I was like this once. Trying to sell my songs to people. The video of me walking, singing the song, lyrics on the screen. The Distrokid's. the CD Baby's. Worrying about streams, monthly listeners. You know what? I stopped. It affected my mental health. It's not for everyone. That's why I became a cover artist. What I will say about Damo though is he knows his stuff, and this can work if you are willing to dedicate your life to your craft. If like me, you have a business, a family, elderly parent etc ... I just was not able to keep on top of it all - but I am happier for it. Wish you all success.
I really appreciate that Rob, thank you. I admire your honesty and i love your conviction to recognising your passions and strengths and also putting your mental health first. I would rather every artist strive for happy and enjoyment over numbers every day of the week! 🙂❤ P.S Your Hearts On Fire cover is a banger!!!
@@DamianKeyes thanks for popping over and giving that a listen mate. Seriously you’re a genuine guy, and I appreciate how in an industry of confusion and deceit, you offer a guiding light to people. Massive respect, mate.
Wow I feel exactly the same including Damo knowing his stuff. However I did not turn into a cover artist and I’m still releasing my original music while intentionally not applying any of Damos good advice 😅 Meanwhile I have three songs over 1000 plays in less than a year with zero fucking promotion. I’ll take it!
We are Signed & our Label handles this! I was a Senior A&R rep for labels for years! His info is correct but I've been touring for 20 years I'm Not handling any of this because it kinda kills the vibe of being a musician. I say do this if you can, if it's killing your interest in Music, hire a Label Services company I know of tons of em!
This is such good advice. I’ve put some of this in to practice in the past and had decent results, but I’ve not always been consistent. I’d love any advice you had on prioritising management of the Spotify side of things, along with socials etc. I do get overwhelmed by the amount of work this takes from time to time, but feel determined to do this the right way. I really appreciate all your videos man!
As someone who is just starting out, I would like to say thank you for all advice and guidance you have given. There is a lot to navigate when it comes to music and these videos make the journey smoother.
Another important tip when in doubt about whether a playlist is real or not: Try to check if the playlist ranks high in searches, could the keywords have a high search volume? If both boxes are ticked and you check the playlist data (with tools like chartmetr..., spotontrack), you can be reasonably sure that you are not dealing with bots. Traffic from SEO playlists gets paid, doesn't get artists in trouble, you have the marketing impact to reach real people and passive results are usually the case too.
U not seen all the news about Spotify editorial playlists being linked to bot plays? One artist I follow from Spotify said he has had over 90% fake plays yet on his Spotify for artists place it shows more than 60% of his plays came from Spotify Editorial Playlists. But regardless of that with no evidence need d against him at all they have removed all of his music I don’t trust Spotify at all anymore
I loved the information from this video. So insightful and wonderfully put together. Appreciate that. I do only have one question and that is what is the avatar you speak of? Is it your own personal persona or the ideal audience member you are aiming at?
Appreciate that, thank you so much. The avatar is your classic audience member or fan. The more we know about them, the easier it is to get in front of them with content and music they appreciate and grow your audience. Keep your eye on your stats on Spotify, socials and even at gigs or friends. See what connects them more than just other artists. Ask questions likeL Which festival would you love to headline? Which artist would you love to support? Which magazine you would love to be on the front of? Then go look at their demographics. The more we know the easier it is 🙂🙂
sorry man, it's not about feeding the machine. We've released over 100 releases in 6 years. We've hit Discovery Weekly a few times, but never got anywhere an Editorial. Yes, updated our profile loads. Yes, profile is up to date. blah blah. We've also been curating loads of playlists with over 10K followers, all different artists in our genre. Doesn't matter. Feed the machine? Nah. Thats BS
@@LegPuppywell, the goal here is not to make your favorite art for fun, it’s to get the most people to like your music as possible, or enough. So if it’s great art but just not the type that’s mainstream enough to be liked by enough people to actually support you and to keep algorithms going. Art quality is another convo. Music is subjective sure, but am why are not more people liking and sharing and being impacted by your music? It’s literally product design. If you have all these other things right than what are you saying is the issue here? It’s about the music and you just aren’t designing it right to connect with the right people in a way that actually gets caught like fire because people love the music so much. If you have your “art” music that’s for you and you love it, do that, but also see if you can make music that a bigger group of people like but that’s still 100% authentic to you. And if you’re too rigid, than stop that and be more creative. This doesn’t mean you’re giving up on your other music, even though you always have it and you can take a long break from it. Just really think about your approach to the music and the genre you’ve chosen as an actual item you’re selling (it is). If it already is a popular genre, than it’s the quality or the song writing. What’s the thing that you might not be seeing. There’s always blind spots and your case looks like there’s some big ol blind spots. Leave your music alone for a bit and come back and see what really might be the new perspective or idea and angle that you need. You can do it. You have the musical thing in you for a reason, there’s a simple way in that’s right there the whole time, maybe you were just trying too hard or something. Something will come to you bro.
