Tag Archive for: Justin Bieber

Renaissance Feature 2 MEME 2

 

We are in dark times, my friends, but the future of Renaissance Tunnel Coldthe music business is a bright one.

 

 

The Renaissance is coming.

 

 

The music will improve tremendously, believe it or not.

 

The current market conditions are setting the stage brilliantly.

 

Renaissance Sterile music

 We are going through a breakdown of quality art and have been for a couple decades. Post-Modern art is derivative and sterile, to put it mildly.

 

 

This was happening before the internet and reality TV and now it’s been amplified. Everybody wants to be famous, not even necessarily talented.

 

I know it doesn’t feel “healthy” in any way, but this is OK! We’ll have a few years of nauseating, obnoxious, never-ending moronic art served up via our social media feeds and flat screen TVs.

 

Here’s the thing. The market will grow tired of it.

 

Renaissance Early AdoptersA bunch of you already are, you’re the early adopters.

 

The masses will follow much later.

 

Huh?

 

Yes, this is how marketing works and has always worked for hundreds of years. You have the early adopters like the people who camp out overnight for the new iPhone.

 

Then the masses follow in force.

 

To demonstrate how old this human behavior is (and for the purposes of building faith that we’re on the right track), I’ll share a little historical value bomb.

 

Renaissance Horsepower

 

 

Do you know why we refer to engine power as horsepower?

 

 

 

Back in the day when the automobile was a new technology to the masses, there were throngs of people who refused to ride in cars because they weren’t horses.

 

“It’ll never stick, it’s a fad, it’s always been horses and always will be.”

 

Imagine that!

 

They were too freaked out by the technology change.

 

Renaissance Buggy Ride

 

 

The automakers began talking about the power of the engine in terms that the masses could easily relate to; horsepower.

 

 

 

 

It stuck. Makes sense now, right?

 

Our modern-day version of that is when your parents refuse to use computers. Maybe their completely oblivious to social media and complain about it.

 

Have you heard anyone talk about social media as if it’s a demon to society?

 

We artists, we do this ourselves.

 

Renaissance Change

 

 

For some reason, we’re not comfortable with change.

 

But the only thing we can rely on is that the world will constantly change.

 

 

 

 

So, the artists who can adapt will be the artists that make a living because they will be the artists that we know about.

 

They figured out how to get to us. How to get to the market.

 

For example, most artists refuse to utilize the power of YouTube because they can’t get any traction on their own music. They tell themselves the story, “I don’t want to be known as a cover artist” to justify their lack of strategy, understanding, and inability to adapt.

 

Renaissance The Rolling Stones

But they’ve completely overlooked the fact that the first Beatles record was all covers.

 

 

Renaissance Rolling Stones 12x5

They’ve completely overlooked the fact that the first TWO Rolling Stones Records were comprised of all covers (except for 3 songs on 12×5).

 

 

 

 

They don’t consider some of today’s biggest stars like Bieber, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Melanie Martinez, and Miranda Lambert as “cover artists” but they all started out on YouTube or TV singing covers.

 

Renaissance Artist Collage

 

 

Eventually, the community of artists will let go of their past, unicorn-like delusions of how the music industry used to be (which is typically misguided anyway).

 

They will also jettison their naive feelings on the way it should be (with everyone getting a blue ribbon for trying and/or for having some talent).

 

 

 

Once this inevitably happens they’ll focus on what’s truly important; the work.

 

In the immediate future, we consumers will continue to become inundated with crap and clutter from the non-creative, derivative, fame-seeking, bottom-dwellers.

 

All sterile pop, rock, country, rap, etc. will begin to numb us, the masses, to the point of apathy.

 

 

 

We’ll all stop caring.

 

This will be scary.

 

This will naturally spur a new renaissance of significant art.

 

Important artists will rise up from the ashes.

 

Renaissance Drowning Clutter Sterile ROCK POP MEME

 

 

I say that it will happen naturally because the only thing that will cut through the clutter will be sincerely compelling talent and creativity.

 

 

 

 

 

Renaissance Phoenix MEME Important Artists

 

 

If you think about it, we’re seeing bits of this prediction already, aren’t we?

 

 

 

 

Artists like Noah Guthrie and Karmin, for instance. Radio may have helped grow their brand but it certainly didn’t create their brand.

 

Renaissance Noah Karmin Collage

 

We lack some super power tastemakers right now. Terrestrial radio used to influence a market, then on a larger scale, MTV (in the early days); these were huge tastemakers.

 

 

The DJ’s and VJ’s put their stamp of approval on it and we accepted the offering, didn’t we?

 

New tastemakers will arise with massive amounts of power.

 

Some will give way to the proverbial corporate poison apple.

Renaissance MTV Logo

 

 

Others will realize, like Snapchat, that authenticity is what sells and will keep them relevant in the marketplace. They’ll shun the apple and stick to the moral, genuine, and effective approach that garnered them the market attention which made them attractive to the corporate world, to begin with.

 

 

 

The renaissance is coming. A renaissance of art, ideas, thinking, and philosophies that will be astonishing to witness.

 

Renaissance is coming MEME

 

 

It’s percolating.

