🔵 Artists, fans and the overuse of the word "superfan"

If there's a buzzword for 2023's music industry, it's surely that one 🤢

Hi there,

I am sure most of you will have noticed the exponential increase in the use of the term “superfan” through this year. I was chatting with a friend recently who remarked that it is as if certain major labels had only just wrapped their head around the concept, and were now desperately trying to play to it. (Looking at you, Universal!)

In fact, chatting about superfans brings to mind a similar conversation I often find myself having around marketing. I think a lot of people like to think that marketing is somehow changing as technology evolves and new platforms take precedence. New startups emerge, often telling you that they have harnessed some amazing new tech that unlocks powerful new secrets of marketing and suchlike.

What utter bullshit.

Marketing as a concept hasn’t changed in about 90 years. I saw the author BJ Mendelson once remark that every book about marketing is essentially rewriting “How To Make Friends And Influence People” - and that was written in 1936.

In fact, I still feel in music, the equation for marketing is basically the one Mike Masnick shared about 15 years ago now:

connect with fans + reason to buy = $$$

That’s it. It is painfully simple as a concept and what I think we have to keep in mind is that those principles of connection remain and always will.

Which brings me to a couple of today’s articles, linked below. First up comes a great piece from Midia’s Kriss Thakrar, who highlights that one failing of Spotify (though in truth, all DSPs) is that the functions it is rolling out tend to speak more to the long tail of listeners rather than… sorry… superfans.

I feel there’s perhaps a simpler truth with DSPs, which is that they were never built for superfans. This is where the article I included on Tuesday about Bandcamp so perfectly illustrated why it is the better place for superfans. In short, it provides far, far more ways for artists to create different value propositions at different price tiers and upsell them.

On a DSP, the price point is already set and you’re in a different world, one of “all you can eat”. In that space, the parameters have already been set: quantity not quality, and therefore upselling anything is extremely hard. Just look at Spotify’s merch shelf or live integrations to see that. I’ve had sight on hundreds, if not thousands, of campaigns and I’ve never seen anyone draw down meaningful revenue from that merch shelf.

One irony I find amusing about Spotify is that it is actually capable of selling a high volume of merch for your band. However it can only achieve this by emailing the fans. To break the value perception, it has to depart its own platform and use another one (email) in order to present the offering in a manner that you might make time for (and, ideally, buy).

Alongside Midia’s piece, another article jumped out at me, this time the NME quoting Jimmy Iovine as saying that “fame has replaced great”. I took his point to be that artists are basically getting famous via music, then moving to focus on other things as quickly as possible, no doubt because there’s more money in those other activities.

This isn’t news as such - just look at Rihanna with Fenty, Puff Daddy with Ciroc and - ironically - Dr Dre with Beats By Dre, which he co-founded with… Jimmy Iovine.

Nonetheless, I feel Iovine has a point, and I think it speaks to this general lack of value that is now perceived around streaming and the world of DSPs. Being an artist in music now is hard. Really hard. You are pulled in 20 different directions and I’d imagine at points it would be impossible to do everything being asked of you even if you were working 24/7. The toll on mental health is surely worse than ever (though let’s leave that topic for another post sometime soon).

The bottom line here is that DSPs have set up a world in which there’s no perceived value around the artist’s work. Any attempt to bridge that - even the insulting tip jar Spotify introduced, surely a new low - fails miserably. Artists recognise this too, so funnily enough when big brands, TV, Hollywood or anyone else lures them away with infinitely bigger pay cheques, they take their eye off the very thing that made them famous to start with.

I worry that at times my writing feels a little naive, like I’m just a foolish kid, writing about things that will never happen. The reality, of course, is that I’ve worked in the music industry since the late 90s. I’ve seen the glory days of the majors, the crash caused by piracy, iTunes, streaming - all of it.

So when I sit here and say that the value of music as an art form is an all time low, I don’t say it lightly.

How can this change? I think artists - and their labels, and managers etc - need to start looking at what value is there for fans, and understand how to speak to that. I don’t feel the only path to making a decent living is to treat music like a spring board to someplace else. Don’t accept the platforms that are presented as the key players. Be bold! Establish places where fans can truly feel connected and invest in you accordingly!

Fans will happily spend money on an artist. Just look at Taylor Swift for proof of that. But you need to connect with those fans, and establish reasons for them to spend money on you. That will not happen on a streaming platform.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “You” by Gold Panda. Confession: on the basis it was the (amazing) US label Ghostly that released GP’s album, I’d always assumed he was American. You can imagine my surprise then to learn he’s actually from Essex, hahah. This track, the opener on his stunning debut album Lucky Shiner, is a marvel to me. The song itself is an incredible work of sample-chopping genius, but I *think* the whole album was made just on a single MPC groovebox. If you hear it, you’ll see why I’m amazed. It’s a wonder.

📺 watching “Graffiti Rock”. After reading about this legendary show in the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal magazine (remember that, ageing b-boys among you?!) I paid a fair bit of money to grab a VHS copy of this - all of which reveals my age, I’m sure. This is a historical artifact though, featuring not just Run-DMC, Kool Moe D and the New York City Breakers, but the keen-eyed among you might also recognise Vincent “Prince Vince” Gallo, and Debi Mazar among those bopping in the crowd. My pro tip: watch out for the breakdancer leaving a slick of jheri juice across the floor when he headspins 😆

Stories from the Music Industry:

Streaming is missing cultural moments, and superstars know it

Streaming is changing, but Spotify’s potential new features in their reported ‘Supremium’ tier are still focused on improving the background experience with speculated new features like higher quality audio and automated AI playlist generation. Until streaming services provide more ways for superfans to be active, the superstars they follow will find other places to connect with them.

