Audiomack Co-Founder Shares Priceless Insider Info for Artists ft. Brian “Z” Zisook

I think my most controversial music industry take is that if you ask me this question next week, my answer would be entirely different. Striving for superstardom, if that is your only goal, you're likely, if we just look at the numbers, going to fail to reach that goal. If you approach it that way, it doesn't feel salesy. You don't need to release albums. You don't need to release EPs. Oh man, you guys are really trying to get me canceled. Yes. Uh-huh. On today's episode, we chop it up with the co-founder of one of the biggest streaming platforms on the planet, Audiomack. His name's Brian Zisook, but most people can't pronounce his last name, so we're gonna just call him Z. Streaming platforms have all the data in the world about how music is being discovered and consumed. So we covered everything, even down to what day of the week you should drop. Spoiler alert, Friday might be the worst day. He told us how to perfectly pitch for an editorial playlist. He gave us the blueprint for building an engaged community of fans. And he explained why you probably shouldn't be dropping an album. At least not yet.

This dude is a wealth of knowledge. He's been given artists free games since he co-founded DJ Booth back in 2003. Henry, let's get into this. It was interesting, man. You tweeted like over a year ago something about how you know more artists should consider dropping on like a Tuesday to give themselves more time to obviously like promote it and to you know get rid of some of the noise that exists on like the typical Friday releases. That tweet aged very well. Yeah, you see, I'm not gonna lie. So, you know, I'd like to believe a lot of them aged very well, but that one is very is current right now. Age it's currently aging well. So, you know, you have like EARTHGANG just did it, they dropped on a Tuesday, Tyler dropped on a Monday, I'm pretty sure. So talk a little bit about why you even tweeted that a year plus ago, right?

For emerging artists, and then I want your opinion on whether or not you think major artists are gonna follow suit, right? I think this is like a huge pendulum swing potentially, right? So just why did you say that for emerging artists to start? Yeah, so you know, running Audiomack, we have over 400 licensed content partners. What does that mean? Labels, aggregators, distributors, and the vast majority of them deliver products, songs and albums to Audiomack. and they all almost all release on Friday. And so all week long we have this cadence with all of our partners. We are sorting and filtering and listening and collecting, and then Friday rolls around and you have everybody effectively competing for all this valuable real estate when there's six other days of the week where there would naturally be less competition. And so obviously, I you know, I'm older, I'm I'm 40. Uh, I grew up, it was always new music Tuesday.

And that's what I knew, but it also worked because you went to the record store on a Tuesday and then you lived with this body of work. You replayed the hell out of the music the whole week during whatever your weekday routine was. So if that was playing it in a CD player or a tape player on the bus to school every day, that's what you did Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The weekends are variable, the weekdays are fixed. Everybody has largely the same routine Monday through Friday, but on the weekends, it shifts from one weekend to the next. And so when you release on Friday, you can't get into a rhythm with the record because it drops. If you don't consume it immediately, then it's the weekend. Again, it's variable. And by the following week, you've sort of already moved on. And so you might have missed it.

In talking with a lot of artists who have complained about this, in talking with record executives who have complained about this, in talking with DSP curators and editors who have complained about this, the consensus is everybody hates it. So why are we still doing it? So, you know, my theory was and always has been be the change that you want to see out in the world. If we just keep talking about it and normalizing an off-cycle release, then it'll happen. Now, obviously, if everybody goes off-cycle, then we're back in the exact same boat we're in on Fridays, right? In terms of competition. But I think Tyler doing this, Tyler being such a big name, someone who uh has seen success now with the off-cycle release, it will become uh more frequent for artists who are either independent and can do whatever the hell they want, or who are signed and have enough cachet uh in the building. My understanding was always that it has to do with charting and that dropping on a Friday gives you sort of the best chances to chart.

But I mean, obviously, you know, Tyler dropped on a Monday, he's got the number one album, so it's not like a must do kind of thing, right? But yeah, I mean, that is how it started, right? That was the whole reason behind Friday was to give you in part, yes. So what else was involved? A lot. So in 2015, the industry decided to shift to a global music release date. So this was done for a few reasons. One, it was done to stem the tide of music leaking early, because if it was on uh a sliding schedule, you'd have records in physical format that were available, let's say, in Australia or New Zealand, available ahead of store turn in other countries. They would be ripped and uploaded. Obviously, at the time piracy was still a big deal. Digital Streaming had not fully prolific, prolific yet. And so you're in the situation where they they were doing it for the right reasons, I believe.

