State Champ Radio marketing
BMG has entered into a strategic partnership with the TUM School of Management as it looks to fast-track the implementation of artificial intelligence across the Berlin-based company’s marketing campaigns for artists. BMG said in its announcement on Tuesday (Jan. 30) that it sees generative AI as a way to help manage the complex array of […]
Unless your name is Lainey Wilson, it can be pretty rough going as a woman in country music, especially at radio. That, of course, has been the case for the last several years, but the plight for women artists has not significantly improved despite multiple conversations, advocacy programs that promote women like CMT’s Next Women of Country and a considerable amount of handwringing about the situation over the past decade.
When the talented and extremely hard-working Wilson won entertainer of the year at November’s Country Music Association Awards, it was the first time a woman had taken home the trophy since Taylor Swift in 2011. Wilson and Swift, who also won in 2009, are the only women to have won the award in the last two decades.
Wilson holds another distinction. For the last five weeks, she has been the only woman in the top 20 of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, but she’s not there for her own song — she’s listed as a featured artist on Jelly Roll’s “Save Me.” She is also the only woman to take songs to No. 1 on the chart as an unaccompanied solo artist in the last two years, with “Things a Man Oughta Know” in 2021 and this year’s “Watermelon Moonshine.”
In addition to Wilson, whose “Heart Like a Truck” rose to No. 2 on the Country Airplay chart this year, the only women to enter the Top 10 of the tally with solo hits in 2023 were Carly Pearce (“What He Didn’t Do,” No. 2), Megan Moroney (“Tennessee Orange,” No. 4) and Gabby Barrett (“Pick Me Up,” No. 6).
A 2019 study helmed by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that just 16% of artists were female across the top 500 country songs from 2014-2018. In a 2023 survey of 29 country radio stations in top markets conducted by Jan Diehm of The Pudding and Dr. Jada Watson, songs from women were played back-to-back an average of just 0.5% of the time in 2022. Numbers are even bleaker for artists of color. A 2021 SongData study by Watson titled “Redlining in Country Music” found BIPOC artists earned only 2.3% of country radio airplay over the past 19 years, with BIPOC women earning less than 3% of that small percentage.
“I’m in an industry that is trying so hard to not change,” says country singer Brittney Spencer, who is Black. “I’m so excited about putting out my new album, but when I look at the landscape of this industry, it kind of pulls some of that excitement away a little bit.”
It’s no wonder that a number of women artists are rethinking their role in the country music industry.
Maren Morris has been the highest profile act to distance herself. In October, the singer-songwriter switched from longtime label home Sony Music Nashville to the label’s pop counterpart and told the New York Times, “I felt like I don’t want to say goodbye, but I really cannot participate in the really toxic arms of this institution anymore.”
She’s hardly the only one. In December 2022, Cassadee Pope, whose “Think of You” with Chris Young reached No. 1 on Country Airplay in 2016, said she was “moving away from the country space” and returning to her pop-rock roots. By the time Kalie Shorr — known for her 2016 country hit “Fight Like a Girl” and a member of weekly writers round Song Suffragettes — posted in September on X, “Hey Nashville, have you noticed how many women have left country music? Even some of the most successful ones? Is that enough for you to change?,” she had already decamped from Nashville for Los Angeles.
Then last month, Black female country trio and America’s Got Talent finalist Chapel Hart, whose song “You Can Have Him, Jolene” earned love from Dolly Parton, posted a video on social media, saying while they will continue making country music, they “are no longer competing in the industry” after a wake-up call while attending the CMA Awards.
“Every single [executive] knew who Chapel Hart was,” said Chapel Hart member Danica Hart in the video. “Exciting news for us, but also sad news, because for us that means everyone knows who we are and we still don’t have a record deal, we still don’t have a publishing deal, we still don’t have sponsorships. We’re so busy trying to keep up in an industry who isn’t even acknowledging us.”
Yet despite tremendous obstacles, women artists and industry executives are finding creative solutions to keep new female voices in the forefront.
In late 2014, industry leaders Beverly Keel, Leslie Fram and Tracy Gershon formed Change the Conversation to address gender inequality in country music. Nearly 10 years later, Gershon says, “I do see improvement in signings [to labels], but no improvement for women in radio play. I am hopeful as I see some of the majors not banking on radio as the only way to break artists.”
Labels tell Billboard they aren’t slowing in signing women artists, they are just trying to be smarter about ways to grow their audiences. “Statistics tell us that not much has changed for the success rate of females in country, even though we’ve stopped talking about it quite as much,” says Katie McCartney, GM of Sony-distributed Monument Records. As Gershon suggests, Monument continues to be bullish on women artists: half its roster is female.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to stop signing females,” McCartney says. But she does think labels have to think differently about how to break women.
Instead of taking “Shoot Tequila,” the first single from new sister duo Tigirlily Gold, to radio in isolation, Monument broadened its promotional reach. “What we have decided is that our [radio promotion] regionals can’t go into a market and just visit radio, they have to go into a market and make contacts with the sports teams, brand folks, chambers of commerce, the tourism boards,” McCartney says. “There are charity aspects that we have drilled into in each of these markets. We started with the top 20 markets and sort of build out from there and Tigirlily was the first pass we took with this new approach.” “Shoot Tequila” reached No. 47 on the Country Airplay chart.
While this method is used for all artists on the roster now regardless of gender, McCartney says, “We definitely talked about how much better this would set [Tigirlily] up for success.”
