The Tune Up Vol. 3

Your curated lineup of the latest music industry podcasts, articles, research, and news worth knowing.

These sources are what we’ve found interesting this month:

The Future of Music Marketing Is No Marketing at All. (Read on Rolling Stone here)

"Finally I’ve come across an article that spells out what I’ve been witnessing over the course of the past few months. No shade, but all the Tiktok Music Marketing “gurus” using rinse and repeat trends are setting musicians up to feel like they are falling behind if they don’t hop on a low hanging fruit trend. When, in reality, it may grab a few extra views because of the hooks, but I can guarantee they aren’t staying. How can you tell? Check the share rate of your posts or genuine comments. Bottom line is this: you can’t build a genuine community around this shallow strategy. Not anymore, at least. Now this is either good news or bad news depending on how you’ve been showing up on social media as an artist. 
Okay, so then you ask, well what do I post? I’ll refer to one of my favorite quotes in the article, “If you hate making the video, it’s probably not authentically you.” And that should be your guiding compass when showing up on social media.." - Tori

Small But Mighty Fanbase > General Appeal (Check out the Linkedin post here)

“I feel like I've been preaching this for a while, but I believe it's far more important to build a tiny but mighty audience vs a mass audience that doesn't really connect at a deeper level, and this LinkedIn post I came across this month helped to support this idea. In the record industry, especially at the mass level, labels are often expecting artists to generate mass appeal and fandom, but they aren't going about it in the ways that build true fandom. True fandom => lifelong support (a la earnings!). Labels that figure out how to build true fandom among their artists' audiences will be the ones to win in the long run, and it's important to remember that each segment of the fan journey is crucial to nurture, from exposure to engagement to sales.” - Kelsy

EU Merger Watchdog Restarts Probe of Universal Music Group's Downtown Deal (Read on Morningstar here)

“This acquisition isn’t new information since the deal has been going on since last December, but since the EU is now picking their investigation back up, I wanted to bring attention to the impacts this will have on the industry. Virgin Music has stated that they intend to keep the heart of the independent music company and expand its possibilities, but there has been criticism from independent artists and companies, stating that it will be harder to compete with UMG if this merge goes through. This would affect the chances of independent labels being successful since one of their giant competitors would have access to Downtown’s music publishing, distribution and royalties services.In an industry where over-consolidation is growing into a bigger concern day-by-day, it’s good to keep track of what’s happening to be better informed on the balance of power.” - Danica