They also identified Friday as the day that people get paid. You have extra cash. You want to spend that money on digital downloads on iTunes. Obviously, guys, nine years later, we're in an entirely different place now. You have a streaming service subscription, you're not spending money on streaming every day. Your credit card is charged once a month, not necessarily even on a Friday in a market like the US. Piracy, I don't want to say it's been eliminated, but it has been reduced greatly. And so for all of those reasons, off-cycle makes a whole heck of a lot of sense. Of course, unless your only desire is to chart opening week, and then yes, guys, you're right. You'd be losing out on days where you have that seven-day sales cycle and it'd be reduced by every day that you release early. In Tyler's case, though, it didn't seem to matter. Yeah, for sure. How important is that? Like, is this is it still really important to have huge traction on day one, day two, day three?

Because I feel like we're seeing a lot of older records blow up, or like I'm discovering songs that are, you know, six months old, a year old. And do consumers even really care that much? Like, is release day my only fucking shot here? Yeah, you know. Yeah. You know? Uh it depends on the artist, right? You know, for as much as artists might say that they don't care, uh, they do. Uh many of them do. Labels certainly care. Uh, because as soon as something charts number one or has a great opening week, I am on the receiving end of all those press releases touting all of the records that they've broken. Um, in terms of engagement and interaction and conversation, I think that's another great reason why off cycle releases work so well. Because for instance, Tyler didn't just release on a Monday, he released on a Monday morning. And so he was a trending topic. He was a top search result on Google the entire day on Monday, had no competition within the entertainment or music space. His only competition in terms of other highly searched for results and trending topics were football games that were played in the US the day before.

So he was really able to separate himself, and then that conversation moved into Tuesday. And then as he rolled out the rest of his marketing plan, he stayed in the conversation the whole week. If he had released on Friday, that just would not have happened. The weekend comes, college football dominates Saturdays, NFL football during the fall dominates on Sundays, and then by Monday, everybody's already moved on to the next week. Does that mean that, you know, if that does happen, if you release on a Friday and the conversation stalls, that your project will not be a success? No, of course not. But Tyler gave himself, in my opinion, the best shot possible to create maximum engagement, maximum conversation. And it just happened that the body of work was really good and the sales prove it. Bro, I mean, I'm just hearing this. And if you're an emerging artist who like realistically, you are not going to chart. I don't see any reason now.

Like I already kind of thought it, but like Z's just telling me more and more reasons. Friday might be the worst day. It might be the worst day, bro. for an independent artist to drop. Literally might be the worst. Yeah. You know, running a DSP, I obviously um sitting on a treasure trove of uh very fine data points. Yes. And one of them in particular that plays into this conversation well is uh consumption habits, right? There's, I think, this belief that because more people are off work in school on the weekends, that they have more free time to listen to music, and that's why Friday might be advantageous. And I'm here to tell you that that's not true. Uh music consumption in terms of hours spent and plays generated. There's not much of a difference Sunday through Saturday. There is obviously a peak Friday into Saturday, only because that is when most release new music. But releasing off-cycle doesn't mean that you're releasing at a time where people are not naturally making themselves available to listen.

That's one. Number two, music is one of the few things, podcasts and audio books fall into this category as well, where you can consume passively, right? You don't have to look at your phone screen or television. So it can soundtrack your ride to school or your commute to work or making dinner or working out at the gym. You don't have to be an active participant. It isn't a video game, right? Yeah. Uh where you're where you're playing. Uh and for anyone out there, do not try to play video games while you're driving your car. That's even if you have a Tesla cyber truck owners, yeah, Yeah, yeah. Bad, bad idea. Right. So the day of the week uh plays into the user behavior. And ultimately, what all artists are vying for is the free time of the consumer. You're not necessarily only competing with hundreds of thousands of other songs and albums releasing on the same day. You're competing for those eight hours that someone's not working or in school, that they're not sleeping, and that they choose to play video games, scroll social media, listen to audiobooks, podcasts, watch pornography, play sports, right?

