Ever been frustrated with how to release music? Maybe you're seeking answers to the question what is the proper way to release music, what is the waterfall music release strategy, how to get into the music industry, what is the trend in music in 2024, or even just what is the music industry today? Then check out EP 130 of the Inside The Mix podcast.
Unlock the secrets to transforming your music career with insights from Jay Gilbert, one of the masterminds behind the Your Morning Coffee podcast, as we explore the seismic shifts in the music industry. Together, we navigate the journey of music from a tangible product to an ever-accessible service, emphasising the undeniable importance of fan engagement and the emergence of artists as versatile content creators. Delve into Jay's seven crucial focal points for independent musicians and discover the 'water falling' release strategy that could revolutionise how you drop your next hit. Keep an ear to the ground as we forecast the platforms and trends poised to shape 2024 for artists and producers.
How do you build a loyal fanbase in today's track-driven music economy? Join us as we dissect the art of audience building, stressing the significance of clear objectives, weaving an enthralling narrative, and mastering the rhythm of your releases. Learn why a close-knit support network can amplify your music's reach far beyond your expectations and why your digital presence demands visually arresting artwork. We examine the track-based economy's implications for artists, underscoring the need for consistent music drops to captivate listeners and thrive on streaming services.
To cap off our deep dive, we discuss why a mesmerising track can propel a musician's career to new heights and why anything less can prove to be an insurmountable barrier. Jay imparts one final piece of wisdom for artists charting their path through the ever-shifting music release landscape.
For more profound industry knowledge and the latest updates, be sure to follow the Your Morning Coffee podcast and newsletter.
Roots Music Rambler Hear great conversations with the artists behind the music you love, new music and more!
Grab your FREETest Master at Synth Music Mastering TODAY! ✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸ Are you READY to enhance your music with my steadfast dedication to quality and personal touch? Bag your FREETest Master at Synth Music Mastering: https://www.synthmusicmastering.com/mastering
Buy me a COFFEE ✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸✸ If you like what I do, buy me a coffee so I can create more amazing content for you: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/marcjmatthews
Send a DM through IG @insidethemicpodcast Email me at marc@synthmusicmastering.com
Thanks for listening & happy producing!
Jill Riddiford:
Hi there. This is Gill at Roller Blue. My favorite inside the mix podcast recently is number 121 with Don Moly. It was interesting to hear him talk about automation, which I think is an often overlooked part of the mix process, and how it can be used for fine tuning. He also highlighted some useful tips on how to approach compression and EQ. You're listening to the inside the mix podcast and here's your host, Mark Matthews.
Marc Matthews:
Hey folks, welcome back to the inside the mix podcast. As always, welcome to the new listeners. Make sure we hit that follow button on your podcast player of choice and returning listeners, a big welcome back. So before we dive into this episode, I just want to let you know that the podcast artwork is set to change. I have settled on a final design and a huge thank you to all the listeners out there who helped me choose out of the top six. So look out for that. The exact same podcast is just a change of artwork, so you can expect the exact same quality of content, but the artwork is set to change. Folks, exciting times right.
Marc Matthews:
So in this episode I am joined by J Gilbert of the your Morning Coffee podcast and newsletter. So in this conversation we are discussing the new music industry and 2024 predictions for independent artists and producers, and we cover a lot of ground. We start by reflecting on the past, so I asked Jay to tell us about what he has seen in terms of release strategy changes over the last two decades. We talk about the idea that we've moved from an ownership model of music to an access model. We talk about engaging the audience and content versus being an artist? Are we content creators or are we artists or are we something in between? We discussed navigating industry shifts and, with the continuous rise of streaming platforms, how should independent artists adapt their release strategies and how can they stand out in a crowded landscape. And Jay actually goes through his seven top things that he looks for when he's talking to independent artists musicians, record labels, a&r so look out for those. I'm not going to give that away now, but they are amazing tips seven top tips, or rather seven things that you should be focusing on as an independent artist or producer. We also dive more into release cadence, and Jay actually mentions a technique that I'd never heard of before, which is called water falling. Again, I'm not going to give it away now, you're going to have to listen to the episode, but this is a really interesting concept when it comes to release strategy, and it's something that I think I'm going to do in the future.