It is difficult. However, playlists that rank high in searches for keywords that a lot of people are searching for have a high chance of being heard by a lot of people. Basically, SEO playlists is where everyone wants to be who likes to have real ears on their music.
Great content and energy Damian 🔥🎸 Half of my repertoire are electropop songs and the other modern solo piano in style of Enrico Einaudi or Hania Rani). Would it be better to have two separate Spotify profiles for different genres of my music or should I release all content in one account? Appreciate your feedback.
DK, do I confuse Spotify if I release in different genres with my singles? Indie rock, country, singsersongwriter, blues, post punk. I release a pretty varied lot of music. Is it conceivable that this confuses the machine, not knowing where to best sort me in the algorithm? Side note question, does listening to my Spotify "Radio" help with this possible confusion? As always, thanks for the time and information, VP
Hey Damian, I have an issue that I trusted a spotify playlisting service that seemed trustworthy and now I have a bunch of 4000 followers out of 4500 that are fake and ruin my fans also like. How do I get back on the game? How can I fix this the most effective way? What’s the best course of action?
I defo think it depends on who you are as it is a visual based industry and can defo help. People do like visuals and a good 1st impression is a win 😊😊
About the playlists , 90% of them usually accept my music (i found them on your academy) , but they are quite expensive (if you wanna reach some good numbers) as after a month they take off the song from the playlists. So it would be a lot of monthly bills :p
Try to get in touch with curators yourself - Those that have SEO playlists. Many of them don't even charge money or anything in return if you are one of the first to contact them. That's the actual difficulty in the playlsting world nowadays. Identifying the real lists and finding those who run them.
Spotify was/is at its essence a very large hard drive to park musical and other content. Accessing the content is done by creating all manner of relational database schemas Queries are hard coded and many create themselves, depending on input from actual people There are doctors and specialists that look after the diet of any machine, biological or mechanical. If unmanagible the surgeons come in and cut out parts of the machine Like antibiotics there are only so many times one can trigger the immune system or algorithm and save the machine.
Honestly I was blind to how the industry really works. At this point I have no interest in driving my Spotify up anymore. It is a waist of time to me because a million views only gets you a thousand bucks that's so ridiculous to me. I have more interest in radio and music directly to my fans Spotify is not the only thing in town. Record companies control all the DSP's so I am not niev to how this works real talk
So are all paid services for getting on playlists bad? Is it also a bad idea to pay a curator to get your song on a playlist? I'm not trying to circumvent the system I would just rather focus more on the music than studying playlists
Dont pay a curator. This is against Spotify terms of service and they could be botted. If you are caught on a botted playlist you get suppressed in the algorithm
It never works ever ever ever. Access to playlists are only for artists already known or signed on a label. Access to press and coverage is only for signed artists or if you’re willing to pay hundreds and thousands to a pr. There’s way way way too much competition. Telling unknown musicians they can be on a Spotify playlist is a lie.
