Today I’m talking about two of my favorite subjects—music and marketing. In this example, they just happen to taste great together.
Just in case you think I am picking on the guy I'm about to discuss, think again—I’ve actually been trying to help him (for free) for more than a month, and he has acknowledged that everything I have told him to do is right, but he hasn’t changed anything, so I now feel justified in making an example of him.
Okay, so—here is an example of “what not to do if you’re a musician/ actor/ artist.” I think it’s so awesome when creative types get national / international exposure (like through a tv show, or something they’ve created goes viral, or someone with a huge audience becomes their fan and starts talking about them). HOWEVER (and this is a big however), I notice this quite often– creative types tend to not be very organized, and not great at making sure their networks are up and running and that people can find them/ buy their stuff, and this always hurts them.
You might have noticed that the show “Parenthood” has awesome music. This is because they have Liza Richardson (from KCRW) as their music supervisor. Over the years, Parenthood has featured songs from Bob Dylan to Ben Gibbard to Joshua Radin and almost everyone in between. Parenthood is a huge, enormous platform for your music to be on, and if you get on it, you can guarantee that you’re going to expand your audience of fans exponentially, and this could very well be the moment when your career takes off. At very least, it is a huge deal, and if, in your music career, you get the chance for that kind of exposure, you owe it to yourself and people who want to become your fans to at least have your sh$t together enough to make that music available.
You don’t want to be proactive about your social media? You feel like you want to make music and that technology is beneath you? But, to function in the world as a creative type, you must at least make it easy for people to find your music. Not doing this is not just self-sabotage. I might even go so far as to say it is insulting to organized, together musicians who don’t get this kind of amazing opportunity for exposure. I am going to show you what happens when you get a big break and you’re not set up for it.
First, an example of “What to Do”: I am a big fan of Joshua Radin’s and have bought a bunch of his music, and Parenthood is also where I found out about him. If you’ll just click over to Radin’s Wikipedia listing really quick, though, you will easily be able to tell that he was 100% prepared for his first opportunity, and this has translated into a career, many more TV placements, and several popular albums. If you haven’t heard of him, I am so happy to be able to introduce you to his music.
In case you’re curious, Joshua Radin’s music appeared in episodes of “Scrubs” and in the movie “Garden State,” which probably means he caught the attention of Zach Braff’s at some point, and was organized enough to grow his following and his career until he now can be heard all over.
With that in mind, I am going to walk you through the exact opposite of the Joshua Radin scenario, mostly to emphasize to you that you really do need to be prepared, because you never know when that big break is going to hit you.
You might have heard a great song at the end of the January 1st episode “Keep on Rowing.” Here’s the clip I’m talking about.
Awesome! So, you love the music, right? Me too. Here’s what happened when I tried to find out more about the album/ the artist. I took to the internet, fully prepared to actually shell out money for this person’s album and to become their fan.
First, I used the Shazam app in my phone to find out the name of that amazing song. Shazam for TV comes up and lists all the music it knows about in that episode, and this song is not one of them. Since Shazam presumably pulls its data from iTunes, that means that this song is not available there, which is beyond absurd for a song that has just been heard by millions of people. Strike one/ one missed opportunity for me to buy this person’s music.
Second, I go to Tunefind, which is the super-awesome website where you can usually find out what music is being used in TV shows. Here is the TuneFind listing for this particular episode: http://www.tunefind.com/show/parenthood/season-4/13191 . TuneFind is cool because it lets you hear a clip, then gives you the opportunity to buy the song on iTunes or Amazon.
You’ll notice that the only mention of the song I’m talking about is in the comments/ discussion section, where someone finally identifies the artist and the song. His name is Ruu Campbell, and the name of the song is "Mathereal," but knowing this is not going to get you very far, because Campbell seems to be determined to make it difficult for you to buy his music. The fact that there is no clip and no opportunity to buy the music on iTunes or Amazon indicates to me that this musician KNEW his music was going to be on Parenthood and had the opportunity to make it available, and for whatever reason did not do this. Strike two/ another missed opportunity for me to buy his music. This is a real example. He really lost money.