Marc Matthews:
We then look forward to 2024. And Jay discusses any emerging platforms that he believes will play a pivotal role in shaping how artists release their music, and we also discussed the concept of don't bore us, get to the chorus, which is quite poignant for me, having released an EP last year. We then wrap things up with Jay telling us about the your Morning Coffee podcast and his vision for the future with regards to supporting independent artists. And then we close out with Jay telling us his one key piece of advice for artists navigating the evolving landscape of music releases. And before we dive into this chat, make sure you go over to your morning coffee and sign up for the your Morning Coffee newsletter and make sure you subscribe to the podcast and follow the podcast as well. Let's dive into this episode. Hey, folks, in this episode I'm very excited to welcome my guest today, jay Gilbert of the your Morning Coffee podcast. Hi, jay, Thanks for joining me today.
Jay Gilbert:
How are you? Hey, Mark, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
Marc Matthews:
No, it's my pleasure. I know we. I think we put this together probably about six months or something ago. If I remember rightly, it was quite a while ago, but the time soon does pass. And I'm looking at the pictures you've got behind you there and it's much more inspiring than what I've got behind me for the audience listening. You've got some great pictures on the wall there. Yeah, fantastic stuff.
Marc Matthews:
So just as a quick summary of who Jay is, what he sort of achieved over the year.
Marc Matthews:
So he's a seasoned music industry expert.
Marc Matthews:
He's navigated the ways of change over the past two decades, with experience of major music groups like Warner Music and Universal Music, and has witnessed the industry evolved from the CD era to the disruptive forces of Napster I've got written here and the iTunes introduction I remember that I was one of the Napster users.
Marc Matthews:
In 2015, he embarked on his entrepreneurial journey, launching label logic consultancy and curating the widely respected your morning coffee newsletter, which is how I found you. From a humble email to a few hundred friends, the newsletter has now grown into an influential publication with 15,000 readers over, offering rather insights into the music industry's nuances. So in this episode we're going to be exploring sort of music release, strategies for independent artists and what that might look like in 2024. So I thought it'd be quite good to start, because you mentioned that, about two decades worth of experience and maybe just a bit of reflection on the past so maybe you could talk about the music industry and how you've seen it sort of change and strategies change over the last two decades, and then what we're seeing at the moment. Yeah, thanks.
Jay Gilbert:
Mark, it's quite excuse me, it's quite dramatic If you think about it, because it wasn't that long ago our business was a business of ownership. Now it's a business of access, and those are two totally different things, although you know we do have premium vinyl today, and that's ownership and fandom. But you know, from what we read, you know, half of the vinyl that's purchased today is purchased by fans that don't own a turntable, right? So it's not how they consume their music, it's the way that they show that they're a fan, that they're a big fan, a super fan. So it's evolving and changing while we're having this conversation, but I will say that it's some things are exactly the same. You still want to engage an audience, right. You want to grow your audience and you want that audience to be super engaged. You want them to come see you play live.
Jay Gilbert:
It's, it's challenging for musicians and any artist today, because it used to be a little simpler. You would get popular in your city, maybe you get popular in your region, you might get a little local airplay. If you were lucky open up for a national act, then maybe you might get a recording contract. It's. It's so much different today, right? Because if you put out music. Today you're up alongside of Drake and the chain smokers and Bad Bunny. You have to be buttoned up musically and and with your visuals, because now your music's everywhere.
Jay Gilbert:
It's become so easy to put your music up globally. There used to be a huge barrier to entry. You had to basically go into a recording studio. That was very expensive and you had to pay big dollars to get your music recorded, and then you had to find a label that would sign you. Today you can record something on your iPad and have it up on SoundCloud and YouTube within hours and have that global impact. So the last thing I'll sign that point in sort of the differences is that not only are you up alongside of Drake and the chain smokers, but now you've got sort of mental health implications, right, because you not only are you writing, recording, playing live and hopefully doing some interviews from time to time, but you've got TikTok, you've got maybe you've got Twitch, maybe you've got Facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube. There's a lot more to do if you're an artist today and you really have to be careful to not try to do it all yourself that you bring in sort of a street team to help you.
