Issue #17: Music and Marketing
As a music-lover and musician, I tend to forget about the business side of the music industry, and all the elements that go into sending my favorite music to Spotify, Youtube, and other platforms. This week’s musings have led me to ask questions: Why do I get to hear some songs and not others? What is the creative work involved? Why do some artists blow up but not others?
On to the write-up!
Your Music and People by Derek Sivers
I just read this a second time and am rediscovering all the nuggets in this short-but-sweet collection of advice for people who work on music professionally. The book is also incredibly useful to anyone working in marketing or business in general.
Your Music and People is a handy little guide that speaks to musicians but really could apply to any kind of creative. I found myself inserting the words writer and publication whenever he spoke to musicians and described their recordings.
Some of my favorite quotes:
“Marketing means being considerate. Focus on others” - as a wise mentor likes to remind me (more like hammer into my brain), YOU ARE NOT THE MARKET
“Marketing is an extension of your art. Business is just as creative as music”
“Pour your personality and philosophy into the way you do business”
“Most people completely waste their time and money when they attend a conference. So here’s how to do it right: Get interested and listen. For each person you meet, think about how you can help them.”
“Ignore advice that drains you. If it doesn’t excite you, don’t do it. There’s almost nothing you must do.” - here he speaks to musicians that get caught up learning other things like tech or marketing tactics so much that they forget to practice their art and lose motivation
So much good stuff, I wanted to highlight the whole book.
As I read, I was reminded of the Polyphonic business case, which covers the challenges of marketing an AI tool that uses Hit Song Science to predict a song’s hit potential. As a 2000s kid that felt nostalgia for the songs in the case and as a musician and tech-lover myself, this had to be my favorite case in my business program.
Sivers gives an insider view to what I learned in the case about the music industry, including channels and paths of decision-making. He succinctly draws out the marketing implications for any musician that wants to succeed: “This whole music industry - this giant mysterious machine - is not a machine! It’s just people!”
I learned about Derek Sivers from the Tim Ferriss Show. Here is a delightfully profound and funny YouTube clip that covers a snippet of their conversation on the podcast.
Music of Note
Blue Hour by TxT (TomorrowxTogether)
The Blue Hour that the Korean boyband refers to here is the time of sunset. The song is both a nostalgic and catchy jam featuring emotional lyrics (in Korean and English), a sick bassline, and hat-tips to the music styles of the 80s. Lyrics and explanation can be found here.
The Blue Hour in Watercolor
Although only one of the paintings actually has blue
Just because I gave Polyphonic a shout-out, here’s another song - the one that drew my eye to the case in the first place (I saw this song in the index listed as 2002’s Billboard #1). 2000s kids will be reminded that How You Remind Me by Nickelback has all the angst and headbanging of their era.
Time to give it a rest! Hold that note…
-Isa