There's so many things that we could be doing. Um how do you how do you make sure that they prioritize you? That's a bar. You're competing against people's free will. I know. We always think that it's just you versus Drake. He's Like, no, it's you versus the hottest Netflix show and porn. That's tough battle, man. Yeah, that's probably the biggest competition for a lot of, you know, at least that male audience that you're trying to get. So it's a real competitor, sure. Absolutely. It's a viable competitor. No, so I I love the fact that you, you know, mentioned like just listener behavior. As someone, you know, once again, who's running a DSP, you do have a ton of data on your hands, right? Like you have just as good a look as as anybody as far as like what's actually happening with people listening to music. What are some other things that you're noticing? Like, are there trends as far as like you know what the creative side of it, like what types of songs people are listening to right? You know what I mean, just give us some of the like most recent data points that you've you know discovered you and your team when going through all the data that you have.

Yeah, and and it it's almost paralyzing, right? Because if you don't know what you're looking at or what you're looking for, like where do you even start and finish? Yeah. So Audio Mac has been around since 2012. And our Genesis story is rooted in hip-hop mixtape culture. And our growth over the last 12 years has predominantly been across five genres hip hop, RB, Latin, Caribbean, and African music. But what we've seen over the last two or three years is growth in other areas that have bubbled up around the globe, including uh Arabic, Amapiano, which is uh South African dance music, uh folk and gospel and country, which historically have had audiences that skew older, but now they're getting younger as they integrate more into a professional streaming environment. So that's interesting. There's definitely crossover as well, right? I think you know, if you look back 10, 15 years, a traditional country music fan probably also not a diehard hip hop head.

However, thanks to playlist culture, the ease of access to all these songs and albums, and undeniably crossover in terms of production elements from one genre to the next, um, you have uh a predisposed music streamer who is going to be simultaneously interested in both, right? Um, so that's interesting. Now, Audio Mac is not a full catalog service provider. What that means is, guys, you can't find every piece of recorded music in history on Audio Mac. But that actually plays well for us because as a more niche, filtered, highly curated service, we fill the gap for most of our audience members who have a more, at least they go into Audio Mac with a more narrow um uh preference for artists and genres. And then the best part about it is that they might go in with that narrow preference, but they come out discovering new artists.

Our typical user is more um uh active than passive. They're more lean forward, they're more discovery-driven. And these components are measured in um first-time artist profile uh visits, first-time artist listens, source of stream. This might be boring to most people, but like not all source stream sources are created equal. equal, right? So, what's the difference between me listening through a playlist versus me actively seeking out an artist, navigating to their profile page and pressing play? The former, there's not much stickiness to it. The latter, great resonance that suggests that, like I really like your music and their engagement is going to be high. So, yeah, it's uh it's all very interesting and ever changing. If you ask me this question next week, my answer would be entirely different. So where does Audiomack fit in the broader DSP ecosystem?

Can you just talk about because you know, obviously, you're running Audiomack, so I'm assuming you have a very good understanding as far as like what your competition's up to. So can you kind of share your perspective on like the strengths and weaknesses of the major DSPs in that ecosystem? As a hybrid service, meaning we are a licensed platform, but we also allow for UGC, we are one of only three services that allows independent up and coming artists and creators to bypass utilizing a record label or a distributor to make their music available on the service. So if you are a hobbyist, an amateur, a bedroom artist, you're just messing around, you're having fun, you're not sure whether or not this is going to be a career. Um, you don't even know what a distributor is or how to contact a label, right? So how do you get off the ground? Where do you get started? That's where we come in, right? So a lot of artists work with us pre-label, pre-distro. We are the the first chapter of Genesis in in their uh potential career.

What also makes us unique and different is our audience. So we are 94% multicultural, 91% under the age of 34. So we have a very particular type of user, and that is someone who most likely has limited access to credit and debit, no disposable income, a hard capped data plan, and perhaps unreliable Wi-Fi. So you you have all of these, right? So you have all of these hurdles in place, uh, socioeconomic and technological that prevent these these users from even considering Spotify or Apple Music, which require a credit card, right? If you don't have one, non-starter, uh, from becoming a user. And so we are an on-ramp for a lot of users, especially outside the US, into a formal professional streaming environment. Interesting.

