How to Build a Fanbase in 2023
Everybody starts from somewhere. Nobody is an immediate success; everyone has an entry point. Shoot, even Taylor Swift and Drake started from the bottom! (Although for Drake, “the bottom” was Degrassi: The Next Generation. So, still a low point, I guess.) Anyway, I’m talking origin stories because I’ve recently had a few people ask me […]
Leni Black’s Debut EP is One of This Year’s Best
When you think of Adele, Taylor Swift and other iconic artists, they all have the ability to make you feel their pain, elation and hard-earned victories – almost as if you’re going through the emotions with them. Newcomer Leni Black has that rare gift, too. The Nashville-based artist has a fabulous new EP with the […]
Sun Kiss Takes Us to Paradise with “Melt Away”
Let’s face it: a lot of today’s indie pop music is jangly and raw – not the type of music you’d play at, say, a brunch in L.A. That’s why “Melt Away”, the new single from L.A.’s Sun Kiss, really connected with me on the first listen. The song is dreamy and melodic, like a […]
Aimee C. Alexander Wants Us to Go Searching In “Storage”
I am a massive fan of test cricket. For those that don’t follow the sport, it’s the version that lasts five days and can still end up in a draw. There is time for a story to develop, for subplots to thicken and for a grand finish to be set up. Give me five days […]
Alastair Leonard’s “Pavlova Dogs” Uses Simple Tricks to Find Hidden Spaces
Spotify Wrapped is a digitized summary of your listening on the platform for the year. It told me I had listened to over 3000 artists across 95 genres, including the cheery tones of post-doom metal, with a bit of indie soul as an antidote. But I don’t know which genre Alastair Leonard’s “Pavlova Dogs” belongs […]
Do Facebook Ads Work for Spotify Promotion?
The short answer to the question in the title is, yes, Facebook ads definitely can work for Spotify promotion. If you’re looking for a more detailed answer – complete with pros, cons, and analysis, well, buckle up. I’m going to break down my own results from implementing the ads-based approach I teach in my Spotify […]
What’s the Point of TikTok for Musicians?
I’m going to keep this short. That’s partly because I’m a bit worn out (I’ve churned out a lot of words lately), and partly because brevity makes sense, given the subject matter. Here’s the subject matter: How to deal with the “TikTokification” of art. In case you’re unfamiliar with the verbiage, here’s a quick definition: […]
Moonstrive Media Review: Legit or Not?
If you typed this question into a search bar and you just want to cut to the chase, here’s my quick answer: Yes, Moonstrive Media is legit. I ran what their team calls a “250k Playlist Follower Package” and got (so far as I can tell) somewhere in the realm of 25,000 streams. As I’ll […]
Let Zzzahara Haunt Your Ears with “cupid’s out tonight”
As we move towards the end of the year, it’s exciting to see that there are still “single of the year” contenders in our midst. One of the most recent ones, “cupid’s out tonight” by zzzahara, is another single worth taking a listen to. zzzahara is an LA based artist who released an album earlier […]
“Keep Talking”: Pink Floyd’s Starkly Accurate Warning to Humankind
One could make a valid case for the 1990s being the last decade of true, unadulterated human experience. A new yet unobtrusive invention called ‘the internet’ is, in its infancy, skirting the corners of society. Mobile phones won’t be a ‘must have’ until the turn of the next century, and most communication is conducted in […]
