There are few things that excite me more than the music itself when it comes to electronic dance music. One of them is discussing marketing and distribution because I find it so interesting about how individuals find their music and listen to the latest tracks. I also appreciate all the different trends. This is where Goldroom comes in. He starts off with “How interesting is the music business right now? Ask 4 artists where/how to release a new song and you’ll get 4 different answers.” You see a tweet like that and you know you’re going to prepare for something awesome. He goes to talk about Spotify, Soundcloud, and other outlets as well as why they’re both good and bad. Read them all below!
1. I know people who have straight up abandoned soundcloud as a musical graveyard. Reposts have demolished the feed as a discovery tool
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
2. i've had a couple artists confide that their reach on SC to their own followers has dropped more than 50% in the last year or so
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
3. at the same time I think some micro-genres of dance music are THRIVING there. If I was a future-house producer I'd be working SC everyday
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
4. the popular answer is of course to focus on Spotify as much as possible. It's grabbing a larger and larger market share everyday
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
5. I've certainly seen my own plays migrate en masse from soundcloud to spotify slowly over the last 3ish years. I love the service too
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
6. that said there's a huge growing concern that spotify is the sole gatekeeper. they've made it so their own playlists hold all the power
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
7. i've heard from a few artists that trying to 'play the spotify game' isn't worth it, and that its increasingly hard to get placements
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
8. which leads to a group of artists that are increasingly avoiding both platforms in favor of finding a place inside the Bandcamp community
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
9. left of center indie rock and confessional electronic pop have thriving communities there and u can find artists that only release there
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
10. Im realizing this is WAY too complicated of a subject for a twitter thread. We're just in a very interesting time where there's no 1 way
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
11. between 2012-2014 I self released all of my music and used tunecore to distribute. I also sold on bandcamp. It was wonderful.
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
12. I saw dollars shift more and more towards spotify, and at the same time saw my plays shift from soundcloud towards spotify.
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
13. I haven't even touched on youtube yet. There are guys like @shawnwasabi that can make their entire living on that platform alone
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
14. the fascinating thing is weve reached a point where 4 artists might have wildly different ways of releasing music, and they can ALL WORK
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
15. remember 2008? You had to give mp3's to blogs for free to get blogged about. There was no making money from releasing music. NONE
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
16. Now artists can find their community and have a decent chance at making a living. It's a beautiful thing.
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
17. I get annoyed when people get so negative about the state of the industry. Try being an artist without a label in the late 2000s
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
18. Anyway – I feel like this period will be shortlived, and one platform will take over, much like Soundcloud did and myspace did before it
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
i forgot about beatport in all of this. plenty of artists have thriving careers built on that particular communities support https://t.co/rUbrsvrP7M
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
there's SO much baggage tied up in that site & company. Whoever does it right is going to b fresh and definitely mobile based
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
see weirdly I LOVE spotify as a discovery tool. I find everything on there. This is whats fascinating right now
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
I'm finding a ton of fans echoing the same feelings as artists. It's not like 2012 when everyone universally went to soundcloud to discover
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
Being a new artist releasing music 4 the first time must be terrifying in 2017. In 2012 it was so simple, release on Soundcloud and work it
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
oh of course! Every artist should make their music available everywhere. An artist can't promote every dsp tho
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
yeah it's never ending. These flux periods are always the most interesting though
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
@ktkeogh yeah thats always been the model. Reach on soundcloud is just dropping and listeners are starting to abandon it. It's not as clear
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
no the entire point is that 5 years ago everyone would have had the same opinion. Right now is interesting because of that
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
im not saying anything is missing. its an exciting time and easier to be compensated than it has been for 15+ years
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
this part i disagree with. soundcloud's feed used to be amazing. spotify's discovery playlists ARE amazing. I think people use them
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
right, this is my entire point. There's a dude living next door to you that only uses iTunes and another on Bandcamp
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 20, 2017
thats my whole point. There's entire genres that ignore big platforms like spotify and survive – unprecedented
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 21, 2017
exactly. There's never been a time in the music industry where so many platforms existed with paths to success
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 21, 2017
you're DEFINITELY missing the point if you're putting music out in 2017 and not putting it everywhere
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 21, 2017
spotify is not expensive! On tunecore $10 gets your music on EVERY service. If you can't sell 10 singles well…
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 21, 2017
there's a big need for a fully free service that supports using copywritten material for sure
— Goldroom (@goldroom) March 21, 2017
As you can see, this is a transitional period for music. There isn’t a right way nor a wrong way and things have changed majorly. It is interesting to see what will come out of all of this and very interesting by Goldroom!