Your comment might get deleted but ur right. Just gotta upload and upload and upload consistently to gain traction and then just keep at it until you “blow up”
You have to war. Seriously. There was a lot of creativity right away and a lot of additional genres being entertained and sat on during the initial spread period of computer production programs and ai. Euro had 1000s of artists already and were told it would not be hosted on their platforms. Industrial/ebm,synthpop was told the same. Turkey had some sort of salsa music or something lined up but it was a no go. Then with USA telling everyone their platforms would reign supreme, and it hard to penetrate the market for just music people stopped with their creativity and god discouraged and focused on what was being ordered and finished their genres on the side. Releasing it via mp3 even themselves just to get it out. It is market sauvy to push your stuff and limit others in your place but then the push of your music is everywhere still and it is stale. It causes a lot of spawning new patterns and outright limits creation and desire to put your people out there. Spotify and youtube suck.
Ideas were presented by other countries then to have a streaming music platform that would have country and genre pages that would be setup by them everyone could access with new upcoming music coming, artist bios, videos just for music. "we are going to limit genre sorting" they kept on adding new bs after things were initially presented.
Hey guys, could someone listen to one or both of my song and say if its worth to go on spotify or better to increase my level first? I got no feedback so i have no idea if its bad, half good, so so or good Ps. I like my song but i know about the psychological effect when you overestimate your own work so i need a third party. I am ready to check your songs as well. Thank you!
I was like this once. Trying to sell my songs to people. The video of me walking, singing the song, lyrics on the screen. The Distrokid's. the CD Baby's. Worrying about streams, monthly listeners. You know what? I stopped. It affected my mental health. It's not for everyone. That's why I became a cover artist. What I will say about Damo though is he knows his stuff, and this can work if you are willing to dedicate your life to your craft. If like me, you have a business, a family, elderly parent etc ... I just was not able to keep on top of it all - but I am happier for it. Wish you all success.
I really appreciate that Rob, thank you. I admire your honesty and i love your conviction to recognising your passions and strengths and also putting your mental health first. I would rather every artist strive for happy and enjoyment over numbers every day of the week! 🙂❤
P.S Your Hearts On Fire cover is a banger!!!
@@DamianKeyes thanks for popping over and giving that a listen mate. Seriously you’re a genuine guy, and I appreciate how in an industry of confusion and deceit, you offer a guiding light to people. Massive respect, mate.
That really means a lot, thank you so much Rob 🙂
Wow I feel exactly the same including Damo knowing his stuff. However I did not turn into a cover artist and I’m still releasing my original music while intentionally not applying any of Damos good advice 😅 Meanwhile I have three songs over 1000 plays in less than a year with zero fucking promotion. I’ll take it!
Do you have a it for cover art?
We are Signed & our Label handles this! I was a Senior A&R rep for labels for years! His info is correct but I've been touring for 20 years I'm Not handling any of this because it kinda kills the vibe of being a musician. I say do this if you can, if it's killing your interest in Music, hire a Label Services company I know of tons of em!
Know any in Nashville? We'd love to start building a team.
This is such good advice. I’ve put some of this in to practice in the past and had decent results, but I’ve not always been consistent. I’d love any advice you had on prioritising management of the Spotify side of things, along with socials etc. I do get overwhelmed by the amount of work this takes from time to time, but feel determined to do this the right way. I really appreciate all your videos man!
As someone who is just starting out, I would like to say thank you for all advice and guidance you have given. There is a lot to navigate when it comes to music and these videos make the journey smoother.
Another important tip when in doubt about whether a playlist is real or not: Try to check if the playlist ranks high in searches, could the keywords have a high search volume? If both boxes are ticked and you check the playlist data (with tools like chartmetr..., spotontrack), you can be reasonably sure that you are not dealing with bots.
Traffic from SEO playlists gets paid, doesn't get artists in trouble, you have the marketing impact to reach real people and passive results are usually the case too.
You are spot on. Thanks for the valuable advice. Keep up the greatest teachings, Damian.🎉❤
Beautiful advice man! I’ve been having some luck getting in user generated playlists on Spotify. I love seeing the growth!
Who knew Jordan Knight would give some of the best advice and drop gems! This is so valuable!!!
U not seen all the news about Spotify editorial playlists being linked to bot plays?
One artist I follow from Spotify said he has had over 90% fake plays yet on his Spotify for artists place it shows more than 60% of his plays came from Spotify Editorial Playlists.
