One thing I’ve always loved and found fascinating about the music industry and major record labels is the way in which artists have been sold and promoted.
It’s one thing to creatively conceive a song, craft it and turn it into a hit single but it’s also another thing to successfully sell and market it.
One thing major record companies are actually really good at doing other than suing college students for file sharing, is their ability to market their artists and turn them into mega stars. This in my opinion is one of the real strengths behind working with a major record label.
Many times, you will notice that the story they use to promote an artist sometimes becomes more appealing to the media to cover than the music itself.
Take for example Kings Of Leon. I just finished reading a very interesting feature article about them in Rolling Stone magazine. The article pointed out that following their first showcase session with the A&R guys at RCA records, the label was already talking about being able to pitch this band as “a bunch of good looking brother from the south and the fact that they come from a messed up family of preachers.”
Sound pretty interesting? Makes for a great story right?
Nearly every article ever written about Kings of Leon since that day mentions their “preacher” father and their life growing up on the road as Pentecostal followers, preaching from one town to the next. In addition they are now passed off as being a famous rock’n roll band known for living up to the sex drugs and rock’n roll way of life.
What great irony!
The press love this sort of stuff, and why wouldn’t they? Their jobs have just become much easier when you deliver them the story and angle to hook readers in on a silver platter without them having to think at all.
Just like the A&R guys at RCA signed Kings Of Leon because they were not only talented but had a really great story to back it all up with, their attractiveness to a well oiled marketing machine like a major record label becomes much stronger and gives the label another reason to be fools if they choose not to work with you.
The point being made here – when you can sit in a room and spin a good story to a radio station about your current success or an A&R guy about the amount of CD’s you’ve sold in the past six months or even a booking agent about the three nights you sold out your local venue and had to turn people away at the door because the rooms were so packed, then you’ll get their attention much faster than any other attention grabbing medium.
To bring this point home, here are some more examples of successful artists who have succeeded in their genre, not only because their music appeals to their audience but also because there was a carefully thought out story blended into their marketing mix-
I remember all the press that was ever written up about my old band Noise Addict always referenced the fact that we were still in high school, we were signed to the Beastie Boys record label, we played and toured with bands like Foo Fighters and Sonic Youth, all before we were 16!
Great story!
Check out the about me page of my blog, its one story after the other.
True, there are many different types of stories and many ways to conceive stories to help further your bands career, however the real starting point for any band is to consider what their story can be.
Will it be related to your current success in terms of sales or ticket sales, will it be related in terms of the physical look of your band, maybe it’s related through well known people you might know. Maybe it’s because you are just a total freak like the guy from the Vines who used to smash everything and be really rude to journalists and got a ton of media attention for it?
I wouldn’t suggest the last one, but there are so many ways to try and piece a story together.
My belief is that if you think long and hard enough about it, you’ll eventually come up with something.
Also, remember that the story your spinning today might not be the same story you’ll be using in three years time, but never forget that human beings are more excited by a creative story that is connected to your band than just the music on it’s own.
Happy storytelling!
Comments