So then what would you say, you know, Spotify and Apple's strengths are and how even they differ from each other? Spotify and Apple are both full catalog service providers. So there's very few pieces of music that have ever been officially commercially released that you wouldn't be able to find on either service. I think Spotify is a fantastic UX and UI. Um, Apple Music, not so much. Um agreed. It's like even just fucking clicking an Apple Music link to preview, then you can't sign. I don't know, just we've had issues. We had so many issues where I'm like, how the fuck is everything else Apple great as far as UX UI? I feel like and they just said, uh, well, we'll work on that music thing later. I don't know. Well, I'll tell you why, right? And this is something that a lot of fans and artists don't really think much about because it doesn't occur to them, but you know, for Apple and for let's say Amazon, their music product is a loss leader, right? Their goal is to keep you in their ecosystem.

Yeah. And so that's just part of the menu, right? That is not the business. Yeah. Apple's business is not a music subscription service, it's the iPhones and the MacBook Pros and the iPads. And if you're already fully integrated into that system, well, just you know, throw iCloud and Apple TV and a subscription to Apple Music on top. Same idea with Amazon, right? They're selling um Echoes and dots and all the tech. And then what comes with that is the subscription to the streaming service. So naturally, they're not as invested in these products because it's just part of their ecosystem. We are more invested because this is our business. We're not selling you a piece of technology. We're selling you a product that aims to super serve, excuse me, both the user experience and the listener experience. Yeah.

Interesting, man. So going back to kind of the listener behavior, I know you mentioned that a good amount of your audience is discovering or like leaning into discovery within the platform, maybe. But just generally speaking, because you just have such a great, you know, like lens into all of the music kind of landscape. How do you see most discovery happening right now? So a couple ways, right? So we have obviously human curated playlists. That that is the foundation, the bedrock of the audio Mac experience. Whereas most in our space have shifted to either entirely algorithmic or algatorial uh driven recommendations. Algatorial is where the algorithm meets editorial and then uh recommends songs and albums. Um we focused a lot on on human curation, that's one, but we've also focused on hyper localization. And so we take two parameters.

One is past listening history, and the other is geolocation. Because ultimately, you want a DSP experience, or you should you should want a DSP experience to feel personalized to you based on where you are, not just what you've previously listened to. Most of the other DSPs, I am generalizing, um, they view entire continents and regions as monoliths. So for instance, it's like all of Africa is just Nigeria or all of the Caribbean is just Jamaica. But if you're in Kenya and you're only being served up sounds from Nigeria, you're gonna feel a way. Same thing if you're in Barbados or St. Keats, and the only music that your DSP is giving you are Jamaican dancehall artists, right? And so we created cohorts. Uh, some are by country, others are by region. And this way it makes discovery feel more personalized and local, which is how it used to be back in the day before the telecom act in the US, when radio stations had a local flavor instead of conglomerates buying up radio stations and basically playing the same songs that you'd hear in New York in Atlanta and LA and Chicago.

So, but even like throw Audio Mac out the window, right? Just like if I'm an average listener, how am I discovering music? Is it on platform, even if I'm using Spotify, Apple? Is it on social media? Is it you know what I mean? Like, is it word of mouth still? Like, you know, where do you see just the vast majority of discovery happening, right? Because if I'm an artist and a lot of our community are, like, I want to know how the fuck I get people to just my whole goal right now is discovery. I need people to discover my music. So, like, how do you think it's happening, right? And how should they lean into it? I'll preface by saying I discover largely beyond Audio Mac, obviously, through recommendations from trusted folks who work in the business with me. That's obviously not going to be the path uh for most of your listeners and viewers and just you know, uh artists in general. So I recommend a top of funnel approach, right? You want to make sure that your music is everywhere, that conversation is taking place.

And so just servicing records to DSPs like Audiomack or Spotify, definitely not enough. You want to make sure that your music is available, preferably in video form, short form clips, teasers, visualizers, lyric videos, uh, vertical video reels, um, Instagram, YouTube, anywhere people are congregating and conversing, you want to make your presence felt and that be an opportunity for them to look deeper, right? And navigate to their preferred DSP, search for you, find your profile page, and then hopefully you have more than like one or two songs there that they can chew on. I hope you guys are enjoying the conversation. I want to take a quick moment to tell you about our pals at DistroKid. You can't get your music onto streaming platforms without a distributor, and DistroKid is an excellent choice to handle that for you. For the ridiculously low price of $23, you can upload unlimited music for an entire year that is less than $2 a month. I tripped on $2 walking down the street earlier.