Additionally, instead of doing a traditional radio tour, Lee Jeans sponsored Tigirlily’s concert tour in the top 20 markets that also tied in with the duo visiting hospitals through Musicians on Call and singing the National Anthem at sporting events. Because Tigirlily had built up a considerable social media following even before they were signed, fans were invited to text a community number to find out the show location. All the steps “elevated their profile to a degree that we would not have been able to do without all of these things firing at once,” McCartney says.
Spencer has also tried to build her following by getting close up with her audience. Stagecoach, which Spencer is playing in 2024, sponsored her Heaux Down party at a Los Angeles club in November, which featured line dancing and a sneak listen to her Elektra album coming in January. “I just want to get directly with fans,” she says. “I don’t need to throw a song in your face. I’d rather just party and walk around with a tray of drinks and talk to people and hear their stories.”
Spencer, who also held a Heaux Down in New York, says more such intimate events are planned based on where her fans are. “There are so many cool analytics that lets you know where people are listening to you. I know my top five cities where people listen to my music.”
Monument artist Pillbox Patti, who is known for her outsized personality, has also looked to the road instead of radio, touring with Jelly Roll, Koe Wetzel and Old Crow Medicine Show. “They’re really understanding her and she’s sort of going in with the group of people that she fits with, and that consumer really responds well to that authenticity,” McCartney says.
Similarly flamboyant act Hannah Dasher also got creative in putting herself in front of fans. Even before she parted ways with Sony Music Nashville this year, she would “crash” tailgate parties prior to concerts by Eric Church, Brothers Osborne and Jon Pardi to perform for fans who had gathered for their shows.
“One of my fans donated a flatbed F-350 truck and I drove that to concerts and played in the parking lots,” Dasher says.
Joining tours outside of the country genre has also been a successful strategy for women artists in building audiences. A few years ago, Morris opened for Niall Horan, Kacey Musgraves opened for Harry Styles and Cam opened for Sam Smith. More recently, Kelsea Ballerini played with the Jonas Brothers and Ingrid Andress played with Stevie Nicks. Spencer shared bills or sat in with Bruce Springsteen, Megan Thee Stallion, Lauryn Hill and Bob Weir. “I’ve gotten exposure in these different places and it’s a very vast audience,” Spencer says.
In another example of this strategy, CAA agent Sabrina Butera placed Lauren Alaina on the Pentatonix tour this year. “Normally people might not pair them together, but it was one of those conversations we were having about [both having] fanbases that started from television,” she says. (Big Loud artist Alaina appeared on American Idol and Pentatonix appeared on The Sing-Off.) “She had them in the palm of her hand by the end of the set. I could tell from comments on her socials and from the people that were in the Pentatonix audience that she was gaining new fans. We really try to think outside the box for things like that to keep the artists excited.”
Social media has also played a vital role in building audiences. Beyond promoting her music, Dasher’s Stand By Your Pan cooking series on TikTok has helped bolster her followers on the platform to over 1.5 million.
“I couldn’t play shows [during COVID], so I made social media my stage,” says Dasher. “I’ve always loved cooking and I thought, ‘Well, there are a lot of women my age and younger that don’t know how to cook and now everyone is sheltered at home, so I decided to make cooking videos and include music to promote my music and other music that I love.”
Dasher, who self-released the 7-song The Other Damn Half in October, teamed with online influencer Cornbread Cowboi on multiple video clips, including “Redneck Ass,” a fan-favorite that they cross-promoted across both of their social platforms.
“A lot of artists lean heavily into their social media,” Butera says, adding that Alaina’s “TikTok growth has been 69%, which is fabulous. She’s leaning into viral moments, partnering with other artists, especially on ‘Thicc as Thieves’ with Lainey Wilson.”
Branding deals are also propelling women artists as companies look to work with more country artists. Recently, Alaina teamed with Barstool Sports Academy, Maddie & Tae aligned with Chevy, Ballerini and Wilson partnered with Sonic and Priscilla Block worked on a summer capsule collection with Shein.
“The fanbase for country music has expanded quite a bit, which is opening up brands [to country],” Butera says. “Brands are noticing that our artists go above and beyond to perform for the brands. Sometimes we start with a very small partnership with these brands, maybe a teaser just to really build those relationships, and a lot of them end up turning into a long-term partnership, which is a really great goal to have.”
For Dasher, radio play may not be part of her path. “I’ve never been on a radio tour in my life. I don’t know that radio is going to be the route for me,” she says. “I would welcome that, but I’ve had to rely on other outlets to put my music out there. But I think my TikTok and Instagram following is proof that what I do is working.”
McCartney says there are also no plans to take Pillbox Patti to radio. “She’s not palatable to mainstream country radio,” she says. “She’s very relatable and very real, but I don’t know that a 45-year-old mom would be okay with their children hearing a lot of the things she talks about in her songs.”
With radio not seeming receptive to most women artists regardless of the subject matter, McCartney stresses that females will have to continue finding their own way. It’s a notion Gershon agrees with, advising women to “find your unique voice and vision. Don’t depend on country radio and [know] women still have to work harder.”
Most conversations around AI in music are focused on music creation, protecting artists and rightsholders, and differentiating human-made music from machine-made works. And there is still discourse to be had as AI has some hidden superpowers waiting to be explored. One use for the technology that has immense potential to positively impact artists is music marketing.
As generative and complementary AI is becoming a larger part of creative works in music, marketing will play a larger role than ever before. Music marketing isn’t just about reaching new and existing fans and promoting upcoming singles. Today, music marketing must establish an artist’s ownership of their work and ensure that the human creatives involved are known, recognized, and appreciated. We’re about to see the golden age of automation for artists who want to make these connections and gain this appreciation.
