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Hey, this is Matthew Ricks, and today on the Music
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Business newsletter, we got an email from not an artist
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called the music industry a scam, but just frustrated with
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the inner workings of the business and how are artists
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supposed to arrive at a place where they can live
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doing music in twenty twenty six. But before we get started,
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if you have a question on the music industry that
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you'd want my advice or opinion on, go to Matthewricks
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dot com. I don't need you to become a member
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of anything. I don't need you to subscribe to anything,
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or buy a book, or but book a coaching class,
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any of that stuff. I don't actually have any of
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that stuff. Just go to Matthew Ricks dot com click
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submit your question, give me as many details as possible,
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and we will answer it here on the channel. Now
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for the email, he says, Hey, Matthew, I've been meaning
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to write this for a while. I scroll through comments
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on YouTube and read it in other places, and I
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keep hearing the same thing that you and other quote
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unquote experts say. I don't claim to be an expert.
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I'm a guy who's just devoted his life to the
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music industry. Been in the music business since I was
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sixteen years old full time, So I just this is
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my passion. Just like if you have a problem with
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a car, you go to a guy. You don't come
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to me. You go to a guy who knows something
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about cars. You trust me. You do not want to
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come to me about anything with your car. Well, he goes.
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What you and others say is that if you understand
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the music business, work hard, have a plan, you can
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get traction. Yes, but the definition of traction kind of
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is for some artists they'd be happy with the thousand
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streams a month. For others, they're firing their entire team
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if they get a thousand streams a month, he says.
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But I'm sitting here thinking that isn't really, that isn't
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a reality for most of us. I see artists all
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over the internet talking about problems that don't get addressed
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in most advice videos or in columns. People say streaming
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is supposed to be our path to audience, but eighty
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one percent of Spotify artists never even cross one thousand
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monthly listeners. I think most artists put their music out
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on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube, whatever, and they hope
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that people bump into it. They will maybe post a
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link on Instagram once for their album or their single
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and hope that that's enough. You see it happen all
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the time in podcasters. You know that there's like ninety
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percent of podcasters don't make it past the fourth episode
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because they put it out there and they hope that
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people are just gonna find it, but they're just going
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to mysteriously just bump into it. And artists do the
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exact same thing. The fact that eighty one percent of
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artists on Spotify, according to you, never even cross one
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thousand monthly listeners, should we ration how many artists can
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release music on Spotify. The same artists who do get
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a thousand monthly listeners are the same artists who have
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the same resources available to them to the artists who
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don't get a thousand monthly listeners. But let's continue, he says,
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and that it's not talent, it's invisibility. Independent artists spend
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all their time promoting and juggling non music task and
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barely anyone hears their stuff or their songs. I would
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disagree with you. I do not believe that independent artists
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spend all their time promoting and juggling non music task.
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I think the smart artists spend their time promoting their music,
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promoting their shows, sending people to their different social channels
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to try to grow their brand. I think eighty one
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percent of artists don't. I think eighty one percent of
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artists think that you bump into success, that that it's
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not a strategy, it's not a plan. You don't have
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to work hard. You just have to have talent and
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that'll be enough for you. That's what I think, he said.
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Folks like myself are straight up confused about what's happening
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to the core of the music and industry. Why albums
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don't land the same way they used to, because we
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live in a singles era now, in a singles era
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for twenty years, you have to be a really legendary
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artist or have a lot of heat on you as
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an artist like Arena size to release an album and
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have people actually listen to the who the whole thing.
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And even now artists who are release in albums, they're
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putting half the album out as singles before they drop
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the quote unquote release date of the album. It's the
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reason if you are an up and coming artist and
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you're putting an album out, it's going to fail. But
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see the problem is with most of these artists is
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if they did just you know, not put out a
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full length album, then they couldn't sell CDs to nobody.
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Then they couldn't manufacture CDs. Singles have eliminated CDs and
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that does not help the band camp bros. And the
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CD bros. It just doesn't. Doesn't you know why albums
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don't land the same way they used to, or why
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the industry seems to be algorithms more than artistry since
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the history of music, whatever version of the algorithm was
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at that time fifty years ago, it wasn't an algorithm
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on the internet, but it was the algorithm of what
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radio was playing, what was getting on the Ed Sullivan Show,
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what was touring across the country. That was their version
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of an algorithm. And I keep getting email after email
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from you artists who want a rail against algorithms. Look,
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would I be in favor if governments across the world
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outlawed algorithms altogether? Yes? Is it going to happen? Not likely? So,
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once again, just like the Spotify argument, do we sit
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here and complain and let that be our focus? And
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put all of our energy and complaining about the algorithm,
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or do we try to manipulate it? Do we try
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to win at it? It's up to you, he says.
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And then some people are even saying that expecting one
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upload to crack the world is ridiculous. Yeah, you you're
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gonna throw one song out there and hope that all
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your dreams come true. It's not gonna happen. That's ridiculous.
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That's Oh. I'm gonna put one. I'm gonna post one
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video to YouTube. And if I don't get mister Beasts level,
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I'm out of here. Who would you do that with
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anything in life? If you start dieting, if I don't
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lose twenty pounds in one day, I'm gonna quit dieting.
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I go to the gym. If I can't bench press
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three hundred pounds the first day, I'm not going to
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do it. Why are there different rules for the music industry.
