Hawk Tuah

Are you a meme or are you a musician?

If you're willing to do anything for attention is it working for you, or against you?

The bifurcation began with the split of AM and FM in the sixties. Stations could no longer simulcast on FM what they were broadcasting on AM. As a result we got underground FM radio and album rock. Which ruled until there was a consolidation and corporate rock and disco emerged. Why did disco emerge? Rock did not encompass all demos, all interests, all desires, and not only does nature abhor a vacuum, people want that which speaks to them.

Then music was in the doldrums until MTV created a monoculture in 1981, and that has been the paradigm the major labels and the major media have operated under ever since, even though it's in the rearview mirror, has been for years.

In other words, mainstream music, Top Forty music, the Spotify Top 50, works for fewer listeners than ever before. This is what consolidation has wrought. Fewer major labels, fewer mainstream news outlets...

But the bucket has been leaking for decades. Now there are a zillion news sources, some accurate, some inaccurate, some way ahead of the mainstream, some completely delusional.

If you want to know about it first, you find out about it online. A news story has to work its way up to the major media. And the big outlets can't cover everything, while many are consolidating. If you're depending on the L.A. "Times" to know what is going on in the world, you don't know much.

And the same thing is happening in music.

But all we've got is the tsunami of hype over the Spotify Top 50 when most of the listening, STATISTICALLY most of the listening, is going elsewhere.

And what is everybody's desire?

To go viral. When they're not complaining about making little money.

As with everything in life, don't listen to the hubbub. It tends to be a very few with an agenda.

In other words, if you're a musician, if you're not playing the game, what are your odds of future success? GIGANTIC!

Let me be clear, only a very few acts will go on to stardom. That's the way it's always been. Only a few acts deserve said stardom and the public only has so much bandwidth. But more acts than ever can make a living making music, or at least have a revenue stream while they keep their day jobs (many acts in the so-called pre-internet heyday kept their day jobs even after they got deals and released a record).

But too many are inured to the old monoculture game, to their detriment.

The major labels are doing it all wrong, they need to employ the Netflix model. More and more product that doesn't appeal to everybody, but to niches. The goal is to satisfy a niche so it doesn't cancel a subscription. And sure, there's no music subscription (other than distributors like Spotify, et al), but in truth a subscription in music is fandom. How can you bond with your audience to the point they'll keep you alive, see your shows, buy your merch and spread the word.

You don't want to do anything uncharacteristic. Your fans have a perception of you. Go against it at your peril. Wait for people to come to you, don't sell out for quick success.

And stop trying to go viral. What we've found is viral is unpredictable, it can rarely be gamed. If you're lucky you might do something that goes viral, but odds are you'll never go viral in a way that makes you well-known overnight, like the Hawk Tuah girl. But how long is the Hawk Tuah girl's fame going to last? Not through the summer. Not through July. Maybe not even through June!

And maybe you've got no idea who the Hawk Tuah girl is. If this is so, you're a passive consumer. You come last in the music business food chain. But even more this proves how even if you go viral, you don't reach everybody. It's a fool's errand, and it doesn't last.

Like the work of the social media influencers. They've got to create each and every day, otherwise people move on. That is not the job of the musician.

I'm not saying you don't have to release a steady stream of product, I'm not saying you don't have to have an online presence...

Tom Rush has a Patreon wherein he does a live show every week, for about fifteen minutes, usually with another act, sometimes famous, sometimes not. And ten days ago he featured this guy Brendan Cleary. I'm jaded, but I know it when I hear it. This guy had a great voice, interesting lyrics and good changes. But almost no online presence, not even a website. I couldn't easily check out more of his work, someone else was operating under the same name, I gave up. I don't even know if the rest of his tunes are as good, I can't spread the word. Don't operate with one hand behind your back, don't hate the internet so much that you stay off it.

So now is the time to follow your muse, to do something different. And odds are it will take a very long time to resonate with the public. Are you in it for the money or the music? Are you willing to sacrifice everything to make it? Marriage, kids, home ownership, straight career? If not, you should give up now, it's just not worth it, it takes all of your effort with no fallback position to break through. And never forget, the audience is the ultimate arbiter, and you can't make people listen to your music, no way.

In other words, music is evolving. Even though those in control of recordings keep telling you otherwise. Just like the major labels hit a slump before the advent of MTV. The major labels are bleeding market share to the independents, and without their catalogs they'd be ripe for disruption.

You are the story. A lucky press article here or there might help you, but promotion is nearly worthless. Like those articles in the mainstream media about people who just released a record. It's akin to a billboard on the Sunset Strip in the sixties, might make you feel good, but it doesn't move the needle.

The only thing that moves the needle these days is your music. Your job is to make it and get it heard. And getting it heard is the toughest job of all. And the way you get it heard is by having fans, not getting it playlisted. Many acts are playlisted, make money, and no one knows their name and they have no career. Playlisting is a sideshow. Don't focus on that. How do you create a fan base and grow that? Stop thinking about the masses. What you've got to know is if you do something great, people will spread the word, because there's very little great out there and everybody is looking for it.

Stop trying to game the system.

Start doing it your way.

Blow our minds musically. If we can't hear it and be taken away, impressed, then it's never going to work. No publicity effort can trump the music today, because there's so much of it. If you're not great, we've got a history of great at our fingertips.

And there is great out there, and in truth it is growing. But it is obscured by all the stories about hit music which means about as much as it did in the heyday of FM, even less.

The game has changed. Sure, read Don Passman's book to learn the ropes, but that's not as important as lessons and rehearsal. And great art is always about ideas. And great ideas without execution are worthless.

It's damn difficult. There is no barrier to entry, you don't need a license to make music. But if you NEED to make music, there's a lot of opportunity today. But walk into the wilderness instead of the mainstream, which tends to rise and fall like a wave on a beach. You want to last.


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