While marketing is a prerequisite to a creator’s success, it takes a lot of time, energy, and resources. Creating engaging content takes time. According to Linktree’s 2023 Creator Report, 48% of creators who make $100-500k per year spend more than 10 hours on content creation every week. On top of that, three out of four creators want to diversify what they create but feel pressure to keep making what is rewarded by the algorithm. Rather than fighting the impossible battle of constantly evolving and cranking out more content to match what the algorithm is boosting this week, creatives can have a much greater impact by focusing on their brand and making high-quality content for their audience.
For indie artists without support from labels and dedicated promotion teams, the constant pressure to push their new single on TikTok, post on Instagram, and engage with fans while finding the time to make new music is overwhelming. The pressure is only building, thanks to changes in streaming payouts. Indie artists need to reach escape velocity faster.
Megh Vakharia
AI-powered music marketing can lighten that lift–generating campaign templates and delivering to artists the data they need to reach their intended audience. AI can take the data that artists and creators generate and put it to work in a meaningful way, automatically extracting insights from the information and analytics to build marketing campaigns and map out tactics that get results.
AI-driven campaigns can give creators back the time they need to do what they do best: create. While artificial intelligence saves artists time and generates actionable solutions for music promotion, it is still highly dependent on the artist’s input and human touch. Just as a flight captain has to set route information and parameters before switching on autopilot, an artist enters their content, ideas, intended audience, and hopeful outcome of the marketing campaign. Then, using this information, the AI-powered marketing platform can provide all of the data and suggestions necessary to produce the targeted results.
Rather than taking over the creative process, AI should be used to assist and empower artists to be more creative. It can help put the joy back into what can be a truly fun process — finding, reaching, and engaging with fans.
A large portion of artists who have tapped into AI marketing have never spent money on marketing before, but with the help of these emerging tools, planning and executing effective campaigns is more approachable and intuitive. As the music industry learns more about artificial intelligence and debates its ethical implications in music creation, equal thought must be given to the opportunities that it unlocks for artists to grow their fanbases, fuel more sustainable careers, and promote their human-made work.
Megh Vakharia is the co-founder and CEO of SymphonyOS, the AI-powered marketing platform empowering creatives to build successful marketing campaigns that generate fan growth using its suite of smart, automated marketing tools.
When artists announce a new tour, ticket sales tend to exhibit a pattern: An initial surge of fan enthusiasm followed by a gradual decline in interest.
So, Tim Collins, who manages the Swedish artist Benjamin Ingrosso, was surprised to see demand for tickets to see his client increase throughout his summer tour. “At the beginning of the tour, we hadn’t sold out,” Collins says. “With every show we did, interest in him became bigger. And it was mainly because of how TikTok talked about him throughout the tour.”
TikTok marketing has been a central part of promoting music for more than three years at this point, almost entirely reshaping record labels’ strategy. When the platform started to regularly mint hit singles in 2020, however, the concert business was mostly shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic and shows didn’t get the same sort of attention.
This year, though, TikTok has become the new frontier for marketing tours. “Traditional promoters are starting to really wake up to it,” says Sanu Hariharan, co-head of music partnerships at Creed Media, a marketing company focused on Gen Z.
“It’s opened up a new revenue model for me,” adds Johnny Cloherty, co-founder of the digital marketing company Songfluencer. “A lot of the heavier touring acts are interested in, ‘I’ll pay a handful of creators to come to my VIP section to film content with me backstage to help sell tickets.’ We can get influencers to talk about the merch and do promotion that way.”
What took so long? “In general, live music lags behind the rest of marketing,” according to William Van Orsdel, chief growth officer of the live promotions company Breakaway. “Larger companies out there can’t change the way they’ve been doing things because they’ve always been doing them that way” — relying on tried-and-true techniques like print advertisements, billboards and posters.
Sure enough, Cloherty says when he pitched live music companies on using modern TikTok marketing techniques in 2019 and 2020, he “got laughed out of the room.” “People were like, ‘No way are you going to do this,’” he recalls. But, Van Orsdel continues, “you can’t market in just one silo and expect to be successful.”
The saturation of the post-COVID touring market has also spurred artist managers and event promotion companies to try new concert-marketing techniques. Prices are high; competition for fans is fierce. “The interest in seeing shows is bigger than ever before,” Collins says. “But at the same time, the financial situation is worse than ever before in regards to what you actually can afford to go to. To win a fan, you really have to stand out.”
On top of that, labels have started to see that a tour with buzz leads to streaming gains for the artist on the road, which ultimately helps the record company’s bottom line. Labels don’t participate in artists’ touring income — unless the artist has signed a “360 deal” — which often disincentivizes them from investing in their acts’ live business. “What they’ve realized is that there’s a correlation between having a tour or a set of shows that are relevant and streaming,” Hariharan says.
“Touring goes hand in hand with cultural significance,” adds Andy Serrao, president of Fearless Records. “The moments that are created on touring or in festivals, those don’t just happen and go away. We don’t participate in our artists’ touring revenue, but what we can do to drive the rest of our marketing going into releasing new music is huge.”
Those “moments” from a show depend a lot on the charisma of the artist on stage, of course. “If people are seeing you live and not filming you, that’s a bad sign,” Serrao says.