 

 

 

Artists everywhere are just beginning to ask the right questions.

 

“How can I cut through the clutter?”

 

“How can I become more compelling?”

 

“How can I take this artistic piece to another level?”

 

“How can I really reach my audience?”

“What does my audience feel, want, and demand?”

 

The Renaissance is coming!

 

I’m so freaking excited about it!!

 

No longer do artists need to ask permission to present their work to the masses.

 

They’re beginning to understand this.

 

An artist can create something compelling, present it to the market (a large market), and refine it from there.

 

Any artist can easily FIND THEIR AUDIENCE!

 

Renaissance Brainwashed

 

 

 

This will be an audience of consumers who are responding to the art because it speaks to them as opposed to being brainwashed into liking it through repetition.

 

 

 

 

In the future, artists will become brand ambassadors.

 

They will be valued quite highly because they have something most companies and brands don’t have; PERMISSION.

 

Renaissance Gold PERMISSION MEME

Permission being defined as the ability to reach a mass of people who are looking forward to their next communication from the artist.

 

 

Imagine an artist with 1 million email addresses, phone numbers, and/or device ID’s.

 

Picture an artist with that kind of reach who understands how to create compelling content, aside from their music, that is relevant and personal to the 1 million followers.

 

Renaissance 1 million MEME

Envision those 1 million followers not tolerating the interruptions, but ANTICIPATING whatever content is coming from said artist.

 

 

 

Can you see it?

 

I can.

 

Brands will bow at the feet of artists who have crafted a unique relationship with their fans because it’s the only way to get through anymore.

 

Renaissance Bow At The Feet

 

Artists will be the pied pipers, the cult leaders, the powerfully benevolent managers of a loyal following who will listen intently.

 

 

 

It’s not about, “I have 1 million contacts”, anymore. It’s going to be about, “I have 1 million relationships.”

 

Artists, they will pay to align their brand with yours.

 

They will pay dearly to be associated with your cool, with your hipness, and with your energy.

 

You have compelling art.

 

Renaissance Next Stop The Future

 

Get that compelling art in front of people who are wanting to consume it.

 

 

The rest will take care of itself.

 

I promise.

 

JUST WORK.

 

 

 

Stay

 

In

 

Tune.

 

 

 

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YouTube is the most valuable asset that you have right now as an artist, in fact, it’s your gateway to 1 BILLION people, a majority of whom use it for music purposes, and it’s free, but most of you are completely ignoring it.youtube-ignorance

 

 

 

Why?

 

For the love of God, WHY?!?!

 

Answer: Because it’s foreign and you’re lazy.

 

 

You think it’s not foreign because you experience it just about every day, but that doesn’t mean you know a damn thing about how to harness the real power of YouTube.

 

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I have a blog article and a 2-part episode on my podcast (episodes 14 and 16) about the steps you need to take to build a potentially viral YouTube channel.

 

 

 

 

 

Still, most of you would rather sit around and complain about not being able to find your audience or make a living with your music. You vent about this with your best artistically prideful voice and tell your friends what you’re willing and not willing to do as an artist to maintain your “integrity”.

 

Or at least to maintain the story of what integrity means to you that you keep telling yourself.

 

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How can anyone of you deny the sheer numbers of artists famous or not, that broke on YouTube?

 

 

 

 

Make no mistake, when I say broke, I mean they now make a living creating music because they found their audience on YouTube.

 

In this article, I want to get into the most common conceptual mistake that just about all artists make when thinking about a YouTube strategy.

 

The secret is to remove your artist hat and put on a marketing hat.

 

youtube-think-differently-meme

 

I promise there is artistic satisfaction in a solid YouTube marketing strategy, but it’s not where you think it is.

 

 

 

Therefore, you can’t locate this strategy in the current story you’re telling yourself.

 

 

By the way, if your artistic “integrity” as you define it, is the very thing that is keeping you from expanding your audience, shouldn’t you rethink that?

 

 

youtube-artistic-integrity-meme

 

Most artists want to put up videos of either their original material or cover songs that mean something to them from artists they “respect”. This is where y’all think the artistic satisfaction comes from.

 

 

 

 

You put up videos of your original material but no one in the marketplace is aware of you as an artist, so you get zero views from new possible fans; just views from friends and family.

 

How did this help you “spread your gospel”?

 

How did this help you reach new people with your talent?

 

youtube-zero-traffic-meme

 

You put up videos of you covering your favorite iconic songs but again, the only views you get are from people who already know you because nobody is searching for the original version of the crusty song you had to cover to keep your current “artist integrity” story intact.

 

 

Both approaches are flawed and quite self-centered.

 

 

 

youtube-tied-down-zero-views

 

Neither of these tactics work because they don’t create traffic in any real way.

 

There is no new business happening.

 

 

 

 

 

When approaching YouTube, one must think like a marketer.

 

You need to expose your talents to as many new people as humanly possible if you’re going to expand your audience.

 

Makes sense, right?

 

So then, where can you find the new people?

 

How can you drive traffic to your video?

 

 

Answer:  Current cover songs.