But regardless of that with no evidence need d against him at all they have removed all of his music
I don’t trust Spotify at all anymore
It took me a moment to get the “P” joke, but that was so good 🤣
Thank you!! Just updated my Spotify profile!!
I loved the information from this video. So insightful and wonderfully put together. Appreciate that.
I do only have one question and that is what is the avatar you speak of? Is it your own personal persona or the ideal audience member you are aiming at?
Appreciate that, thank you so much. The avatar is your classic audience member or fan. The more we know about them, the easier it is to get in front of them with content and music they appreciate and grow your audience. Keep your eye on your stats on Spotify, socials and even at gigs or friends. See what connects them more than just other artists. Ask questions likeL Which festival would you love to headline? Which artist would you love to support? Which magazine you would love to be on the front of? Then go look at their demographics. The more we know the easier it is 🙂🙂
@@DamianKeyes The immediate swathe of ideas I got from reading this was indescribable. A phenomenal help as always. You are doing unparalleled work.
Great advice, your videos are helping us big time with our releases. Thanks for everything you do for this industry!
sorry man, it's not about feeding the machine. We've released over 100 releases in 6 years. We've hit Discovery Weekly a few times, but never got anywhere an Editorial. Yes, updated our profile loads. Yes, profile is up to date. blah blah. We've also been curating loads of playlists with over 10K followers, all different artists in our genre. Doesn't matter. Feed the machine? Nah. Thats BS
Similar experience.
Has to be good music
@@Wargwarn what a very silly comment. music is completely subjective
@@LegPuppywell, the goal here is not to make your favorite art for fun, it’s to get the most people to like your music as possible, or enough. So if it’s great art but just not the type that’s mainstream enough to be liked by enough people to actually support you and to keep algorithms going. Art quality is another convo. Music is subjective sure, but am why are not more people liking and sharing and being impacted by your music? It’s literally product design. If you have all these other things right than what are you saying is the issue here? It’s about the music and you just aren’t designing it right to connect with the right people in a way that actually gets caught like fire because people love the music so much.
If you have your “art” music that’s for you and you love it, do that, but also see if you can make music that a bigger group of people like but that’s still 100% authentic to you. And if you’re too rigid, than stop that and be more creative. This doesn’t mean you’re giving up on your other music, even though you always have it and you can take a long break from it. Just really think about your approach to the music and the genre you’ve chosen as an actual item you’re selling (it is).
If it already is a popular genre, than it’s the quality or the song writing. What’s the thing that you might not be seeing. There’s always blind spots and your case looks like there’s some big ol blind spots. Leave your music alone for a bit and come back and see what really might be the new perspective or idea and angle that you need. You can do it. You have the musical thing in you for a reason, there’s a simple way in that’s right there the whole time, maybe you were just trying too hard or something. Something will come to you bro.
Getting on a Playlist that isn't botted these days is difficult man
It is difficult. However, playlists that rank high in searches for keywords that a lot of people are searching for have a high chance of being heard by a lot of people.
Basically, SEO playlists is where everyone wants to be who likes to have real ears on their music.
Great content and energy Damian 🔥🎸 Half of my repertoire are electropop songs and the other modern solo piano in style of Enrico Einaudi or Hania Rani). Would it be better to have two separate Spotify profiles for different genres of my music or should I release all content in one account? Appreciate your feedback.
Thanks for all the advice!
DK, do I confuse Spotify if I release in different genres with my singles? Indie rock, country, singsersongwriter, blues, post punk. I release a pretty varied lot of music. Is it conceivable that this confuses the machine, not knowing where to best sort me in the algorithm? Side note question, does listening to my Spotify "Radio" help with this possible confusion? As always, thanks for the time and information, VP
Hey Damian, I have an issue that I trusted a spotify playlisting service that seemed trustworthy and now I have a bunch of 4000 followers out of 4500 that are fake and ruin my fans also like. How do I get back on the game? How can I fix this the most effective way? What’s the best course of action?