But marketers can work to make sure that anything exciting that happens is talked about by as many people as possible. “Having influencers at the show is the most important piece of it, because they are really essentially megaphones for the tour,” says Laura Spinelli, digital marketing manager at Shopkeeper Management. “Within the past year, this has become something that we’ve devoted a more significant budget to” for artists like Miranda Lambert and Tenille Townes.
Creed Media recently ran a two-week campaign in Europe for the group Chase Atlantic, using influencers to “create and convey a sense of hype and FOMO around the experience of going to their show,” Hariharan explains. “We wanted to do this early in the tour so that we’re getting consistent relevance and engagement as the tour progresses.” The most successful post — about a guy who takes his girlfriend to see Chase Atlantic — earned nearly 3 million views.
Demand for this sort of marketing is on the rise. “It feels very similar right now to a few years ago when we were trying to convince our label partners to really see the value in influencer marketing for their releases,” Hariharan. “Talking about what we can do for live and touring is a fresh new thing.”
“I’ve gone to a lot of country labels and management companies with this,” Cloherty adds. “Entering 2023 marketing anything without an influencer plan doesn’t seem like it’s very holistic, and that’s especially true if you’re trying to get a younger audience.”
ONErpm Nashville has launched a joint venture with Huff Co., a production company spearheaded by brothers Dann Huff and David Huff, to help guide artists from various musical genres into the marketplace.
Dann, a Billboard producer of the decade honoree, will be at the helm, with creative input from David, as they produce artists signed to the joint venture. Meanwhile, ONErpm will fund production and oversee distribution and marketing for the artists. Artists will be signed directly to the joint venture, with ONErpm acting as a record label and co-owning the master recordings.
Tim Wipperman, the MD for ONErpm Nashville, previously spent nearly three decades as the head of Warner Bros. Music. He also served as CEO of Rezonant Music and then as president of Anthem Music Publishing Nashville.
“For some artists, the traditional model isn’t viable or necessary,” Wipperman tells Billboard. “There are advantages and disadvantages to working within that kind of corporate structure, and there are a lot of advantages to working outside of that corporate structure with a more nimble organization. We did 70 billion Spotify streams last month and 20 billion YouTube streams, so this company has leverage and reach.”
Musician and producer Dann has played on and/or produced recordings by Barbra Streisand, Reba McEntire, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Megadeth and more. He has won the CMA musician of the year honor three times as well as CMA Awards for his production work on CMA single of the year-winning songs in 2016 (Thomas Rhett’s “Die a Happy Man”) and 2017 (Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color”). Dann will continue to produce artists outside of the joint venture.
David’s resume includes work as a producer, music director, consultant and artist development executive. In the studio, he’s collaborated with Rhett, The Smashing Pumpkins, Avicii, Sheryl Crow, Twain, Michael W. Smith and more.
Though specific artist signings will be revealed later, Dann tells Billboard that he expects the joint venture will ultimately work with a mix of new artists who have made an impact in the streaming arena as well as established artists seeking more freedom than they can get in a typical label deal structure.
“Because I have this long history in Nashville, there’s been talk of finding homes for some of these artists that maybe aren’t [still] in the mainstream, doing what they’ve done through the course of their career, but they are very viable in the sense that they have active audiences who want new music,” Dann says. “I like the fact that not everything has to go through the prism of being radio-driven. It just opens so much more…for someone who loves music, there’s nothing better.”
Wipperman adds, “We want ONErpm to be at the forefront of finding new ways to build careers. When artists look at a non-major [label operation], there’s a concern about production and the ability of a non-major to leverage what they are doing. I think getting into business with producers [with] the quality of Dann and David, that eliminates one of those impediments. You grow a company by creating alliances with talented people.”
ONErpm’s services include music distribution, marketing support, publishing, accounting and global payment systems. The company operates in 43 offices around the world, with more than 500 staffers globally. Artists currently working with the company include country artist William Michael Morgan, reggae artist I-Octane, Jamaican dancehall superstar Sean Paul, pop band Nightly, singer-songwriter Jay Allen, singer-songwriter Chance Peña and Americana artists Mark and Maggie O’Connor.
Over the course of 15 years, MPT Agency, founded by Raffi Keuhnelian and Anto Dotcom, has mastered the art of getting artists heard and discovered by fans across the globe. The music publicity, promotion and marketing agency serves as a bridge between music executives and artists that can create longevity by accelerating their careers. Together, Keuhnelian and Dotcom have grown an agency that has succeeded with a range of international acts from A-listers to garage bands. As they continue to grow this roster, they use digital tools to stay ahead of the curve.
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Artists have been finding their wings with the company since its first office opened in Montreal, Canada. Now the team works with acts from the three major labels as well as hundreds of emerging artists, shaping their stories and images they need to make their mark in the industry.
One of their many success stories is Colin Brittain, who went from being a hobbyist producer to supporting artists in their journey to the Billboard charts. After a brief exposure campaign and strategic collaboration with MPT Agency, the young producer built a presence that attracted collaborators including Papa Roach, 5 Seconds of Summer, and the Jonas Brothers.
This year has been defined by the explosion of non-western music markets. With a team of 20 across four continents, Keuhnelian and Dotcom have their eyes set on the next billion streamers. In 2023, MPT Agency worked with Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment to ignite careers in Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Japan, Ukraine, Korea, and Nigeria. These efforts generated over 1.2 billion views a month and resulted in three major label signings. Most notably, MPT Agency recently supported K-pop group FIFTY FIFTY in its inclusion on the Barbie soundtrack. Keuhnelian and Dotcom’s efforts have proven that the music business is a global affair and they are leading the new trend.