Third, now I’m playing amateur detective, I go to YouTube to see if anyone (including the artist himself) has put up a clip that maybe goes to a website where I can purchase and download this song. I find the artist, but there are only a few songs up, not this one. Note that I’m only doing this now because I’m a marketing person and I’m curious as to how far this musician is going to go to sabotage himself. Any normal music fan would have given up after Step 1. That’s thousands (or tens of thousands) of missed opportunities. I would call this Strike 3, but I was already not buying his music after Strike 2, so now I’m just using the numbers to keep a count.
Fourth, I Google the musician, and find out that he does have a website. Great, although as I mentioned, people are lazy, so most of the people watching Parenthood are not going to do this. I am surprised/ disappointed to see that his website makes no mention AT ALL of his music having been on the show, and that the site lacks navigation and is made of Flash, which means it doesn’t work on mobile/ iPads/ tablets. Finally (!) I see that he has an album for sale, but apparently I will have to “Pre-Order” a hard copy, which he will send from England. There is no way I’m doing this. Further, and now I just feel like I’m watching a slow-motion marketing train wreck, his “Music” section has samples from his album, but the song I like IS NOT ONE OF THE SAMPLES, and I’m confused as to whether that song actually even appears on the album. Now I feel a little nauseated, just thinking about all the people who are having this same experience. There also is nowhere to sign up for tour information. Did you know that (even above music/ downloads) touring is where musicians make most of their money? Again, what a colossal waste.
Finally, I go from his website over to his Facebook Fan Page, where I notice that people are leaving comments like “How come I can’t buy your music on iTunes?” Statistically speaking, figure that for every ONE person who actually leaves a comment or sends you an email, 100 other people have had the same experience and quit. This means that every time you read one of these comments, this musician has lost at least 100 fans, probably many more. Because I honestly want to help this guy, I join in with the other people who are urging him to upload a copy of his album to iTunes. He argues back several times, saying that the album was a “pre-release” and hard copies were the best he could do. This I do not believe, as it would only be too easy for him to upload that particular song to YouTube and provide a link to order it, or to just throw it up on CDBaby or Amazon. After a little digging, I discover that he has known about the Parenthood pickup since September, which to me pushes him over the edge from “absent minded musician” to “willfully trying to self sabotage.” He does indicate that he’s “working on” getting his music into iTunes, but since Season Four of Parenthood is now over, I’m afraid whatever he puts up is going to be “too little, WAY too late.”
I don’t even know how to tell you how sad this makes me, on behalf of friends and clients and other awesome musicians who will never even get a chance that this musician is just throwing away with all of the excuses and lack of organization. I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but I personally know people who have been in the music industry for 20+ years, who have their stuff together, and for whom a break like this would be a miracle that they would never take for granted. This lack of responsibility angers me. And, in case you’re going to come back with “maybe he just wants to be a musician and do his art,” that would be just fine, but riddle me this: if he’s not interested in commercial exposure, how did his music end up on Parenthood? That is not the kind of thing that happens by accident. Someone had to work very hard to get his music into Liza Richardson’s hands. They succeeded, and then the failure was in the follow through.
Actually , I will leave it to one of the other commenters on his Facebook Fan Page, who expressed my disappointed sentiment in a more concise and direct way than I could:
It bugs me to no end that there are SUPER talented musicians all over the world just like you, but they are never successful because they won't take simple advice… Putting your music on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, or really any other music downloading service is NOT THAT HARD. If people look you up and can't get your music within the day, they'll probably forget about you and move on. I hate to say this, but if you aren't willing to work for your music career, you don't deserve it.
Ouch. I think the last line says it best. This is one of the worst examples of a creative type completely squandering a huge opportunity that I have personally ever seen. I actually think Liza Richardson’s staff should make a set of minimum standards that a musician has to meet before they will put their music on the show (like access to digital versions of the songs), because I’m as sure as I can be that this also created hassles for them when frustrated viewers wrote, Tweeted and Facebook messaged them to try to find out what song that was and where they could buy it.
In conclusion, I hope he gets it together, but I really think his big moment has passed and that he blew it. Moreover, I hope that other creative types can learn from this. It is never too soon for you to be organized, together, and business-like about your creative pursuits. If you can take anything from this case study, please take a look (today) at your own network (website, social media, etc) to make sure that when your big break comes along, you are ready. Learn about websites/ social media. Find out more about selling your stuff online. There really is no time like the present. Don’t let this happen to you.