 

youtube-cover-songs-over-face

 

Sometimes these newly released songs are beneficial to you because they drive traffic from well-known artist videos, and sometimes they’re beneficial because they’re not so well-known so there is little competition.

 

Provided the original video gets a ton of views, you’re going to get some too…unless you suck, but I digress.

 

 

 

Constantly check for the songs that have just dropped every Friday. Pick 2-4 songs to work up.

 

 

 

SPOILER ALERT:  This is where the cathartic artistic satisfaction comes from, putting your stamp on another artist’s original song.

 

 

youtube-billboard-hot-100-image

 

 

 

The more distant the original artist’s style is from yours the more compelling it will be.
Take artistic license and go as crazy as you want to be.

 

 

 

Imagine getting paid 1 million dollars to work up and put your artistic stamp on 10 songs that are completely out of your artistic lane.

 

 

I tell my artists, “You have to pick from the songs I offer you, but after that, I don’t care what you do with it; go nuts.”

 

youtube-traffic-night

 

 

Traffic will be generated to your version of that song because people will be searching for the original artists brand new video and stumble across yours.

 

 

 

If your version is compelling in the first 10-15 seconds, you’re going to start racking up completely organic views and lots of them.

 

 

Don’t worry about how many, just worry about being consistent. Some will do ok some will do amazing.

 

Know that it’s not about the quality of the video, it’s about a compelling performance.  Some of your covers will fare better than others because of competition and when they were posted in relation to the drop date.

 

 

youtube-early-memeThe key is to be as early as possible in the life cycle of the new single because there is little traffic at the beginning.

 

 

 

Also, sometimes, the smaller artists have less people trying to cover the song so again, less competition means more traffic to your video.

 

 

For example, go and check out Bailey James’ video channel. Her Taylor Swift covers are brilliant; she slays the vocal on these.

 

 

taylor-swift-blank-space

 

Most of Taylor’s original videos rack up somewhere between 600 million to over 1 billion views so there is no doubt about the traffic, but the trouble lies in the fact that every little girl and her mother are posting their version of the latest Taylor Swift single on YouTube.

 

 

 

Consequently, out of the 3 Taylor covers on Bailey’s channel, they only garnered between 4-5 thousand views each.

 

 

That’s probably more views than most of you have ever received, but, again, I digress.

 

 

YouTube little-big-town

 

 

On the other hand, she a did a cover of Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” that has racked up over 120,000 views largely because of low competition related to the controversy surrounding the song even before it was released.

 

 

 

 

Little Big Town’s original version has over 62 million views which is astounding but paltry (less than 10% of traffic) compared to anything from Swift. The difference to our views was more than 10x.

 

 

youtube-bailey-james-collage

 

Get it?

 

What is the goal here?

 

The goal is to get you, the compelling artist, in front of new people every day.

 

 

 

 

This is called marketing.

 

Every day people are searching for their favorite artist’s NEW videos. They’re aware of these new videos because their favorite artist’s record labels are spending millions of dollars to ensure that you got the message.

 

 

youtube-foot-traffic

This is real legitimate “digital foot traffic” that spills over into your channel.

 

 

 

After you begin to build an audience, you can pepper in an original video or two, but if you’re annotating your cover videos, the viewers will be able to download a full kick-ass recording of one of your originals for free on every view in exchange for their email address.

 

Why not get them the killer track, at the height of interest first, but save the original video for when you make a proper music video for YOUR ORIGINAL track?

 

youtube-bailey-james-channel

Now you have a channel filled with covers, other content that your community finds relevant and personal to THEM, and a couple killer videos of original music which will stick out like a sore thumb on the channel.

 

 

 

 

The packaging makes sense aesthetically, yes?

 

The traffic is real. To date, while we have paid YouTube to promo Bailey’s original music videos, we have well over 350k views that are completely organic.

 

 

Understand that YouTube makes money via advertising.

 

 

YouTube NASA JSC Electronic Imagery

 

 

So, they are constantly algorithmically scrubbing every video to search for the early stage popular videos. Once your video hits a certain amount of views within a certain time of posting you ring that first bell and they press a multiplier button that exposes your video to more people.

 

 

 

If the trend continues, another multiplier button is hit, and then another, and so on. They WANT you to go viral because it’s better for business.

 

Make sense?

 

A properly annotated cover video that offers free download and requests the viewer to subscribe at the end is money. Be advised that annotations don’t work on mobile devices so YouTube has just recently added an “End Card” feature which will incorporate the mobile devices.

 

 

As you build your subscribers up, more and more people are exposed to your new cover videos on the day you post, thus, increasing your chances of ringing that first bell.

 

 

youtube-karmin-justin-noah-collage

 

Many artists like Noah Guthrie, Karmin, and Justin Bieber have broken on YouTube. Not all of them became big huge stars but ALL OF THEM make their living creating and performing music.

 

 

 

If they were completely indie like you, and not rich, like you, this is the system they used.

 

You just need to understand the method behind the madness and put the work in.

 

The rest will happen organically if you’re compelling.

 

It takes time.youtube-real-artist-meme

 

Now about that story you’ve been telling yourself about how you’re going to get your audience, what was that again?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay

 

In

 

Tune

 

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