Raffi Keuhnelian of MPT Agency
Chris Carpenter
As the music business continues to expand globally, consumption habits are evolving with it. MPT Agency’s hybrid approach combines exposure marketing and career development to help artists develop sustainable careers in a modern music landscape that prizes virality. “Premium streamers are a niche of the past,” Keuhnelian explains, “Today the ultimate engaged fans are the communities, the listening groups, tastemakers, influencers, bloggers, and readers; they hold the balance of power in a song’s viral uptake. When it comes to igniting a career overseas, harnessing the power of these communities can build overnight empires if the sound is right.” MPT Agency approaches fanbase creation and growth by integrating artist branding with niche communities everywhere, from the traditional social media landscape of YouTube Shorts, TikTok & Instagram, to the self-propelled communities on Reddit, Discord and key music blogs.
The globalization of the music industry has been accelerated by technology, a fact that MPT Agency not only recognizes but incorporates into its mission. Dotcom and Keuhnelian further committed themselves to being ahead of the curve when they launched the Virtual Publicist service, which leverages AI, databases and more to streamline publicity campaign management and outreach. This unique platform gives users affordable and accessible support as they navigate their careers.
Anto Dotcom of MPT Agency
Chris Carpenter
“Artists and labels need to partner with us fully, or their tracks will miss the beat,” says Dotcom. “While leveraging their streaming presence to conquer global markets is just the beginning, it is the hands-on development we give debut artists that allows them to navigate those once-in-a-lifetime situations. Meeting managers, executives, and publishers—this is what the artist needs to do with the presence and exposure we are giving them. We build the foundations for what will be a chart-topping career and make sure their network is hooked on the message.”
In an ever-shifting market, Anto Dotcom and Raffi Keuhnelian have reimagined the path artists must follow to reach their dreams. If you are primed for the spotlight, look to leverage Keuhnelian and Dotcom’s marketing expertise by visiting MPT Agency and Virtual Publicist.
Why have so few major new pop stars emerged lately? The music-buying public has thoughts.
For the Aug. 2 Billboard story, “Pop Stars Aren’t Popping Like They Used To — Do Labels Have a Plan?”, reporter Elias Leight spoke with label executives and managers to try to understand the dearth of new superstars, with Olivia Rodrigo and Ice Spice cited as rare examples of new artists to have broken through over the past couple of years. Reasons given for the decline ranged from the practice of signing more artists at labels, to the lessening marketing power of radio, to increased competition for time and attention from video games and social media — with some sources concluding that expectations for mass market appeal should be lowered in today’s more fragmented media landscape.
Due in part to an Aug. 8 tweet by widely-followed pop culture account Pop Base, however, online chatter around the story exploded, with users on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit offering their own opinions on the relative absence of new stars with the mass appeal of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Harry Styles and Lady Gaga. Here are a few of the most prominent and interesting takes.
It’s All TikTok’s Fault
The most common reason given for the scarcity of new pop stars was TikTok, which was blamed for all but killing traditional artist development.
“They need to stop signing people based off of a couple viral tiktok videos, churning out fast food music and work with real artists with longevity,” wrote @internetmaeve on X. “like Olivia didn’t blow up overnight she was a disney kid?? s– takes time.”
The ephemeral nature of the short-form video platform — a significant change from a radio-dominated business, when songs in rotation on Top 40 stations were inescapable — was cited as a factor by Reddit user @anneoftheisland, weighing in on the r/popheads channel where the article was shared: “TikTok isn’t set up to boost artists, it’s set up to boost individual songs…In the radio era, if a hit broke out, labels had significant sway to get that artist’s second and third songs in front of you … they couldn’t force you to like those songs, but they could force you to listen to them. But that’s a lot harder to do in the streaming/TikTok era. If you hear a song you like on TikTok, there’s a large chance you won’t hear that artist’s second/third singles unless you seek them out yourself.”
On the same Reddit thread, @Interesting-Ad9838 said that artists who break through on TikTok simply don’t have the cross-generational impact as in previous eras, thereby limiting their influence. “The general audience don’t know who these artists are anymore,” they wrote. “If my grandparents know who you are, then you definitely made it.”
Record Labels Are Too Risk-Averse
Another common theme, which ties in with concerns about TikTok, is the complaint that labels are increasingly risk-averse, preferring to sign artists with preexisting fanbases rather than putting the time, energy and money into developing them from the ground up.
“Mind you there are artists on…labels right now probably begging to have full label support and funding for their projects,” said X user @waylojan. “The problem is they’re looking elsewhere instead of bolstering the talent they have.”
“The industry wants quick and fast and isn’t giving, in my opinion, some people who could really do this the right chance,” added Reddit user @moxieroxsox on the r/popheads thread. “It took Rihanna 3 albums before she skyrocketed. Taylor Swift wasn’t taken seriously until what? Speak Now? Red? Ariana did Broadway and TV before she started music and she has the voice of a literal angel. Beyoncé spent years tailoring her sound, not to mention all the years she spent developing her abilities in Destiny’s Child.”
Record Labels Are Doing This On Purpose
Provocatively, a Reddit user (who has a rather provocative handle we won’t name here for reasons of decorum) positioned the pop star drought as something engineered by labels to avoid paying the kind of money they gave superstars like Janet Jackson and Madonna in the old days.
“When you have stars that have a lot of momentum behind their career, and they have a lot of prestige, and they have a large and solid fanbase, they get to demand more from labels,” they wrote. “If you have stars with much shorter careers…and shorter reigns in public interest, you don’t have somebody who can walk into a negotiation, and demand more on their side of the deal with the label.”
