I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

The pandemic is changing the way we listen to music.

“Lean back” tracks (music considered as background soundtracks to the consumers’ lives rather than music played with intent) are emerging as streaming winners. Genres like classical and lo-fi are having a moment due to increased consumer demand for music fitting to the home. Music you can work/study to, chill out to and get some respite from the anxiety-inducing outside world.

Lo-fi hip-hop producers like 23-year-old, Dutch-born Sebastian Kamae benefit from this. Kamae’s…

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

This is a look at an artist’s Spotify profile through the eyes of a music marketer.

Hopefully, this gives you:

1. Tips for optimizing your own Spotify page for improvements in branding, comms and sales
2. Insight into a marketer’s mind when releasing records

It’s short and practical.

Artist: Junglepussy

Junglepussy is an American rapper and actress from NYC. She released her 4th LP, JP4 on October 23rd, 2020.

Disclaimer: I don’t work with Junglepussy, rather just a fan of her work.

Spotify scorecard 3/7

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

Quarantine concerts are playing an interesting role in keeping public arts alive while life is on lockdown. When the lockdowns started artists and celebs started live-streaming as a way of staying connected and lifting people’s spirits. Some more successful than others.

At this point, every concert is canceled through at least 2020 placing pressure on artists to make more of their business digital, live-streams included.

This is the good, the bad, and ugly of livestreaming.

The good

Many mistakenly approach livestreams as a video…

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

When you start a record campaign, your label lays out Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to evaluate a campaign’s success or failure, which govern whether your project continues to be funded or phased out.

Streaming and social platforms allow us to see the real time impact of marketing efforts via a wall of metrics that when pieced together tell a story. However, few artists know which metrics are the right metrics. …

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

Some catch-phrases often thrown around the room in label marketing meetings…

“It’s a summery record, so it needs to be released in summer” — a&r person

“nope, terrible idea to release a record early March or April because SXSW and Coachella, there’s just too much noise” — marketing director

“Basically everyone starts checking out by November so don’t release then or December because there’ll be no-one here to fix your stuff should anything go wrong” — project manager

These broad claims bear…

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

Creative directors take the audible message of the song and create imagery that conveys the emotion and message of the song. In music, where budgets are generally strapped but ambition runs high, they are the ones that deal with these constraints to bring the artist’s vision to life. At the very base level, they should be able to define the artist and music’s look and feel — which contextualizes the songs and draws listeners to the music. …

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

Two conversations I keep having as a music marketing consultant:

1. “We’ve got the money, we just don’t know where to spend it. What actually matters?”
2. “We have high hopes for this release but the budget’s tight because we’re already so far in the red”

When thinking about marketing a record, the first place I start is with the overall budget. It’s your greatest predictor of marketing activities and provides the following:

1) Viability of your marketing ideas

I write about music marketing via my weekly newsletter, Deep Cuts [Subscribe]. Get daily tips on Instagram @deepcuts.co.

As a music marketing consultant, I spend a good chunk of my day working with artists and their teams to figure out how to make their music stick. The trend right now is to market at the distribution level — give content away to Apple or Spotify in hopes of playlisting, follow closely the best practices prescribed by Amazon or Pandora for support, work with SoundCloud on something creative etc.

While that’s all important stuff, the platform that’s most underleveraged and misunderstood…