They have countless features to help you out on your musical journey. One of my favorites is splits. Instead of my collaborators hitting me up all the time saying, Where's my fucking money? I can input everyone's percentage when I upload the music, and DistroKid will handle it. I've personally used DistroKid for many years and can genuinely recommend them as a great tool to get your music out into the world. And if you sign up at omtdistro.com, you'll get 30% off an already insanely low price. This is absolute peanuts for unlimited uploads yearly. We wish you the best with your creating. Let's get back to it. You mentioned kind of like the editorial playlists and algorithmic playlists. Algatorial. Algatorial playlist was a new one. So what are the different flavors of playlists? Are those the three? Is it basically editorial, algorithmic, and algatorial? Are there anything else that we're missing? No, I think you pretty much nailed it. Okay. So yeah, there's there's there's editorial, so that's human curated. That's I listen to these songs, I enjoy them or believe in the artist, and I did I slotted them into this sequential order. Yeah.

Uh then there is uh uh algatorial, which is I've selected these songs, uh, but how they are delivered to the user is gonna differ from one user to another, right? So the same playlist could have 30 songs, and I'm in Chicago, you're in Atlanta, and we could have distinct and unique experiences with that playlist where the same songs don't appear on both or in different order. And then, of course, there's algorithm or algorithmic, excuse me. I'm confusing myself at this point. Uh and that that is completely derived from the the algorith the algorithm where the the computer's like, I think I know what you want to listen to. And here you go. Yeah. So I mean, probably the most one of the most common questions we get asked has to be like, how do I get on an editorial playlist? Yeah. So can you just try your best to demystify the process, right? If I'm an artist, I've got a new song.

How can I get on any of the playlists? They like, let's maybe just walk through the you know, editorial first. How do I get on there? All right. So first, I think we need to just I I need to share this disclaimer. Uh don't focus on playlists, right? I think I think there's so much emphasis on I need to get on a playlist, I need to get on a playlist, I need to get on a playlist. Is it valuable to be added to a playlist? Of course. Can it help you reach a larger audience? Yes. Is the consumption that is happening through playlist ads largely passive? And does it not lead to increased audience? Yes. So as long as is uh an artist is aware of all these things, and with that caveat, I will now officially answer your question. I fucking love that disclaimer, by the way. Yeah, for sure.

It's important because literally, I mean, we've seen it. An artist that we had on the podcast that I'm not gonna name names, but it was one of our earlier artists. She's a she I already already fucking narrowing it down, doing a terrible job right now. The artist got onto a massive Spotify editorial. That song did crazy numbers, and once it gets taken off the playlist, to your point, where where's the audience, right? Right. How yeah, I mean, the the uh monthly listener stats went significantly down, you know, right back to normal, right? Uh so there wasn't this obvious translation of I got on this editorial, I now have a bunch of new fans. It's kind of like it's it's kind of like artists that just say, I just need to get signed and I'll be out of here. It's like you need to be building the leverage and you need to let the playlisters and the labels kind of come to you. You got to build your thing and instead of chasing them, right? Yeah. But yeah.

Agreed. So now that we have that out of the way, all right. Now that we know. But if they want to get on a playlist, how do they do it? How do they do it, Z? All right. So obviously, this is going to differ from one DSP to the next. Each has a different submission process. So a lot of what I'm going to share is more generic advice, right? So I think the first uh thing that all artists or their handlers need to identify is which playlist makes sense for this song. What I see far too often, and is almost like the standard default uh approach is you know, can you add this to a playlist? What playlist? There's a lot of them. Can we try to narrow it down? And what I mean by that is I think there's something to be said for approaching an editor or a curator and showing them that you've done due diligence, right? You took the time to identify one or two playlists, shouldn't be more than that, that you you perused, and that you thought, all right, based on how this playlist is curated, I believe this song would be a fit for this playlist.

It it it it just it feels natural. So that's one that that shows that you took time, you did your due diligence. Um, immediately that's gonna get the curator's ears to perk up, right? This person cares. Now, in terms of approach, everything has become very standardized, very templatized, very generic. And I get it. Most of the people doing the pitching are typically pitching on behalf of tens of artists. And so that's the only way to manage and operationalize that process. But if as an individual, you're sending out a pitch email, it should feel more personalized. It shouldn't feel ghostwritten by ChatGPT. And so you want to show them that you followed their work, you're familiar with their curation, you've identified a few playlists that you think would be a fit. And then, of course, you want to insert all of the essential information, but do so concisely.