👆🏻Hot take: I certainly agree with the point about Spotify (quoted above), but I think in general there’s just a failure on most artists’ part to really explore what’s possible out there.

Jimmy Iovine says "fame has replaced great" in today's music

“Artists are making so much money in so many different places, which is fantastic, but after they have a hit record, they can earn a lot of money on Instagram and all this stuff,” He said. “I feel that a lot of people, a lot of artists, not all, but a lot of artists are taking their foot off the gas in the record making category. And that’s affecting the quality of the work. And I think you’re seeing that in a lot of different genres right now.”

👆🏻Hot take: I think it’s a fair point being made here. That said, I can’t help but see an irony, given Iovine started Beats with Dr Dre, who then stopped making music for a decade or more.

Ghostwriter and his manager talk AI deepfakes in first interview

“I think in the near future, we’re going to have infrastructure that allows artists to not only license their voice, but do so with permissions,” said the manager. “Like, say I’m artist X. I want to license my voice out, but I want to take 50% of the revenue that’s generated. Plus users can’t use my voice for hate speech or politics. It is possible to create tech that can have permissions like that. I think that’s where we are headed.”

👆🏻Hot take: I’d argue this is what DJ Fresh’s Voiceswap platform is aiming to do, and what Grimes is doing already with the ElfTech site.

Universal Music Group’s share price just hit a 12-month high, as company’s market cap climbs to $49 billion

More recently, analysts including Richard Eary from UBS (UMG price target: EUR €29.00) and Barclays’ Julien Roch have maintained a ‘Buy’ rating on UMG’s stock. On October 6, Guggenheim Partners’ Michael Morris and team maintained their ‘Buy’ rating on UMG’s stock, raising their price target to EUR €27 from EUR €25. Guggenheim highlighted “key strategic and financial opportunities” for UMG, including its “recently signed artist-centric agreement with Deezer” as well as an “anticipated [new] TikTok deal”.

👆🏻Hot take: parking all the usual issues I’ve written about with Universal of late, there’s no question that as a share investment, it is a solid bet still.

Somms·ai wants to help music rightsholders train their own AIs

“Customers who train custom music models in our system will now understand who contributed to every output they generate.” Co-founder and COO Matthew Adell, formerly CEO of Beatport, expanded on that. “Creative DNA is encoded in every musical piece and acts as a signature, unique to its creator,” said Adell. “As a result, all future works built on that DNA can be traced back to its original owner to be monetised, compensated, or given due credit.”

👆🏻Hot take: I see the principle here, but will artists really sign on for it? That’s the real market test at play.

Stories from the Broader World of Tech:

Instagram head says Threads is ‘not going to amplify news on the platform’

In response to a post about Threads’ position on hard news, Mosseri explained the company did not intend to “amplify” news on its platform. His position is not a surprise, though it’s a disappointing one for those looking to exit X in favor of greener pastures. At Meta, both Instagram and Facebook have had difficult relationships with news publishers over the years, having battled fake news, clickbait and accusations of political bias.

👆🏻Hot take: I can understand Meta wanting to avoid news given all the issues it has had elsewhere, but… can we all just admit we really need Threads to supersede X/Twitter ASAP pls? And this won’t play to that, sadly.

California’s Delete Act lets consumers make one request to delete personal data

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Delete Act yesterday, making it possible for Californians to either ask data brokers to delete their personal data or forbid them to sell or share it, with a single request. Right now, Californians have similar rights under a 2018 state law, but they had to ask each company individually, and that’s a tall order given the almost 500 data brokers operating in the state.

👆🏻Hot take: Cali takes one step closer to GDPR with this move. No bad thing at all.

Character.AI introduces group chats where people and multiple AIs can talk to each other

The company suggests users could try out having AI scientists and thinkers chat together, like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking, for example, or create a group chat with mythological gods like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. For more practical use cases, you might start a group chat with friends around a topic or theme — like travel, gaming, book clubs, or role-playing — then invite an AI companion to help facilitate and augment those conversations.

👆🏻Hot take: I feel oddly torn on this platform. I can totally see use cases… but the dependency it builds through long-term use is shady, as is the long, long list of ways one could misuse it.

Need something else to read? Here you go:

Excerpt from Jaki Liebezeit: The Life, Theory and Practice of a Master Drummer

The drum master Jaki Liebezeit pursued over a decades-long career an enduring fascination with the core truths of time as expressed via rhythm.

👆🏻Hot take: I think anyone else attempting to apply drumming principles to life might be met with a disrespectful laugh here, but when it’s Jaki Liebezeit? Well that’s a whole other ball game entirely.

Julia Allison Was the First Online Influencer and Was Vilified for It

In her book 'Extremely Online,' journalist Taylor Lorenz details how Julia Allison invented the concept of being a content creator a decade before it caught on

👆🏻Hot take: a great excerpt from Taylor Lorenz’s new book, which is rapidly moving into the “essential reading” shortlist, on the basis everything I’ve read has been amazing.

Motive Unknown is a strategic marketing agency based in the UK. Our artist clients cover anything from top-tier pop (Spice Girls, Robbie Williams) through hip hop (Run The Jewels, Dessa), electronic (Underworld, Moby) and more. Our label clients take in Dirty Hit (The 1975, Beabadoobee) Partisan Records (IDLES, Fontaines DC), Domino Records (Arctic Monkeys, Wet Leg), Warp Records (Aphex Twin, Danny Brown), LuckyMe (Baauer, Hudson Mohawke), and Lex Records (MF DOOM, Eyedress) among others.

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In addition to our recorded music division, we also have a successful growth marketing division which has a strong focus on music creation. Our clients in this space include Beatport, Plugin Boutique, Loopmasters, UJAM, RoEx, BT, Rhodes and more. 

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