bryans

24 ms·

151.
by bryans 5y ago
Steak is most often prepared rare or medium-rare. Rare means raw in the middle, as that portion has not been altered by heat, hence the disclaimer on restaurant menus about undercooked foods.
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by bryans 5y ago
"Irrelevant" and "non-existent" are two completely different concepts, and neither of those quoted phrases are even remotely absolutes. Unless you have an actual point to make based on actual knowledge of the subject at
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by bryans 5y ago
> 150k streams p/month is absolutely nothing compared to the artists that the major labels are interested in. I said 150k unique listeners, not streams. Also, you're entirely wrong about this. The 100k-250k range is a very dist
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by bryans 5y ago
No, because the label never had that power to begin with. They were always at the whim of social media and other factors. The trick is to not dedicate yourself to one platform, because they should all be treated as separate venues with diff
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by bryans 5y ago
It's somewhat disturbing that you would claim I'm "victim blaming" by asking for details on what these "unsuccessful marketing musicians" actually studied. "Victim" is a wholly inappropriate word to d
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by bryans 5y ago
I keep meaning to start writing or creating videos, but at the end of the day, there are already a bunch of people producing that content and doing it very well. I will write a longer piece eventually about some particular topics that I thi
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by bryans 5y ago
Then I would question what material they were learning, or how much effort they actually expended. I've watched even the worst songwriters and performers find success by grinding away at the right stones, so "I know a guy who trie
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by bryans 5y ago
I was mistakenly telling people the "small window" for TikTok was closing over a year ago, but it's still open wide enough to fit a 747 through it. TikTok's algorithm, in particular, is actually extremely friendly toward
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by bryans 5y ago
You highlighted the difference though. Independent doesn't necessarily mean entry-level, and indie artists who do manage to develop large followings on Spotify are absolutely in a position to negotiate better rates. Regardless of recen
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by bryans 5y ago
> These are massively different economies of scale than the labels deal with. You're mistaken and only thinking in terms of major labels and Beyonce. There are thousands of indie labels working at that small scale, along with countl
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by bryans 5y ago
You're absolutely correct about the dark side, and I would never want to minimize the complexity or sheer effort required to self-manage a music project. Like any startup, it is not easy and you are wholly responsible for everything th
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by bryans 5y ago
> Maybe, maybe not. There's a larger variety of business model behind record labels than what people usually mean when they refer to record labels. They're not all middlemen trying to take a cut out of artists. Those exist, and
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by bryans 5y ago
You're trying to twist this into a scenario of absolutes, as if there's an on/off switch at which point independent artists make 100% of the money and labels don't exist anymore. That's clearly not what I said, and
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by bryans 5y ago
I didn't say that labels don't use TikTok, so you're disagreeing with nothing. What I said, was that labels don't have any legitimate value in a TikTok era, because there's nothing that they can do which an independ
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by bryans 5y ago
In what universe are the "distributors and creators of pirated content" not pirates? You are being pedantic to an extreme, while still being entirely wrong in the process. This is the third time that you've responded to one o
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by bryans 5y ago
They handle everything themselves. The recent tour was 200-300 cap rooms, with a couple of large clubs in the mix. Booking can definitely be a grind, but at the end of the day, the booking agencies are saving you about 5 hours of work in ex
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by bryans 5y ago
You're still inventing a scenario to fit your narrative without any actual knowledge of how it works. The overwhelming majority of curators do not care about record labels and will actually avoid them in favor of independent artists. T
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by bryans 5y ago
No, there are people who put more effort toward the wrong things, and that's why they didn't find the same success. The best songwriter in the world could be incredibly unsuccessful if they don't have any concept of how to ma
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by bryans 5y ago
Ignoring that your hypothetical examples are using extremely unrealistic numbers, the overall point you're trying to make is actually right in line with the success rate of any startup, which makes perfect sense and is the entire point
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by bryans 5y ago
You have entirely misunderstood the conversation and how playlisting works. We were already literally discussing Spotify playlists. The curators (bloggers and social media personalities) use their platform to solicit submissions, which they
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by bryans 5y ago
> That being said, the real challenge for independent artists is getting "blessed by the algorithm," so to speak, where they actually start showing up in Song Radio and Discover Weekly algorithmic playlists. This mindset is unf
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by bryans 5y ago
That's a conspiratorial and untrue claim. The most popular curated playlists (i.e. ones that aren't algorithmically produced by Spotify under the guise of curation) don't actually have label influence. Anyone can contact thos
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by bryans 5y ago
I think you're maybe putting too much emphasis on the platforms, particularly on them being a single opportunity that goes away at some point. Every platform, regardless of whether it's a specific function like Spotify or a conten
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by bryans 5y ago
> Social platforms and digitalization can helped being truly independent but there's still non-music work that a label would do for you that you now have to manage. Except that is rapidly becoming untrue, which is the entire point.
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by bryans 5y ago
That's an argument which could be made for any market or industry. There are obviously a finite amount of people in the world, and those people have a finite amount of time to find and listen to music, so there is always competition an
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by bryans 5y ago
That is a fair point on the touring side of things, but every city still has theaters and large clubs which are not beholden to Ticketmaster. So, while an independent artist may not have access to a Beyonce-level stadium production, they ca
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by bryans 5y ago
You're giving them far too much credit. They're still very much trying to figure out the Napster era, as to this day they are suing pirates left and right because they genuinely see that 0.01% of the market as a threat to their se
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by bryans 5y ago
> In a world where it's easier and easier to create music, and distribute it, how do you discover music ? Through curators, podcasts etc. And those are managed by - you guessed it - labels. That's simply untrue. The vast majori
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by bryans 5y ago
Yes, I have tons of evidence for this, and for why all of your claims have no foundation. Allow me to provide one example of the hundreds that I personally know of or worked with (which is a tiny fraction of the numbers finding success inde
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by bryans 5y ago
The self-congratulatory nature of the article and quotes actually betray a self-reassurance, because in reality, record labels are rapidly becoming irrelevant. They're scrambling to figure out how they fit into the TikTok era, where ar

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