Our Attention Is Too Fragmented
Audience fragmentation, precipitated in part by the rise of social media influencers, was also a theme hit upon by several commenters.
“It’s probably hard when everyone can be famous now on TikTok,” said X user @kariwarburgon. “It’s like that one quote from The Incredibles ‘Once everyone is super no one is.’”
With so many platforms to release and consume music now, Reddit user itsyagurlb says public attention has simply become more diffuse — making it more difficult for artists to achieve stratospheric levels of fame.
“As someone else here has mentioned, we no longer have ‘smash’ hits from major pop stars that are inescapable, and so even with the rise of streaming, it’s much easier for people to tune out of today’s ‘hit’ song,” they wrote. “We consume music differently now which also impacts how pervasive a song can be because of how individualized our streaming choices can be. Even in the age of iTunes, hits were more impactful because if you wanted to hear the hot new song, you might pay for it. Now? I can listen to a minute of the song on spotify without any real investment and move on if I dont vibe with it, and there’s been no ‘sale.’”
Added Reddit user @BronzeErupt, citing one of the most powerful promotional vehicles of the late ’90s and early ’00s: “There’s no modern equivalent of TRL where a song can be deliberately played and suddenly everyone knows about it.”
Music Is Boring/Bad Now
Predictably, some social media users slammed the state of modern popular music. “I want to blame TikTok for this, but truthfully I think the root of the problem is how boring, dull and unoriginal modern-pop music sounds like,” said Reddit user TuffyTenToes. “They aren’t popping off because there is nothing to be popping off for. Perhaps I’m doomposting but it truly feels like pop music is in an all time low, creatively speaking.”
“Too many people mistake tik tok earworms for musical talent,” added @LSX3399 on Reddit. “No albums anymore, no concepts, no risks. Over-saturation of mid.”
It’s Taylor Swift’s Fault
Is the real problem…Taylor Swift? According to Reddit user @LifeOfAWimpyKid, the uber-popstar of the 21st century is simply taking up too much space in the conversation for other artists to break through.
“I feel like Taylor Swift has singlehandedly saturated the pop market to the point where the entire industry has become boring as s— and not fun for other artists to participate in,” they wrote. “Taylor is not without merit, but now it’s just Taylor, Taylor, Taylor all the time. Her fans are very vocal and active too and dominate the conversation, and all the other opinions just get drowned out. This was hardly the case a decade ago, when you had multiple acts coexisting at the top, such as Rihanna, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, David Guetta, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Calvin Harris, and Eminem.”
This Is Actually a Good Thing
Breaking from the pack, X user @fromage_enjoyer couched the struggle to mint new pop stars as a positive development, marking a shift from the days when radio and MTV determined what people listened to: “The current generation is winning. We aren’t stuck with whatever big labels want to shove down our throats thanks to the internet. That has them scared since they lose profits, but for the artists and consumers it’s great,” they said, before hastening to add: “Streaming pay outs need to be talked about however.”
What does it mean to “break” an artist? It’s a question that has plagued the music industry in recent months. If a singer has billions of streams but walks down the street unrecognized, have they broken? Is a lone billion-stream single enough, or is a second hit required as proof of staying power? And what if an artist racks up multiple hits but can’t pull off a major headlining tour?
The consensus among label executives is that the last pop artist to break big was Olivia Rodrigo, who had four top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits during 2021 and debuted at No. 1 on the chart with “Vampire” in July 2023. It’s a track record, they say, that today makes her seem like a unicorn.
“Nobody knows how to break music right now,” one senior executive laments. “I think they’re all lost.”
“There is a need and a desire for new artists that have real substance — artists that are more than just a song, that we can really lean into, buy concert tickets, buy [merchandise],” says J. Erving, a manager and founder of the artist services and distribution company Human Re Sources.
“Each person I talk to in the industry is more depressed [about this] than the person I talked to before them,” says another manager.
This melancholy flies in the face of some bright spots. As of July 1, 14 artists had cracked the Hot 100’s top 10 for the first time, a varied group that includes the Nigerian singer Rema, the American rapper Coi Leray, the country powerhouse Bailey Zimmerman, and the regional Mexican star Peso Pluma. That number is already more than double the six newcomers (plus the Encanto cast) who entered the top 10 over the same six-month period last year — seemingly a sign that the industry can still catapult young talent into the popular consciousness.
Genrewise, country is buzzing, and Pluma is at the forefront of a regional Mexican boom. “There are artists breaking. It’s just that they’re in different genres, not typical pop,” one major-label A&R executive says. Pop’s current genre share dropped from 12.87% at the start of the year to 10.69% at the mid-point, according to Luminate.
Still, many music executives remain worried about stagnation beyond a single musical style. They scan the landscape and see “moments,” as one put it, that can fade, rather than genuine breakthroughs that endure. “A lot of people have this bleak mindset,” a second major-label A&R executive says. Even pop radio is seeing “historic lows” in consensus hits, according to radio veteran Guy Zapoleon, which has led to “a bear market for new music.”
Dylan Bourne, who manages rapper JELEEL!, among others, expresses a common industry sentiment: “I see one act that has broken through this year, and that’s Ice Spice.” He adds, “The fears and concerns that people were having last year have only increased.”
Some blame the meager number of big breakthroughs on label decisions. According to the first A&R executive, “Labels signed more and signed worse than ever before in the decade-plus I’ve been at a major.”