So that would include your artist name, the title of the song. If you've delivered that song through a uh distributor, include the UPC so that individual can pull the file from their back end feed management system. They want to make sure that this song that you're pitching to me is actually available for me to curate. You're gonna wanna link to a smart URL, a link tree, Symphony, Something where all of your social media, your website is in one place. It's super simple, nice, neat. I don't have to Google to find all this stuff. Um, and then link to uh uh an approved uh pub photo, a publicity photo. Should they feel gracious enough to offer you a playlist cover, you've now uh gotten over that inevitable response, which is hey, I really like this. Do you have a photo? No, no need. I've already I've already provided one to you. In terms of formatting, I like receiving pitch emails, even though I'm not a playlist curator. So anyone watching, do not pitch me for a playlist.

Um I like receiving emails though that feel like you're recommending something to me that you think I would really like to listen to. And if you approach it that way, it doesn't feel salesy. It feels friendly. And I think if you do that, you're not necessarily gonna bat a thousand here, uh, but your average should go up. Yeah. Damn, those are fucking really good. Great suggestions, man. After saying, like, maybe don't focus on playlists. We got some good game on getting on playlists. No, no, I I think the way you put that though was was good, right? It's be realistic with the expectations that you have around where playlisting or playlist ads fits into your actual growth and development as an artist. It's not to say to your point that it can't help with the streams. You might get some fans here and there, et cetera. But it's not gonna be this like game changer thing that a lot of artists, or it's not gonna always be this game changer thing that a lot of artists think that it is, right? And just a professionalism thing, I think bleeds into just everything else in the industry.

If you just you know, if we we learned about you before we got on here, we did our due diligence. You know, if you're just moving around, like being professional and providing things for people before they ask for them, and I just think you get so far with that type of attitude. Can I thank you very much, by the way? Can I add one more thing there? Uh to supplement your last comment? I I think because we do so much work on the internet, a lot of folks have forgotten how to be a human being, uh, or that there's a human being on the other end of that email. And as a result, it just comes across as so insincere and formulaic and inauthentic. And it's a turnoff, especially when if you think about it from the recipient's standpoint, I receive thousands of emails a week. Thousands. And so, what are you gonna do to stand out from the crowd? I mean, just be real. Don't be who you think I think you should be. Come across as genuine, and uh, you know, you'll probably be in a better position than 95% of your competitors.

Yeah, that's just that's the reality. Yeah, so going with the whole Tower of the Creator theme, did you see that email that he had sent back in like 2011 or something? It was like an email to labels and was like, yo, this is Tyler, like if you like this shit, like I don't know, it was like this whole email, and like, but to your point, it was it was cut, it wasn't well written in the sense of like professionally well written. It was real, but it was so real, and I loved it. I'm like totally butchering it, Henry. The you know, the editor, can you throw it up on the screen right here somewhere? Um, because it was it was great. You could just hear Tyler's voice as you like read the email, you know? Like it's some real futuristic shit. Like, I think you'll fuck with it, like whatever. It's like to a label like executive. I don't know who like who it was to, but um, that was kind of a funny, funny leak. Um it in hindsight though, we know he was being authentic. I know absolutely that's what's yeah, but someone might not have understood. Um, yo, so I wanted to just talk about a couple of tweets that I thought you know were worth maybe like further unpacking. One that you talked about recently was that you had a conversation with someone uh around like, is it possible to reach superstardom?

And that person that I guess is another like you know, trusted music executive friend of yours, said no, right? Do you agree? Did you agree with this person? Yeah, so I I do agree if we are defining superstardom based on its past definition. Um, I I think we're now squarely in what I would call the niche era, where you could be a superstar, but to a very small uh group of super fans. There are, I don't know, couple thousand artists who have more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify, who if you were to show their face and music to a hundred random folks, wouldn't be able to tell you who they are or what the title of the song is. It's wild. It's wild. There's like too much music now to have another Michael Jackson. We just have so many options, right?