Marc Matthews:
Yeah, it's all really good stuff what you mentioned there. So unpack that a bit. You mentioned that about vinyl, buying vinyl and not actually having a turntable, and I will hold my hands in there and say I'm one of those people I don't. Well, I tell a lie. We do have one, but it's a very cheap one. My girlfriend bought it and she's not really into audio and I was like I can't listen to vinyl on that thing you go ahead. But I've got this collection of vinyl and it's just records that I love and they're kind of just sat. Maybe maybe I do need to get one. But yeah, it's like you said. It's that he's shown that super fan noose, isn't it. And yeah, as soon as you said that, I was like yeah, that is me right off the bat. I like.
Marc Matthews:
And also what you said about engaging an audience and then con and how you're having as an artist now, whereas before you could just write, I say just, but you would write your music record label and everything that goes with it but now you're also having to be a content creator, absolutely.
Marc Matthews:
And juggling those two is so hard. And I was having this conversation with someone the other day another interview actually and she mentioned about how it's almost like when going viral on social media, whether you sort of want to make that decision. Are you a content creator or an artist? And you mentioned there about mental wellbeing and then juggling all of that, because, I guess, because you can do it all yourself there are so many facets to it that you're having to juggle. It's really really tricky, like the barrage of territory is so low so you can do it, but there are so many things that you have to do. So, with that in mind, sort of what sort of strategies would you sort of like recommend to an independent artist if they're just getting off the ground? With regards to all of what we've just mentioned, yeah, it's.
Jay Gilbert:
Some of it is the same as it's always been. Some of it's a little bit different because we have new technologies and tools that we didn't have even a few years ago. But I always start with seven things. When I sit down with an artist or a manager or someone in a label distributor, the first thing I talk about are like what are your goals? Because everybody has different goals. If you talk to an EDM artist, they may want to play bigger festivals. If you talk to a singer-songwriter, they may want to have better streaming numbers. But if you talk to a jazz artist, it's really more about they want accolades, they want a Grammy, they want to be on the cover of Downbeat Jazz Is Jazz Times, they want to play the Village Vanguard. So every single artist has different goals and you have to start there with the goals. Okay, so now we've locked down the goals.
Jay Gilbert:
Well, what's the narrative? Well, what's a narrative? Well, that's why should anyone care? Right, what is it about you as an artist or your music that's compelling? Did you overcome adversity? Is this some political statement you're making? Is it women of color? What is it about this? And it's so important now that when you release music and you put it into, let's say, spotify's submission tool. You have to include the narrative, and we encourage the artists to have a narrative about who they are as an artist, and also a narrative for every album and every focus track. What is this about? Why should anyone care?
Jay Gilbert:
The third thing is crucial and it's who is the audience? Not only who your audience is today, but who do you want it to be Right? Are you looking to open for certain artists? Would you like certain artists to open for you? Would you like to have a collaboration, a co-write with a certain artist or artists? Who is that tribe? You need to find who your tribe is and you can look at, let's say, a DSP will tell you other people that like your music, listen to these artists. Well, you can see that sort of in some of these data platforms as well. Find out who those artists are, reach out to them, collaborate with them. You know what I mean. You need to grow and find your audience and we call it base swapping. When you open for an artist or when you collaborate with an artist, you know it's a community and it's crucial that you find your audience.
Jay Gilbert:
The next one in the seven is release cadence Pardon, the dog's barking in the background. The next one is release cadence, and that is you have to have a plan. You'd be surprised how many artists just drop music in the marketplace without a marketing plan, without any kind of strategy, and they wonder why it's not reaching an audience. So you're methodical about how you release your albums or or EPs or tracks and you space them out. We like to say that this is an always on music industry. When I was growing up, my favorite artists would release an album and then maybe a year, a year and a half later they'd release another album. That doesn't really happen. It's so much. Today. There's this constant flow. Every you know, four to six weeks with some artists, maybe it's twice a year with other artists, but there are focus tracks that lead up to an EP or an album.
Jay Gilbert:
The next thing is the strategy sort of having a strategy and just making sure that everybody on your team is on the same page. And look, you may be a developing artist and you don't have a team, or you don't think you have a team, but you do have a team. We call it the street team. It could be your friend, it could be your mom and dad, it could be your girlfriend or boyfriend, it could be a buddy of yours that knows how to edit short form video. Whatever it is, you surround yourself with those early believers first. That's your street team.
