled showcase, numbers not needed.

People interested in something. This you hear a lot, we have several record labels interested in us.
Good but no one has taken action. If you have one million people interested but no one to act on it the number is useless.  It's enough with one and they take big action to be much better.

Followers on social media. If you have a million followers but no one cares about your posts, they are useless. Actually, ten thousand followers that care about all your posts is tremendous much better.

So having 64 million passive listings on Spotify is not good. It's better with a million active listeners.

The point is many of the numbers people are bragging about mostly empty useless numbers if you look closer.

This is how you raise your Spotify numbers!

This is how you raise your Spotify numbers! STOP LOOKING AT THEM.
The whole week has been with people sad not getting numbers, some happy having very big numbers, questions how to raise the listenings on Spotify etc.

So I will give my advice that I have given all week and sound like a parrot. Get real fans and it will all be fine. It's not Spotify as service that breaks artists. It's just an outlet where people can listen to music. And with the new rumors that Youtube and Google play launching next week who knows in two years, Spotify can have the same importance that Itunes has now. Yes, five years ago we had the same situation with Itunes. People asked how they could sell more, how to get people to buy etc. Today it's all over. and you know what, Spotify will go the same way. The company has never been in profit, Warner sold 85% of their shares directly. The stock market seems very bumpy for them. I can see more and more festivals taken off the usual Spotify talks. Everything looks that it will deflate. But like always the artists is the last to know. Sometimes I still think that some artist is using My Space still.

And this will happens over and over again that different outlets will go under and disappears. We won't get back eras like the vinyl, cd, and cassette that hold on for years. The digital cycle is much shorter. If you don't, believe me, I just say Periscope. The only way to still be active is to have fans that follow the outlet. Yes if Spotify crash Ariana Grande's fans will pick up the new field to listen to her music. She can easily migrate to different platforms because she has real fans.

So don't look to push people into a certain platform. Try to grab people in several ways and most important that they like your music and nurture that. Get people a reason to head to any platform and listen to your creations, that is what matters.

PERSONAL:
Wow, I just saw who I'm in the same panel as on GMA in Taiwan next week. I'm in the panel with Lihui Shen the CEO of Modern Sky. The biggest festival in China. I have met him before he is very good. Keum-San Hwang the manager of the content division on Mnet witch is Koreas leading cable music channel. And all moderated by Elaine Wang from Cros Music.
All done in mandarin with translators.

It's in these moments I realize how far I've gone. I'm getting on the other side of the globe speaking at a conference with very talented people. Yes, it took a while and many different crossroads. I would never have wanted it undone.

ARTISTS:
Just got in The Mommyheads new album. Sneak premiere on Brooklyn Vegan 20 of June. This will be great.

We don't care about your socialmedia numbers

Then he said it! We don't care about your socialmedia numbers. With a right campaign they will be fixed you don't need to have them beforehand.

I was on a panel where a guy from the most powerful and most frontrunning company in the world was talking.

I have been waiting for this to happen. We have for awhile seen that the numbers is not telling so much of the status just about the past. And just a portion of the past.

For example one of my bands has over 7 millions streams on Spotify. That is really good. If you trust the numbers they should be a safe horse to bet on. Well the case is that these numbers are from when they toured and had hired a special company to work towards to get streams. Also back then it was easier to get to Spotify visit them and then get on playlists. In reality these numbers just shows the past. The future is not given away with these numbers.

I have seen companies going on with this in the past five years thinking that the numbers will spill to other parts, or you can predict the next big band from the numbers (well you can, but then you are too late when the numbers is going perfect on all channels they don't need you, you are to late). All of these companies has fail miserably.

So when a person just looks on your socialmedia numbers and judge only on that (it's very easy to do, trust me) they are really not good on things.

I can take a example. I friend of mine is developing a band with almost no social numbers. It has its explanation. The band has just released a single by the self. Not well promoted or we'll done, but you have to start to learn.
But the single did one thing. Got the attention of my friend. Now for the next single she will put in her knowledge. She is really good so the expectations is higher. Yesterday day she told me that she got the band on a opening slot on a big concert that is TV broadcasted.

This band with the lousy numbers will do better than my band with good ones. These opportunities will provide that the numbers goes up, maybe very fast.
It's the opportunities around that are interesting and that is never in the numbers. The numbers shows the past.

Then you say that the companies that are watching the numbers now will find my friends band. Yes they might. Still to keep the figures going it depends if my friend can pull off some more stunts to get them good opportunities (I know she will, she is awesome but not all are that so it's nothing that the numbers can say).
Also even if the see the numbers go up what say that this band will get these number readers any rights to their music. They might trust their manager doing it. No number crunching will never be a business.

In the future like in the old days, the knowledge of what is coming is the key to read it. But so far we really can't read the future through the numbers, they just shows the past.