From the ‘Sad But True’ department: the road to music stardom has a lot of debris by its wayside. Sometimes the best advice on how to sell music comes from what not to do on your path to success. So, let’s take a look today at the three most common ways bands and artists lose their potential and themselves.
1 – Drugs, Alcohol, and Other Abuses Moder
ation, people. Whatever your poison, engage in it responsibly. There’s no faster way to wreck a music career -as well as your body, finances, and/or sanity- than using your profits to fuel abusive addictions. Dave Gahan is the exception, not the rule.
2 – Egotism While I haven’t exactly had the boys down in the lab run these numbers, I’d say that after “addictions,” the second-leading cause of bands going bad is people’s egos. Whether it’s that time Emerson, Lake, and Palmer released three solo albums posing as an ELP album, or the sad breakup of David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel, power and personal issues can quickly go to a band’s head. Our advice is to do like Queen did and pull it together in times of strife: When arguments over personal royalty rights started to threaten the band, they simply began crediting everything to “Queen” and splitting profits evenly four ways.
3 – Turning On The Fans And speaking of egos… Sure, Roger Waters’ spitting on a fan ultimately created the last great classic concept album, but most of the time, feuding with your fans only ends in disaster. For example: The Once and Future Artist Known as Prince. If you missed it, he recently became an online pariah for launching a $22 million dollar lawsuit against a few bloggers uploading concert boots to YouTube. (He quickly dropped the charges.) Whatever beef you might have with the fans, be polite about it. They pay your bills.
How To Sell Music Online Of course, these days the best way to move tracks and build your fanbase is to do so online! If you haven’t moved into all the online stores, check out Songcast for simple and affordable online music distribution.
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