Jay Gilbert:
Put together a strategy and make sure that you have roles and responsibilities early on so you're not stepping on each other's toes and the other two really quickly. One is just making sure that you're planning everything and the last one is making sure that your creative is. I mean such a big part today with short form video and all these. You know shorts and stories and ticked. I mean there's so many different ways that you can chop up videos. But if you're planning and then you have sort of a creative person and that could be you you have to make sure that you, what you're putting up we're all visual beings right that that it sort of pops, and remember that your album cover or your single track cover is now going to be seeing the size of a postage stamp. When I was growing up it was 12 inches by 12 inches, like vinyl, and it was beautiful and big. Today it's this tiny little thing and it's really got a pop at that size.
Marc Matthews:
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I'm going through a similar process at the moment with a podcast artwork and it's like that with a podcast as well. You need that artwork to really, because it's so small. It really needs to capture what it is that you're trying to convey with that artwork. I love all those seven points as well. So, just to recap, for the audience, we had goals. You have narrative, the audience slash, tribe, the release cadence, strategy, planning and creative. That's right. So really, yeah, really, really good stuff in there. I love the idea of a street team as well, and I think it's important what you mentioned about having a team and then, like you said, artists might turn around and say I don't have a team, but if they actually really do think about it, they do have a team. And I noticed this when I started the podcast as well. I think actually I need some people around me to help, and then I realized actually I do have a network of people that are willing to help me. You just got to reach out to them.
Jay Gilbert:
Absolutely.
Marc Matthews:
You mentioned something interesting there about the release cadence and this is a bit of a tangent here and you said that you may release a song in the lead up to an EP or an album. And, with regards to releasing music, what would you say is the preferred sort of amount at the moment? Is it singles, is it EP, is it albums? Which way do you think it's going at the moment? Or is it at the moment, what is the preferred, or rather recommended route?
Jay Gilbert:
Yeah, it's a track based economy, for sure, and you need to release tracks because Spotify, for example, not to pick on them, but as a DSP, they're focused on keeping you on their platform and as long as possible and keeping you engaged, and they do that by playlists. And with a lot of these playlists, whether they're user curated, dsp curated, they're based on songs and hopefully that will lead you to an artist's page and you can explore their catalog and you'll get involved and maybe you'll go see them live, maybe you'll buy their merch. But I'd like to show you one release cadence just to sort of open up people's minds as to what you can do today, because it used to be years ago that you would release an album and it was like this solid rocket booster, right Once you lit that fuse. It's going to happen, it's happening on that street date. Your tour is set, your publicity is set, you may have some sync licenses, everything's sort of locked and loaded, but today you can do whatever you want to do. I would just recommend that you do it in a deliberate fashion and I'll use one example An artist that I absolutely love, that I've had the pleasure of working with.
Jay Gilbert:
It's called Vintage Trouble, and Vintage Trouble. Think of you know, james Brown fronting the stray cats, right? They're just amazing. Their slogan is arrive dressy, leave messy, and they're just a great band, anyway. So they wanted to put out a new album. They had 10 songs. Okay, a lot of artists would just drop that as an album.
Jay Gilbert:
We broke it up into two five song EPs the first five songs. We actually did a second EP of those same five songs, just reimagined a bit, not just stripped down, but maybe a reggae version or a blues version. So now you've got for EP number one. You've got 10 tracks. So we had a couple of focus tracks that were released as sort of singles leading up to EP number one, couple of focus tracks leading up to that reimagined one right.
Jay Gilbert:
Then for the second five songs that was going to be the next EP, we did the same five songs recorded live Again focus tracks leading up to that second series of EPs, another couple of focus tracks leading up to the live, and then at the very end of that, we combined them for vinyl and for CD. So now you've got two album releases at the end of that, right. So you've got, instead of dropping something and having maybe a month of activity surrounding it. This went for nearly two years, so it sort of reengaged their audience. It gave us something to talk about on socials, it gave us something to talk about with publicity, and that is just one way of releasing music. There's a thing called water falling that a lot of artists do right, where you'll release a track and then, when you release a second track, you release it with the first one. Then you release the third track and you release it with the first and second one, and again it's another bite at the apple.
