#036: What Is My #1 Music Marketing Tip? Stop. Make Better Music.
"A great song will outlive all sermons in the memory" — Henry Giles
When placed on an even playing field, a great song will outweigh a great marketing campaign every single time. I have seen recording artists fall into the trap of prioritizing the creation of the next viral video, trending hashtag or the perfect social media caption before their first duty… making undeniably great music. This is the equivalent of a car company working endlessly on the name of their new model and the body design, but then realizing that the car doesn’t drive. The #1 place for music discovery today is on the playlists of the music streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music etc), where the music has to standout on its own. With over 60,000 new tracks being delivered each day to Spotify alone, having average or even just ‘good’ music simply isn’t enough.
Successful artists in today’s industry come from every gender, race, sexual orientation and creed. Additionally, every single successful song has been marketed and branded in very different ways. So what is the one through-line between all of these artists and songs? Undeniably great music. Sure, music is subjective. But songs like “Old Town Road”, “See You Again” or “Uptown Funk” didn’t cut through the clutter due to a clever hashtag or meme. They achieved that success based on the publics overwhelming support of the quality of those songs, even over other songs released by Lil Nas X, Wiz Khalifa and Bruno Mars, respectively. Great music wins at the end of the day.
Does that mean that I am naive enough to think that simply uploading a great song via Tunecore will be enough to have it ascend to the top of the Billboard charts? Clearly not. There must be a certain threshold surpassed on where the music gets pitched and the marketing strategy around the release. Whether it comes from the artist, a manager, a label, a publisher or a combination of all of the above, the music must get into the hands of the right tastemakers to have a chance to compete. But after that threshold is surpassed, it is becoming more clear everyday that the music itself will be the biggest deciding factor between a lackluster campaign or one that has the song go on to become a breakout hit.
This was reflected in a recent catalog analysis of all Preach Management and Preach Records releases over the past 2-3 years, where we saw very little correlation between the budget for the release campaign and the eventual success of the song. This is likely most evident with Dylan Dunlap’s “If That’s Alright”, which was released Thanksgiving week in 2019 with a $0 budget. That song has gone onto over 24 million streams on Spotify alone. Why? Because it’s an undeniably great song. None of this is to say that spending time on crafting great marketing campaigns is irrelevant or a waste of time. That’s not the case. But an artist putting the primary focus in these areas, instead of crafting great music, ends with them trying to polish a turd into a diamond. Regardless of how hard you try, it just won’t happen. If you’re an artist seeking a breakout year in 2021, I’d consider spending a little more time in the studio and a little less on social media to make those dreams become a reality.
_____________________________________________________________________
JAY’S SONGS OF THE WEEK:
MacKenzie Bourg - “good day”
BEKA - “My One”
Giveon - “All To Me”
Simon Dominic - “Party Forever”
Jacob Banks - “Found”