Some cite the precipitous decline of mass media like radio and the maddening unpredictability of TikTok. And some attribute the feeling of industry inertia to the exhausting intensity of competing for attention in a world where gamers and influencers wield as much clout as music artists, if not more.
“Every issue that we’re facing right now comes down to oversaturation,” Bourne says. “People are just buried in content.”
“You know when you go camping and someone pulls out a guitar, and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God. Can you please stop?’ ” grouses a third A&R. “That guy is on [digital service providers] now.”
In addition to those factors, executives say, a hit doesn’t mean what it used to. It’s common to hear grumbles about young acts who have hundreds of millions of plays of a single but can’t fill a small room for a live performance. “It’s easier [today] for folks to be passive fans,” Erving says. “For you to consider yourself really broken, people need to care about you beyond the song. Where is the connectivity? Are people really dialed in in a deeper way?”
As a result of these shifts, some executives argue that the industry needs to change the way it thinks about breaking artists. As one A&R executive puts it: “Maybe there aren’t as many players slugging home runs, but there are more producing a steady stream of singles and doubles.”
Talya Elitzer, co-founder of label and management company Godmode, works with rapper JPEGMafia, who she says “hasn’t had a traditional hit in a commercial sense.” Even so, “his business is enormous,” she adds. “We sold 15,000 vinyl records from his web store in 24 hours. He sells seven figures in merch.”
Another act climbing into this camp is Laufey, a Berklee-trained jazz singer and multi-instrumentalist who has amassed fans with swooning bossa nova and a lively TikTok presence. 18-ish months after Laufey released her debut EP, she was the number-one selling artist in terms of merch in small-cap rooms in 2022, according to Atvenu, the payment processing system which handles transactions at 125,000 shows a year. She sold out a fall tour where the average room fit 1,500 fans. “Some fans show up dressed like her,” says her manager, Max Gredinger.
Bourne believes that “if you’re an artist earning well into seven figures a year repeatedly on an annual basis, you’ve broken to a certain degree.” But he acknowledges “that is a different recognition of what breaking means” relative to the one that much of the industry still relies on.
That’s partially because ticket and merch numbers don’t matter as much to most labels. Unless an artist signs a 360 deal — which are increasingly out of favor with managers and lawyers — record companies are not getting a cut of those revenue streams. Labels tend to earn the bulk of their money from streams, downloads and old-fashioned sales.
The industry is “slowly moving” toward a different concept of breaking, one entertainment attorney says. “People are celebrating the mid-level breaks as if it’s the biggest thing in the world, because that’s what you get these days.”
Steve Cooper, former CEO of Warner Music Group, said last year that the company had taken steps to lessen its “dependency on superstars.” One way the major labels have done that is step up signings, with the goal of spreading growth across a larger number of artists rather than relying on a few tent-pole acts. In 2022, Hartwig Masuch, CEO of BMG, noted that his company’s business model “is designed to be robust enough not to need hits in order to survive.”
In addition, both major labels and streaming services are increasingly focused on identifying “superfans” and finding new ways to extract money from them. If these efforts are effective, the industry will be unable to avoid the reality that artists with small but passionate followings may generate more business than those with wide, shallow fan bases.
A study released by Spotify in July concluded that artists’ most dedicated followers — presumably the ones that might come to a show dressed like the performer — make up just 2% of their monthly listeners but generate 18% of their streams. Even more important: Those devotees account for 52% of merch sales.
For now, the uneasiness felt around the music industry is likely to persist. “The doomsday thing is comforting for people that don’t know what’s going to happen next,” says Kayode Badmus-Wellington, an A&R consultant for Def Jam. But he prefers to “revel in” the uncertainty. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he adds. “But I want to be a part of it.”
Neon 16’s co-founder/CEO Lex Borrero and Ntertain chairman Tommy Mottola teamed up to acquire Arro Media, a music marketing and social media agency that boasts a roster of clients like Adidas, Red Bull, NFL, XBOX, Bacardi, The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation and more.
Founded by Cristina Arcay, the company will be rebranded as AM16.
“We have built a growing agency that will redefine how brands connect their marketing and advertising to the Latin culture because we live it day in and day out,” said Borrero and Mottola in a press release. “Our team has a finger on the pulse of trends, uniquely positioned to spot them before they happen, across music, television and film. Today’s announcement further differentiates our capabilities from competitors and will bring an even more comprehensive offering to our clients and partners.”
AM16 will find the intersection between music, entertainment and culture. Together, they will bring Arro’s capabilities with Neon16’s “innovative approach to cultural storytelling and experiential activations,” they said. The merger will include brand strategy and partnerships, product development, content production, music marketing, social media management, digital marketing, public relations, creative design services and experiential events.
“Launching AM16 agency represents an exhilarating new chapter in my career and the future of Arro,” said Arcay, who is appointed as co-president. “As a Latina entrepreneur, being able to lead and learn alongside our new partners represents a huge opportunity to reshape the industry by championing diversity, elevating ideas and fostering cultural movements that resonate with audiences worldwide.”
Chief marketing officer and co-president Gerry Rojas added, “I feel empowered and excited to be working in a Latino-owned agency where we’re reimagining how brands and artists tell their stories authentically, while raising the Latin cultural currency and creating a true, positive impact rooted in music and culture.”
Neon16 works with A-listers such as Tainy, Thalia, Juan Luis Guerra and Danna Paola. Earlier this year, the company also played a key role in the Netflix Original series La Firma — a Latin music competition that sought to sign the next big Latin music star, featuring Tainy, Rauw Alejandro, Nicki Nicole, and Lex Borrero.