Marc Matthews:
Interesting. I've never heard of that water falling one before. I like the sound of that. It's really interesting. And I also like what you mentioned there about how you split that into two separate EPs, which I thought was really interesting because it's sort of segued on nicely to the question I was going to ask and you've pretty much answered it in that one there which was the guard to release strategies, and then there was another on my notes again I was going to say so what is the sort of how long can you, how long can you promote and use the same music? And you mentioned there about two years. But what do you look for when you, I suppose what are the signs you're looking for when a musical piece has had its moment and you need to move on to the next one? I mean, I don't suppose there is a definitive time.
Jay Gilbert:
What are your thoughts? You're right. There's not you. It's not a cookie cutter approach. It could be four weeks for one person and 12 weeks for another artist, but I will tell you that that opens up a great discussion in measuring everything. So we talked about the big seven, and the first one was goals. So how do you know if you're overperforming or underperforming? So you set these goals.
Jay Gilbert:
I want my social media to grow a little bit. I want my streaming to grow. I want my merch sales to grow. I want to put more butts in the seats, whatever that is.
Jay Gilbert:
But then you measure it. Well, how do you measure it? There's lots of free ways and inexpensive ways to measure how you're doing, and then, especially, when you're releasing tracks. So you have Spotify for artists, Apple music for artists, Amazon music for artists right. There are data platforms out there like Viberate and Chartmetric and Spot on Track and Soundcharts, and there's lots of different ways where you can measure your success.
Jay Gilbert:
And you look. It sounds pedantic, but you do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Right, If you see that something is overperforming with your social media or one of your short form videos are overperforming, then try to do more of that. There's an old joke in advertising that half my advertising doesn't work. I just don't know which half. Well, today you do know, because you can look at the data almost live and say, oh my gosh, that thing that we're doing is overperforming. Let's do more of that. So, on top of that big seven, you just opened up a very good conversation about make sure you're measuring everything, and I like to tell artists carve out an hour, just an hour, each week.
Jay Gilbert:
It could be Monday morning when you get up and have your coffee and take a look at your. You know YouTube analytics, for example. A lot of people don't use that tool and they should, because you can go into YouTube analytics, look at any video that you have out and there's a line that goes down this chart at 30 seconds, because that's what you get paid on. If they don't listen up to 30 seconds, you don't get any ad revenue for that. What you're going to find when you go into YouTube analytics is that once you get to about 30 seconds, you've lost at least a third of your audience. Nobody has attention span anymore. Sometimes you've lost 50% of your audience, so don't bore us. Get to the chorus. You see these videos where they have these title cards. This is Mark Matthews and this is his new song and this is who produced it. No, nobody cares. Get right into the action and you'll lose a lot less people.
Marc Matthews:
Yeah, I was going to mention what you said there about Don't Bore's Get to the Chorus, because this is the conversation I've had on the podcast before with other artists that I invite onto the podcast, and we had this conversation about do you have long intros to your music?
Marc Matthews:
And these are when you're at that independent level and you're trying to get new listeners in. I suppose it's okay. If you're a legacy act, you can have these really long intros because you've got that audience, but if you are a new artist or content creator, you need to get in there straight away and have them hooked and if you have these big, long, grandiose introductions, like you say, you're going to lose them pretty quick. To be fair, I probably need to do that Some of my content on YouTube, thinking about it now, and I've done that. But, yeah, I love what you said, that phrase Don't Bore's Get to the Chorus and I remember I was working with an artist and he was going to yeah, that was it.
Marc Matthews:
He was going to provide some lyrics for a song of mine and he said that he's like Mark, you just need to cut this intro because it's way too long. You just need to. We need to get to the chorus quicker and he was right to be fair and yeah, I learned that. So that's really good stuff, amazing stuff for the audience to hear. I think and I say Segways on nicely, it kind of does in a way. But this one next question is going to be kind of like looking ahead to I say ahead to 2024, we're already in it, really we're in February. But are there any emerging platforms that you believe will play a pivotal role in shaping how we release music? Is there anything you've seen sort of bubbling under the surface that's going to make an appearance in 2024?
Jay Gilbert:
Yeah, I see a lot of this stuff Because of doing the your Morning Coffee newsletter and podcast. We're constantly looking at new technologies and trying out new technologies within our business. I'll give you a couple of them. One I would encourage your audience to take a look at BandLab. Bandlab is a beast. It is sort of the place to go for artists. It's a community, it's a place to learn, it's a place to write, collaborate. It is just an amazing, amazing platform. Bandlab it's I think last time I read it was like over 60 million monthly active users, which is incredible, and it uses all sorts of technologies. It uses AI, which is sort of the huge buzzword this year artificial intelligence but they have a way of using it to help you create songs, sort of on the fly. So I would definitely look at BandLab.
