Some Recording Artists Are Better Off Selling Free Promotion Flyers
Over Saturation of PR-Type Music-Makers Will Give Way to New Era of Quality and Creativity
| By AMIR SAID (SA’ID) |
Even though most A-list recording artists have taken some financial jabs over the past several years, they still earn decent money. However, B- and C-listers (which make up the vast majority recording artists) had better either (1) accept the peril of their musical fate; or (2) pimp out their brand (if it’s anyway serviceable) to some to establishment that’s not endangered by the clutches of P2P technology and some consumers stubborn reluctance to by buy music.
I used to cringe when recording artists conveyed to me their strategies for new music sales. In some cases, these were people I have been friends with for 10 years or more. In other cases, these were artists who I had long respected, but had only more recently felt comfortable calling friends. And still, these were also artists who were neither friends or enemies, but simply music people that I know. However, now I no longer have to cringe when I hear about plans like that redundant one; you know the one in which the strategy itself is predicated upon some delusional phantom “movement.” Or how about all of the misguided and woefully under-matched DVD/video strategies. Indeed, in today’s music scene, one has a better chance of making more money selling free promotion flyers than do using the stale (over played) strategies of the day.
One reason that I don’t have to hear any of these non-reality-based strategies is because I have consistently (and cold-handedly) removed myself from even the most remote music-industry connection. Understand, I have never been, nor have I ever wanted to be a music industry “insider”. As a kid, I learned early on that you don’t have to be in the circus to see all the clowns. The other reason that I don’t have to hear (and/or subsequently entertain) any of these non-sensible music-money-making strategies is because most of the once “new” and “imaginative” strategies have become so old and repeated that they have successfully paralyzed wholesale numbers of unsuspecting recording artists (many of which who operate more like defective “androids”).
Certainly, this does not mean that I glory in the demise of the dreams of many artists. On the contrary, I reserve a special level of respect for the kind of dedication that many recording artists demonstrate. However, contemporary “success schemes” have converted a large majority of recording artists into de facto marketers and/or PR types, who seemingly just dabble—by chance—in making music in their spare time.
Thus, with the undeniable collapse of many of the most popular music money-making tactics, I’m convinced that a new crop of recording artists (especially in hip hop/rap) will continue to emerge. I’m not saying that this new group will ignore the necessity of some level of marketing and PR. I just believe that they will concentrate less on marketing/PR and more on the novel idea of, well, making creative, imaginative music. In fact, I envision that this new group of recording artists will reject the “quick fame and money” routine, and focus on generating something fresh, new, and eerily indicative of what history shamelessly has left to peddle. If I’m right, we are in the last days of the PR-type music-maker dominated era, and are at the horizon of something more engaging and fresh.
