✖️ Post Malone's streaming game 👾 Music marketing toolbox for pros 🛠️ Personal story about diversity 🦄

Hi everybody,

As announced recently, I’m experimenting with formats for this newsletter. This week I’m doing something much closer to the original format I had in mind for the newsletter when I started it two years ago. This means: no lead article. Instead, read the whole piece as if it’s my article.

You can leave feedback by using the buttons at the bottom 👍 👎. Thank you to everyone who’s been leaving feedback; unfortunately I haven’t found time to thank all of you personally, but I really appreciate it. 

(by the way, the reason why I don’t use more images, is because it makes Gmail cut off the bottom of the newsletter & then it messes up my stats, so I won’t know how I’m doing)

This week I’ll be at BIME in Bilbao. I’ll be speaking about the end of the app era, and moderating a panel on blockchain with an amazing line-up. 

Much love! Have a great week. 

Love,

Bas

The big trending topic this week is Post Malone’s Rockstar release. What did they do? They looped the chorus in a 4 minute video on YouTube, and added a link to the description to hear the track on Spotify or Apple Music (see for yourself). This way the snippet has been counted as tracks of the full song, which has helped the track top the charts.

The question everybody’s asking is: is this really fair? I personally don’t care about that question. What it says to me is that Mark Mulligan and The Orchard founder Scott Cohen have been on-point for years about the rise of 15-30 second music formats as a response to declining attention shares. Artists like Post Malone are of that generation, and their teams are trying to figure out how to make that compatible with the current streaming landscape (which is still based on older models).

Case-studies are nice, but it’s even better when you get something so you can get your own hands dirty. Welcome player 2 (that’s you!). 

Hand-in-hand with the rise of the 15 second song is the rise of the new generation of social media, such as Instagram and Snapchat (particularly the Stories feature, which I’ve been quite vocal about).

Downtown Records’ VP of Strategy, Amber Horsburgh, compiled an amazing amount of tools for music marketing. From analytics, to merch, productivity tools, emailing, and social media. Thanks for sending this in, Amber! (check out Amber’s new fortnightly newsletter about music strategy, called Deep Cuts.)

Not yet crunching away? Here’s a bonus link with 7 marketing strategies for Facebook Messenger.

I don’t always find it easy to speak out on these topics, but it’s necessary that we do. I was recently asked to join a conference panel about women in music, but it clashed with travel plans so I had to turn it down.

I’m not sure why they asked me (a white dude) to join, and the conversation never got to that point, but I think it’s important that the people who have it easier think about how they can shape environments to make everyone’s lives better. People in positions of privilege need to do better. 

This topic is very important to me (and if I can do better, let me know). About 10 years ago, I lived in Istanbul, Turkey for a while. As a foreigner, I stood out. Everywhere. Not everyone, but a very big minority of people thought it was ok if I was taken advantage of in some way. I saw a lot of fights happen while I lived there, and I knew if someone decides to attack me it’s always going to be MY fault in everyone else’s eyes. It was so bad that I even felt that if someone invaded my flat, it would still be considered my fault for living there as a foreigner. I never felt safe and felt like I always had to be humble and suddenly normal results from interactions felt like achievements. One night a friend and I were robbed at knifepoint, so we went to the police who blamed it on us for being in the street at night (a female friend managed to escape a kidnapping and she was blamed for taking a taxi by herself). I never felt at ease in that half year, but I lived in the knowledge that I could just leave. That’s privilege. And I never experienced that in my life before that, nor have I later, even when living in Bulgaria and Russia. That’s privilege too. For many people (more than you’d think), this is a normal part of every day life from which there is no escape. We can’t accept that. This knowledge should be unbearable to everyone.

Back to the music business, Karen Allen wrote this great piece about how you can secure a spot as a conference speaker. It’s great reading for everyone, and I hope it helps to contribute to more a more diverse music business (there’s a lot of work to do).

As I don’t have a lead article this week, perhaps consider sharing this edition of the newsletter using the buttons at the bottom? Thank you!

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📰 Last week: Spotify & the Roman slave trade 🏛️ Oculus Go: a VR game-changer? 🚀 Does music still work as social glue 👯