Jay Gilbert:
As far as artificial intelligence, it's been around for years. I interviewed Martin Clancy, who wrote a book about AI and music eight years ago. We were at the Music Tech Tonics conference five years ago and there was a discussion about AI and music. We just didn't know it was going to come across this fast, right? So for people in your audience that hear AI, artificial intelligence, machine learning, generative AI, all these things. I would highly recommend that you check out this book by Bobby Osinski, called the Musician's AI Handbook, because Bobby went through and tried all of these things and used them. And if you don't know Bobby, he's written, I think, 25 books on engineering, producing the music business. I looked to Bobby for sort of that cutting edge look at what's going on and that handbook. We did an episode with him where we just sort of broke it down how he did it.
Jay Gilbert:
But it's not all just generating lyrics and generating music. It could be as simple as noise reduction in the studio. It could be as simple as mastering. They have a lot of AI tools out there and they're evolving really quickly. And I like to say I like to use this quote from my grandfather. He used to say an idiot is someone who doesn't know what you just found out. And that's sort of the music industry. Don't feel stupid that you don't know this stuff. It's been around like a week and a half, right. So just educate yourself. And, yeah, check out that book. I think it'll help you a lot.
Marc Matthews:
Yeah, excellent resources there. Band Lab I have looked at very briefly in the past but I didn't realize it's got 60 million users. That is a substantial amount of people. So audience listening do go and check that out. And the community and collaborative aspect is amazing as well. Bobby Ozinski I'm a huge fan of and I have been meaning to reach out to him for the podcast. Actually, His book, the Mixed Engineers Handbook, is my Bible and it has been for many, many years so I didn't know he did one with AI in mixing. It's new to get that. Is that probably why, then and I need to go check out that episode he was on your podcast with as well, Because he, as I say, there's him and Bob Katz in mastering. I like two of these huge, huge idols of mine.
Jay Gilbert:
So not only should the audience.
Marc Matthews:
Exactly exactly. Have you ever encountered Bob Katz have?
Jay Gilbert:
you ever I haven't.
Marc Matthews:
Not yet.
Jay Gilbert:
I'd like to.
Marc Matthews:
But yeah, bobby Ozinski, and yeah, audience listening go and check that out and I will be doing the same as well. It's some great resources there, so I think it'd be a good opportunity now to maybe talk a bit about your morning coffee. So it's growing significantly. There's would be would be an understatement. Where do you envision its impact in the future? So you mentioned a bit about there, how you're trying out new technologies and staying at the forefront and introducing that to your audience. Yeah, maybe if you could tell our audience a bit about the newsletter itself and the podcast and where you see it go.
Jay Gilbert:
Thank, you, yeah, it started by accident. I'd like to say that I'm you know, I had this brilliant plan, but it I tripped and fell into it. I had worked for major labels most of my life and I decided to strike out on my own and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And a friend of mine who had left the major label ecosystem his name is Sean Rikowski. He was the head of sales for ADA, which was part of Warner Music Group. They had beggars, a pop merge, great, great distribution company. Anyway, he sent me an email and it had like a dozen albums that he was listening to that were really good. But I noticed he copied like 100 or 200 people on this email and so I called him up and I asked him why he was doing that and he said that he was looking. You know, he had left Warner ADA and he was looking for something new and he didn't want people to forget him and I thought, hmm, that's a great idea.
Jay Gilbert:
So what do I love? I love technology and music. I started your morning coffee. I saw an email one day from I believe it was a Wall Street Journal and it was called your morning briefing and I thought that's kind of a cool name, so I stole that a little bit and called it your morning coffee and I just started sending it to a couple hundred people in my contacts every week, every Friday.
Jay Gilbert:
This started almost, I think, about nine years ago and I've never missed a week. And then it started to grow and people weren't unsubscribing and every time I would speak at a college or a conference it would grow and it would grow. And then this last year, in 2023, 2023, it grew 73%. I mean it really started taking off. And it's a word of mouth thing because the music industry, although we're passionate about it, it's a niche thing, you know. So it started to grow and you know we've done the podcast. I think we're up to 167 episodes and it's just been a joy.