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Then you know, I'm gonna go on one day and
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if I don't meet the love of my life, I'm
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not going to look for it anymore. Where would you
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do that? Where would you apply this one or nothing
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rule for anything else in your life? But see most
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people in the arts, the lazy ones, the eighty one percent,
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we'll call it. They're like, well, I tried everything. I
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released one song. It didn't you know I I I
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sent out a post on Instagram, nobody clicked it. I
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released one song, it didn't work. I did one show,
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it didn't sell out. Where else would where else would
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you do this at in life? And some people are
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even saying that expecting one upload to crack the world
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is ridiculous, that you actually build fans city by city,
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show by show, and that the current narrative selling global
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success off one upload is completely misleading. It is if
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you are an independent artist, you are up and coming
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and you don't have the machine, and you're not an
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industry plant. You're not going to pop after one song.
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You're not You're not going to be an arena artist
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after one single if you don't have a team behind you,
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you know how like incredibly lucky. I mean, you would
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have to have everything going right, and it just doesn't
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work that way. There's too much competition out there, working
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with algorithms getting listeners attention. It's a constant grind in
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and day out. It's posting when nobody viewed it, and
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then the next day you post and you got two
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people to view it. That's traction, right, He says. I
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see this everywhere, and it's starting to make me really
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skeptical of what working smart actually means anymore. I pour
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time into my music, writing, recording, posting, networking, but it
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feels like the only people who actually see it are
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other artists. Okay, well that's a good start, don't you think,
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because don't other artists have connections. Don't other artists have shows?
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Don't other artists have fan bases that you could collaborate with.
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Who are you looking to impress on your first post?
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He says. People online talk about hitting playlists, but there
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are whole threads about how song trust owes artists money.
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I don't talk about playlists. I actually tell you not to,
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and I, personally my personal opinion, don't take this as
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the gospel to your own research. I want to trust
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song trusts as far as you could throw them, he says.
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Other emails say how distributors don't even respond. No, you're
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going to go to tune core distro kid all that
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they You're not going to get customer service if one
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of these guys actually started a distribution company devoted to
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customer service of the artists, it would it would win.
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But the problem is is that artists most times, ninety
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eight percent of the artists are fine. The two percent
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screw it up for everybody else. And so these distribution companies,
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they take your money, they do put your music out there,
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and that's where the that's where the relationship ends until
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it's time for you to renew your yearly subscription with them,
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he says. Or how you can't reach real support from
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these distributors if your royalties don't show up. Yeah, that's
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a problem, that is, And that's one of those things
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I talk about when it comes to if one of
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these if somebody would create a tune core distro ca
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CD baby competitor, competitor and make it about the best
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customer service possible, they'd clean up. They'd clean up in
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a heartbeat. But they don't want to do it because
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what the problem is that you as a company would
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have to devote time to somebody who's made you three cents.
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And so instead of them picking winners and losers, they
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go the free road. Just what they do. Is it fair? No,
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it's just what they do, he said, none of that
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sounds like business fundamentals. It sounds like a system where
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the artist does all the work and everyone else takes
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a slice while the audience stays invisible. None of that
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sounds like business fundamentals. It sounds like a system where
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the artist does all the work and everyone else takes
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a slice while the audience stays invisible. Well, you're starting something,
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so to say the audience is invisible. You're invisible to
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the audience because you got to put your reps in.
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You got to build up in the algorithm. Listen if
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you made if you if you had a million dollars
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coming in every month, I'm sure you would get somebody
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from tune core to respond to you. But ten years ago,
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before I had the distribution deal we have now with
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the Matrics minut we worked with tunecre. It was a
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complete another nightmare working with them, and I haven't been
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a fan of tune COREP for ten years. They actually
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still owe me money and I don't know how to
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get out of it because I accidentally registered something ten
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years ago and I can't get anybody to get with
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me about the pay. And I understand it because it
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is frustrating. I mean, mine's like a couple hundred bucks,
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so it's not like it's you know, lawsuit territory or anything.
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But if you need that three hundred bucks, it is
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very annoying that you can't get anybody a hold of.
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You can't get anybody you know to reach back out
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to you. And that's the problem with the distribution companies.
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They're all like this. They take your money, they do
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distribute your music, and that's where the relationship ends. So
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I understand your frustration here, he says. So I guess
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what I'm asking is real and a little bunt. When
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artists asked for realist, realistic industry advice, why is the
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answer still rooted in strategy models that barely work for
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eighty percent of the artists because the eighty percent of
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the artists don't do it. The eighty percent of artists. Now,
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I'm blessed because my retention on videos is really high,
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Like all of my videos hold like eighty eight percent,
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which is astronomical on YouTube terms, So thank you for that.
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The majority of artists, they don't want to they don't
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want to even take the time to send an email
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or watch a twenty minute video on the music industry.
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They'd rather get it from a tweet or an Instagram
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post or a thread or some fifteen second TikTok video
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and things that they got everything figured out. The reason
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why why this doesn't work for eighty percent of artists
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is because eighty percent then eighty percent artists doesn't work.
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They try to take shortcuts. They try to get on playlist.
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You know, they send out one post, they call it
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a day. They don't actually grind it out day after day.
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They just don't because if they did, they'd be getting
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better results. A lot of them get discouraged because they
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did try something a couple of times and it didn't
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work out. He says, isn't it the truth that most
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people will stay small unless they get lucky or invest
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more than they make. No, that's not true. It's not
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about luck. It's about hard work. It is about doing
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Winners do the things that the losers refuse to do.