Borrero and Mottola also executive produced Thalia’s music docuseries, Thalia’s Mixtape, via Ntertain on Paramount+.
To TikTok, or not to TikTok, that is the question.
Plus, many more regarding the app’s instrumental role in making hits — and how an artist can participate in the process meaningfully — were addressed during “The Fight for Artistic Authenticity on TikTok” panel at SXSW 2023.
Moderated by Billboard‘s Lyndsey Havens, the panel featured experts Ash Stahl, CEO of TikTok-first creative studio Flighthouse; Alana Dolgin, head of influencer strategy at independent record label and influencer management company Homemade Projects; and Mekaila Morris, senior manager of creators & content at Interscope Records.
The conversation opened with stories of successful TikTok campaigns each panelist had worked on. Stahl remembered working on Surface‘s “Sunday Best,” the electro-pop duo’s vibrant 2019 track that became part of the first crop of TikTok smash hits the following year. “We had a team member just add in a little ad-lib at the beginning that was like, ‘2020 rewind’ and then just put this song at the end of it,” she said. “You can see this huge spike of millions of new listens on Spotify that, one year later, really reinvigorated the song.”
Dolgin described SAINt JHN‘s “Roses” (which was originally released in 2016 and later remixed by Kazakh producer Imanbek at the end of 2019) as being in the “first class of viral hits on TikTok” and mapped out the song’s trajectory to becoming a global anthem, starting in Russia and then spending $2,000 — “which obviously now we know is absolutely nothing in this space,” she said — to move it through the U.S. and ultimately around the world.
Dolgin explained that part of the artistic authenticity element on the platform is knowing when it’s not the right move to have the artist behind a trending song hop on TikTok and participate in whatever fanfare is elevating its exposure through UGC (user-generated content) and streams. “You don’t necessarily need to be on TikTok if you’re an artist. There’s so many songs that are going viral constantly that have nothing to do with the artist that when you try to bring the artist in it truly doesn’t make sense, I think it does more harm than good,” she said.
Having also had success working Cardi B’s “Up,” Dolgin added: “We use her voice all the time with ad-libs that go viral. Sure, she posts on TikTok sometimes, but she approves every sound snippet.”
Morris continued that thought, speaking about Machine Gun Kelly‘s 2022 single “Emo Girl,” featuring Willow, and how she worked closely with him to determine the most authentic ways for him to be on TikTok. “[With] taking the artists’ vision and learning how they want to represent themselves online, you have to understand the nature of the platform and what makes sense.”
Compared to labels’ close working relationships with artists, Stahl described Lighthouse as being “two degrees separated” from them. “I prefer working with artists that aren’t really looking to get on platform because it’s kind of difficult when we’re so separated,” she explained. “We’re not looking to make content, we’re looking to create success with music.”
“You can do both,” she continued. “You can find avenues to create really successful content, and sure, there might be a song that’s a really good fit for the platform as is, or you might need to throw in an ad-lib or make a little mash up. You can do that with the artists where it’s coming from their profile, or you can do that from finding an influencer that has a good fan base and have them launch the sound from their page or from the DSP release on platform.”
Stahl gave a compelling example. During the pandemic, she got her client — EDM producer Said the Sky, whom she’s been managing for the last nine years — to practice making TikTok videos. The result was a now-viral snippet (featuring an ad-lib that goes, “Wait, I can do that better,” followed by dubstep music), which, despite Said the Sky never wanting to officially distribute it, has now soundtracked more than 100,000 TikTok videos, according to Stahl.
When it comes to knowing when’s the right time to invest in a TikTok campaign, Morris discussed tapping into one’s intuition. She recalled how client Gracie Abrams‘ performance of “I Know It Won’t Work” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! went viral on TikTok. “Instead of focusing on what the single is for the project, it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re seeing internet culture touch this track and really, really resonate with it,” she said.
“If it’s moving, put f—nig money into it. That’s the best advice I could give to someone,” Stahl added. “Don’t be like, ‘Oh well, it’s already moving. We’ll just let it ride out.’ My advice would be if it’s moving, take full advantage. We know that it’s working in this specific niche or community on TikTok, let’s take that and try to do it in another niche, or let’s go find that community on a different platform and go for it again.”
From Dolgin’s perspective as someone who works exclusively with creators, it’s all about pairing the right influencers with song campaigns and “never about making the song go viral,” she said. “But, I will always guarantee that you’re getting the best influencers possible for the song and for the sound.”
Morris ultimately compared working in TikTok to working in stocks because of they’re constantly watching how songs and sounds are peaking and falling on the platform. “But you have to take the whole market into account,” she said. When it comes to forecasting trends regarding TikTok and the future of artists and their music on the platform, Stahl predicted there will be more “made by, made for TikTok” independent artists like JVKE who have no barrier to entry, while Dolgin said TikTok will champion specific creators and give them more resources to become successful like Alix Earle. Meanwhile, Morris explained how TikTok is culturally shifting to a more community-focused place.
“As genres start to merge as well, we’re going to start to lose these like clear identifiers, which is going to require people to really hone in on what they like and who they want to be and who they want to speak to,” she said. “And as more people get on TikTok, I think we’re going to have less of those big, big moments, but we’re going to have really valuable smaller moments within the communities with these artists, where they’re truly deeply connecting with people. Then it’s our job to bring those forward and become more consumable to the mainstream.”
Billboard’s parent company PMC is the largest shareholder of SXSW and its brands are official media partners of SXSW.