Jay Gilbert:
So the newsletter drops every Friday and then the podcast drops every Monday. We recorded over the weekend, mike, Ed chart and I, and we just we'll take three or four stories that we think are interesting that week. And you know, it's not that we're the smartest people on the planet. We bring in smart people. So you know we had some questions about Universal taking their music off of Tiktok, so we brought in an amazing music industry attorney, chris Castle, and that will drop on Monday, right? So we bring smart people in to help us understand what's going on with all of these things in the news, and it's just, it's just been a joy to do so. I'm hoping that it grows. But what it's really done was unexpected and I'm sure this happens with your podcast too is that because it's out there and people are listening or reading?
Jay Gilbert:
I started getting a few years ago. I started getting emails from people who were writing those stories that I was covering, thanking me for talking about their stories. So we started bringing some of them on to break down their stories. You know Glenn Peebles, steve Knopper, you know the folks, the fine folks over at Midia. Well, you know, then it starts taking on this life of its own, and now I've got people like some of the top executives in the music industry who will reach out to me on and off the record and talk to me about this newsletter, and one of my favorite ones was, I don't know, two years ago, maybe three years ago, I got a note from Bruno Del Granado, who is the head of Latin music at CAA. He used to manage Ricky Martin. I mean he's he knows the Latin business better than anybody I know.
Jay Gilbert:
And this is like two, three years ago. He reaches out and he says I love your newsletter and podcast, but you're not covering Latin music enough. And I said, bruno, you know, school me, tell me what's going on. So we got on the phone, we've had some zooms, he's been on the podcast and ever since then we follow not just bad bunny but how Latin music has become.
Jay Gilbert:
You know this beast in the music industry and how non-English speaking music, according to Luminate, is now over indexing. And we got that knowledge and we got sort of. You know where we should be going from, bruno, and that that happens with executives across touring. You know people from live nation ticketmaster. You know people from labels who will call up and every once in a while we'll get something wrong. And we had a single music on because we were talking about if you want to have your music counted for the charts and for Luminate, you need to have the at venue app for live and you need to have, you know, shopify. Well, our friend from single music came on and said, yeah, actually you use single music which is attached to Shopify. So you know we're not perfect, but we have this dialogue and this communication going with these folks in the music industry and that's where I'd like to see it continue to grow is to have conversations like this.
Marc Matthews:
That's amazing. That growth is incredible and it's that snowball effect you mentioned, isn't it? You sort of you have that one conversation and then it leads on to another and then you get people start to reach out to you, and I've noticed that this year it's a slightly different way with the podcast and at the moment I'm focusing on sort of answering the audience questions. But the more questions I answer on the podcast, the more that I'm finding that I'm answering, if that makes sense in a weird way, and because to begin with it was quite slow to getting people to submit questions, but now it just seems to snowball on from there. But no, that's amazing growth. So that's 73% in 2023. Do you attribute that to sort of just word of mouth, people sharing, or was there something, an event or something that you ran in 2023 that helped that?
Jay Gilbert:
Yeah, I watched the data very, very closely and one of the things that I didn't do on purpose but I learned really helped grow the audience is when I cover something in the newsletter, I always copy the author of that article and say, hey, we talked about your thing and sometimes they will post that, especially with the podcast. They'll say, oh, they covered my piece on the your morning coffee podcast and again, it wasn't meant to grow the audience but it really did. And then two other things. One is speaking at colleges, which I do a lot. I get a lot of students that subscribe after I speak at a college. And then the other thing that sounds kind of obvious is when I bring guests on that have a large following, I see my number spike, like I have.
Jay Gilbert:
Will Page. We've had him on several times. We dropped an episode just a couple of days ago. Will Page used to be Spotify's chief economist. He's written the book Pivot. He is well. He posted an article recently called SoundCloud Rockonomics, which is the second of a series. He did one called Twitch's Rockonomics and, with the help of some smart people, he digs deep into what are the economics of SoundCloud. Well, we had him on to explain it to us and he's got a large following. They start following us. It's happened we had Merk Merkariatus from Hypnosis on and our number spiked. We had trying to remember some of them. There's been so many of these people who have come on Richard Kramer from the Bubble Trouble podcast. We had the folks Jamie from Luminate come on and break down their mid-year report. So again, we don't do that to grow our audience. We do that because they're great guests and it fits our format, but it grows our audience.