Would you recommend inserting a photo of your one sheet when submitting? Thanks for all you do! 🙏🏽
I defo think it depends on who you are as it is a visual based industry and can defo help. People do like visuals and a good 1st impression is a win 😊😊
Great advice.
Thank you Damian.
About the playlists , 90% of them usually accept my music (i found them on your academy) , but they are quite expensive (if you wanna reach some good numbers) as after a month they take off the song from the playlists. So it would be a lot of monthly bills :p
Yeah but where do i apply for playlist or pitch
Try to get in touch with curators yourself - Those that have SEO playlists. Many of them don't even charge money or anything in return if you are one of the first to contact them.
That's the actual difficulty in the playlsting world nowadays. Identifying the real lists and finding those who run them.
mush luv
Thanks for the mush luv! Appreciate you too 🙂🙂
Spotify was/is at its essence a very large hard drive to park musical and other content. Accessing the content is done by creating all manner of relational database schemas
Queries are hard coded and many create themselves, depending on input from actual people
There are doctors and specialists that look after the diet of any machine, biological or mechanical. If unmanagible the surgeons come in and cut out parts of the machine
Like antibiotics there are only so many times one can trigger the immune system or algorithm and save the machine.
Honestly I was blind to how the industry really works. At this point I have no interest in driving my Spotify up anymore. It is a waist of time to me because a million views only gets you a thousand bucks that's so ridiculous to me. I have more interest in radio and music directly to my fans Spotify is not the only thing in town. Record companies control all the DSP's so I am not niev to how this works real talk
🕶️👑
Make a list of free playlist to submit your music to you so you don't have to pay
Tell us Damo
Thanks so much, hope this helps 🙂🙂
How a i makes play list
So are all paid services for getting on playlists bad? Is it also a bad idea to pay a curator to get your song on a playlist? I'm not trying to circumvent the system I would just rather focus more on the music than studying playlists
Dont pay a curator. This is against Spotify terms of service and they could be botted. If you are caught on a botted playlist you get suppressed in the algorithm
No thanks on partying on an island with P. diddy! 😅😅
It never works ever ever ever. Access to playlists are only for artists already known or signed on a label. Access to press and coverage is only for signed artists or if you’re willing to pay hundreds and thousands to a pr. There’s way way way too much competition. Telling unknown musicians they can be on a Spotify playlist is a lie.
😂
Shhhh....he won't get views if people find out
Your comment might get deleted but ur right. Just gotta upload and upload and upload consistently to gain traction and then just keep at it until you “blow up”
My second song on Spotify just got added to a playlist with 106,001 followers.... Is that good?
Spotify = Helsing AI. Helsing A.I. = Sky Net. We are Killing ourselves softly with our own art. WTF happened.
You have to war. Seriously.
There was a lot of creativity right away and a lot of additional genres being entertained and sat on during the initial spread period of computer production programs and ai.
Euro had 1000s of artists already and were told it would not be hosted on their platforms.
Industrial/ebm,synthpop was told the same.
Turkey had some sort of salsa music or something lined up but it was a no go.
Then with USA telling everyone their platforms would reign supreme, and it hard to penetrate the market for just music people stopped with their creativity and god discouraged and focused on what was being ordered and finished their genres on the side.
Releasing it via mp3 even themselves just to get it out.
It is market sauvy to push your stuff and limit others in your place but then the push of your music is everywhere still and it is stale.
It causes a lot of spawning new patterns and outright limits creation and desire to put your people out there.
Spotify and youtube suck.
Ideas were presented by other countries then to have a streaming music platform that would have country and genre pages that would be setup by them everyone could access with new upcoming music coming, artist bios, videos just for music.
"we are going to limit genre sorting" they kept on adding new bs after things were initially presented.
Pretty simple. Be a women or start a woman fronted feminist themed band
Hey guys, could someone listen to one or both of my song and say if its worth to go on spotify or better to increase my level first? I got no feedback so i have no idea if its bad, half good, so so or good
Ps. I like my song but i know about the psychological effect when you overestimate your own work so i need a third party. I am ready to check your songs as well. Thank you!
kewl
Damien, are there any print-on-demand services you recommend? They can be so hit or miss