A Marathon or A Sprint - What Does A Musical Career Look Like?
Before the era of digital music, if you wanted a career as an artist, you basically had to have a record deal. The record companies were the only ones with the cash and connections to help an artist break through in the analogue era. I know this, I was one of those label guys! These deals were extremely hard to come by and usually required the artist to relocate to a major metropolis where the A&R people were, to give a couple of years sacrificing everything to ‘make it’.
But even if you were one of the chosen few to be signed, there wasn’t any guarantee that you’d be successful. Major Labels used to sign multiple artists, put loads of money into each of them and then accept that 90% of them would ‘fail’ but the successful 10% would cover those losses and make everyone a profit. It was one big game of musical Lotto which led to lots of wasted talent and few big winners.
The great thing about music now, is that the traditional barriers to entry, both financially and practically, have been dismantled and anyone can have a fair crack.
And the amount of paying consumers waiting to hear your music is growing all the time too. It’s estimated that the number of paid streaming subscriptions will double between now and 2030! The only downside of this is that, with the gates wide open, tens of thousands of tracks are uploaded to the DSPs every day of the week! So the artists who will thrive in this environment, and build lasting audience that will make their artistry sustainable, are the ones who are in for the long haul, gradually chipping away and recording, releasing and marketing their music over time. And the great thing as far as I’m concerned, is that this is far more achievable and realistic than giving everything up and heading to the big city in pursuit of a dream.
And the other healthy thing to emerge from this new musical order, is that it takes away the ‘all or nothing’ nature of how things used to be and redefines the meaning of ‘success’. Success now means what you want it to mean. For instance, success for you might look like making enough money from your music that it allows you to pursue that part-time alongside your part-time local church Worship Pastor role.
The bottom line is that, the tools and the audience are out there to help you shape what you want your ‘career’ to look like. But whatever that looks like, I would recommend giving it a 3-5 year window to see it come to fruition. Therefore, don’t get disappointed if your first release doesn’t go stratospheric, or even get playlisted. It’s just the first couple of miles of the marathon and there’s a lot of road ahead.
For more tips and expert insight like this, find out more about our
Digital Release Playbook here.