Marc Matthews:
I remember I think I remember having that conversation via email with you about the reach out and reference. If you do include somebody's, if you reference somebody's work in your podcast or newsletters, to reach out and let them know I do remember that rings a bell now and the guests with a large following. There is one question off the back of that the conversation do you have a conversation with them around sort of will you promote this for me or is it sort of like an unwritten, not ruled, but something that kind of like okay, you're on the podcast.
Jay Gilbert:
Yeah, it's the latter, not the former. I don't require anyone to share or post anything, but when I cover them in the newsletter or when they appear on the podcast, I always send them the description of the podcast and a link and an image. And I don't even mention share typically, unless it's a friend of mine, and I would say nine times out of 10, they're very generous about posting it. I wanted to mention one other thing that really helped our numbers is there was a book that came out last year called Key Changes and it was by Bill Rosenblatt and Howie Singer from NYU and it is the best. It's just the best book I've read on the music industry, because our business is built on disruption. Right, and we try to avoid disruption.
Jay Gilbert:
But every time a technology comes along and it doesn't have to be, you know, mp3 downloads or streaming, you know, or short form video, it could be just less Paul electrifying the guitar, you know it could be anything. And what Bill and Howie have done is they've not only put all of these disruptions together, but then but they have sort of a how did we get here A history of the music industry, and I just absolutely love that book. I had them on the podcast a couple of times and not only did our numbers spike, but I got people who hadn't heard our podcast before say, hey, you know, howie and Bill posted this. I saw this. This is what I need to listen to or read, because they deal with a lot of students. So, yeah, you know you don't have to be too silly about it, but, like with your podcast or any of your listeners viewers, if they are, you know, doing something creative, collaborate with other people and it'll grow your base 100% and wise words.
Marc Matthews:
And I've noticed that, having done the podcast now for three years and getting the audience involved and the artists that I interviewed it primarily started out interviewing artists and then in the last sort of 18 months I've moved more towards other podcasters and sort of these professional audio engineers and I have noticed, yeah, the snowball effect off the back of that, that hockey stick curve, if you will, with interest, which is, I don't like to get hung up on it but it is quite nice to see. I won't lie.
Jay Gilbert:
Because I like you, I'm very much metrics driven.
Marc Matthews:
I like to look at metrics and it's interesting. So, closing thoughts, jay, because I realized we're approaching the 40 minute mark, if you could leave our listeners with one piece of advice or key takeaway for navigating sort of the music release strategy right now, what would your key piece of advice be?
Jay Gilbert:
Well, there's a couple of quick things. One is like I don't know if you can see my coffee mug, but it says a playlist is not a marketing plan, and we stress that a lot. Don't chase streams. What you need to focus on is not only audience growth, you know finding those fans, because no matter what kind of music you play whether it's reggae, heavy metal, jet, whatever it is there's an audience out there for it, right? So that is crucial. Don't go chasing streams and vanity numbers on socials. I would rather have a thousand views of a video that has a thousand comments than a million views and no comments. I want a smaller group of passionate super fans. You know. That's probably the main takeaway, and I'll leave your listeners with this great quote that I use a lot because it's so perfect for the new music industry.
Jay Gilbert:
My friend, jonathan Daniel, runs a company called Crush Management and if you haven't heard of Jonathan Daniel, his company manages Miley Cyrus, sia, green Day, panic at the Disco Train. I mean, they're a beast, right. So Jonathan has this great quote that I stole from him. He said if you give me a great song, my job is easy. You give me a good song, my job is impossible. And that's the music industry today. You rise above the clutter, you're alongside of all of your favorite artists on all of these digital service providers. You start with a great song. Don't start with a good song. Start with a great song. Right and focus and put your focus, all of your focus, into writing, recording and performing great songs. The rest will follow.
Marc Matthews:
Amazing. I think that's a fantastic way to leave the episode there with that advice. Absolutely brilliant stuff. Jay, it's been a pleasure catching up with you today. As I mentioned at the beginning, it's taken a few months for me to for us to get to this place, so it's been absolutely brilliant, and I love these discussions surrounding the music industry and I know the audience are gonna get loads out of it. So, yeah, a huge, huge thank you. Thank you very much.