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A 21 year-old Gen Z dude self-recorded an album and released it on Bandcamp, and then he pops up on the Jools Holland show a few months later. It seems like he bypassed the traditional music industry and relied on word of mouth, and also a few reviews from internet blog sites.
So, is he any good? I'm asking because the Zoomers seem to be an interesting cohort.
https://valeriewonlee.com/how-is-gen...r-generations/
Charlie brown piano....would not want to sit thru an hour of that
That's not the album version, it's just him playing solo on the piano.Originally Posted by ToTaL ITK
yes! but i can do that and nobody would give a fig because i'm Total ITK
He’s signed to Partisan in the US, and PIAS in the UK, so no he hasn’t bypassed the traditional music industry - both are huge independent labels that are distributed by Virgin and UMG.
It’s incredibly rare that anyone does manage to completely bypass the industry, because producing albums is expensive - and even if you manage to do it yourself, you need a distributor and a marketing team (radio/DSP pluggers etc.) to have any hope of getting your music in front of people.
I used to work at one of the big indies and even the “DIY” artists who make it big have at least a couple of hundred grand in marketing from a label behind them.
Almost any musician can make an album at home now. And it's free to get your music on the Internet. If people like what they see, you will have a career. The music business is easier to get started in and more of an even playing field than it's ever been. Getting started is much easier these days. Sticking around is more difficult.
It's free to get your music onto the Internet, with the other 100,000 albums that have been put onto the Internet that day - who's going to find it? Labels employ people to go into Spotify, Apple Music etc. once a month and plug songs to get on playlists.
And yes, you can record an album in your bedroom - it's not going to sound great without a professional mix/master, and self producing only works for some genres.
I didn't say anything about bedrooms. I know personally of bands that have made albums in a home "studio", put songs on the internet, then released their stuff on their own label. Then went on to have a decent career. All started without marketing/pluggers etc.
Getting paid for doing it is getting more difficult.
It's more difficult to make money from publishing these days. But touring and selling merchandise are more lucrative than ever.
If you have an audience you can tour for/sell merch to. Return to square one.
One review on one website can get you an an agent and an audience. Again, I have seen it happen.
Boomers don't understand Zoomers who live in a different world, which is almost exclusively online and they network like crazy. That's why I started the thread, because I think it is interesting how everything is changing. Whether it's for the better I have no idea.
If 6 music start to champion you, then you’re made. Idles and Fontaines DC are recent examples, both were playing small venues (e.g. Spillers record store and The Moon club in Cardiff) until Steve Lamacq latched on to them.
I'm 35, I'm far from a boomer... I just spent years working in music and know how things work - how you get that review, how you get that radio play.
Yes, word of mouth is a thing - but you still need to get that initial audience somehow, and just sticking your music on Spotify won't do it.
It's the same as any other business. I could set up an online shop selling t-shirts, but unless I put money into marketing who's going to find it?
I'm actually a live agent - I now run my own company but I've being working at and as a booking agent for about 15 years, it's all I've ever done. As a barometer, one of my biggest bands sold 5k tickets last time they played in London.
It's true that one song on Soundcloud / Spotify, or one review on Pitchfork / Clash / The Guardian etc can get you an agent or "team" around a band these days - 10+ years ago that wasn't the case. Indeed, by the time you read these reviews these days, most bands these days would have a full team in place (management, agent, pr, plugger, label etc).
It's also true that touring and selling merchandise are more lucrative than ever...but only really at a big level, and even then it costs a fortune to tour. You can play the O2 Arena and earn less money than playing a smaller room, because you have to bring everything in to a venue (PA, lights etc) and so the costs to do that show are really high.
At the low and middle end (say The Globe or Clwb, for example), it can be really hard for bands to make money. Indeed, it's harder than ever to break a new band these days, especially if you don't have money behind you, and you're reliant on press, radio play, social media, ticket sales etc etc to help. It's a domino effect - one thing leads to another, leads to another. In all honesty, most of the time it's just luck and good timing...but the groundwork would have been done for months, sometimes years prior. But new bands at a Clwb / Barfly type level are earning low hundreds of pounds per show, not thousands.
Earnie, that's an interesting read. The bit about O2 made me think of comedians being 20 grand out of pocket by doing Edinburgh, but if it lifts them to the next level it's worth it.
How did covid affect you?
I just explained it. The Zoomers live online and they network like crazy. If there is anything good happening they will know about it yesterday.
When trying to move up to the next level, so much of it is about a calculated gamble - you look at previous ticket sales, social media stats, how quickly tickets old last time etc to see how much demand is there. Say you sold out The Tramshed 6 weeks in advance last time round in Cardiff, you probably can calculate there's enough in the tank to play the Great Hall @ Cardiff Uni next time you play Cardiff, and move up a level of venue.
When bands go on support tours say at a Cardiff Uni level, the fees are again (on average) in the low hundreds, so generally it's a loss for the band per show. But if you've got a record coming out, and it's helpful to the press + radio teams for you to do the tour to help boost your profile and (at least on paper) sell more records, it's like the Edinburgh analogy - a bit of a loss leader, if you like.
Covid was bad - I was working for my old boss at the time so was put on furlough and moved back with my parents while my wife (girlfriend at the time), who was working in A&E, took my flat. But in all honesty I thought it was all over and I'd have to get another job. Thankfully I'd been doing it long enough by then that by virtue of just hanging on in there the work eventually came back, but the business is a lot different now post covid, a lot more American / business like with promoters generally not wanting to take as many risks.
I have a teenage relative who plays in a band. They had 2 songs on Spotify and organised their own gigs and an international label found them and offered them a deal. The first thing they did was send them to a top studio to record a single. They are now in debt and there is a good chance they won't make it, but unless you are part of it people have no idea how things work these days.
Back to young Mr Winter. After doing some more research I found out that he recorded much of the album in Guitar Centres around New York before they banned him. Yes, he is in a fairly unknown band (his words) called Geese who are signed to Partisan, and he took a sabbatical from the band to record and tour his solo album, but Partisan were horrified with the results and told him not to release it as it would flop, and he would destroy his credibility. As a compromise, they suggested that he release the most happy song as a single and then move on, but he said screw you and released the album himself on Bandcamp (Partisan probably would have distributed the physical media, but I think most of the sales were digital).
What happened next surprised everybody as the album slowly gained traction as he embarked on a solo tour playing in churches and similar places. Then the media got wind of his growing reputation and the New York Times announced him as the next Bob Dylan/Leonard Cohen! There is a lot of folklore surrounding this young man and it's hard to pin down the exact details, even his age is reported differently between publications.
Anyway, he did do a totally Gen Z thing IMO by recording the the album himself and releasing it on Bandcamp, even hiring some musicians off of craigslist. The younger generation are definitely shaking things up, and I have seen first hand how they network and get things done.
You’re completely missing the point - yes, they live online but you can’t just upload a song and expect them to somehow find it!
You need to get the music in front of an audience somehow, and nothing much has changed in how that happens. And the more money (or backers with money like say, a record label) you have, the bigger the audience it’ll reach.
If anything the Internet has made it harder for artists starting out, because rather than just gigging and hope A&R spot you - you’re now competing with rich kids who can spend on marketing themselves. And labels are increasingly only picking up artists with an existing following.
I’ve worked on many many campaigns for artists on both indies and majors, can you not accept that I may know a bit more than just “but the Internet!”?
I should add that a few of the campaigns I worked on included a “DIY artist, found on social media” backstory that was complete bullshit, and they’d actually had a £200k advance… but the press lap that stuff up.
If your relative is actually in debt to the “label”, rather than just having the money spent recording taken out of the royalties - that isn’t a label, they’ve been scammed.
That's exactly how it worked in the case that I mentioned! They were even invited by a booking agent to play at a closed-door event with three other bands to see how they play live.
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