Right. It it's and it has nothing to do with music specifically. It is the media landscape is fragmented. And our attention, as we discussed earlier, is drawn in a multitude of directions. So whereas back in the day, if you did an interview with the New York Times, or you were on the cover of People magazine, or you were the musical guest on the Johnny Carson show, everybody was talking about it the next day because we only had but so many avenues to consume media. Yeah. Now everybody just hangs out in their little corner of the internet with their communities, and you could be oblivious to everything else. And in some cases, being oblivious to everything else is a blessing. Yeah. So, you know, I think we need to redefine what it means to be a superstar. But also I think we need to encourage the next generation of artists that striving for superstardom doesn't need to be your goal.

Uh, and I say that because if that is your only goal, you're likely, if we just look at the numbers, going to fail to reach that goal. However, you could be wildly successful in music if you approach a career with a more realistic vision for what is our 2024 reality. And that is you can be successful as a touring artist who makes ancillary revenue through merch and publishing and sync and have streaming revenue coming in and never be able to sell out a stadium and never be able to sell out an arena, but you can pack the shit out of a 2,000 cap room a hundred days or 200 days out of the year. Yeah. And if you love this, the the this thing we call music, that's a that's a great life. Yeah, I mean, that that's something we talk a lot about with with our community is that exact type of thing where it's like, let's just try and make a reasonable living, like doing this thing that we love called music, right? I mean, I just heard an interview with uh Rome Streets, you know what I mean?

And he is not a like superstar, but he talked about how he's making, you know, a living doing what he loves, like making music. I think it was EARTHGANG's um, you know, wow great uh Ian or whatever, right? And he tweeted something about I'm so blessed that I just get to make like a reasonable living doing music. I don't know if this is like an old tweet, even, right? But it's like even someone like that. It's not that they're Michael Jackson status or anything, right? But they are out here touring, selling merch, getting revenues from streams and publishing, et cetera, right? And I think they're not punching a clock. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that should be the goal for sure. So that's that's interesting. All right. I want you to break this down. Can you share the difference between fans, followers, and listeners, and why, like even thinking about the difference between those three things is something that more artists should be doing. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's it's natural to conflate fans, followers, listeners, your audience, and your community. I I see the words used interchangeably in conversation every day.

So fans are people who are willing to spend their time and their money to support you. So they're not just streaming your music upon store turn, they're also buying your merch, they're going to see you live, they're doing the meet and greet, they're supporting you with their pocketbooks, and they're taking time out of their day to prioritize you. Fans, they're great. Followers are just what they are. They are people who are at the very least mildly interested in what you are offering to the world, whether that be music or commentary, uh, or photos on some uh social media platforms. And or they might not even know you're a recording artist, right? They might just follow you because like you have witty thoughts, yeah. Or because they absolutely hate you and they want to keep tabs on all the shit that you say so that they can troll you, right? Literally.

People need to understand that's a real fucking possibility, dude. The amount of followers that Lil Man Jay has who we had on the podcast, who's a very polarizing character. If people looked at his followers, they would think, you know, once again, if you conflated the two, like fans and followers, and even listeners and followers, they would think certain things. But like, dude, you go to his comment section, and it is a war zone of like 50% hate, 50%, you know, love. And those people are probably at least listeners or maybe fans, even right. But I'm so glad you said that because it's so true, man. Yeah, and there's definitely overlap, right? So then you have listeners, these are folks who have listened to at least one of your songs at least one time for at least 30 seconds over the past 28 days, right? All right. So there's all these qualifiers here. Um, someone could listen because you were added to a playlist, and they press play and let that thing rock, and you came up, and after 36 seconds, they're like, and press skip, right? That that that's a listener.

Um, not necessarily uh a fan. Perhaps they didn't take the time to follow you anywhere outside of their chosen DSP. So definitely there's nothing to say that someone who listens is a fan, which is why that monthly listener uh number that's displayed on DSPs can be uh misleading. Well, let's not even talk about the bots. Let's let's not an audience is all of the above, right? Your audience is your fans, your followers, and your listeners. Basically, it's an aggregate of everyone in your orbit across every social and DSP platform, and then there's community, which is the holy grail, guys. Community is where you have such a strong relationship with your fans, and your fans have such a strong relationship with one another because of their mutual love and respect for you and your hopefully your music. Um that they collectively go out of their way to prioritize you, right? So it's not just individual efforts, but collective ones.

You know, we we see, and this can be dangerous too. We see plenty of online communities that I think that they mean well, but how they come across doesn't always suggest that. I'm not even gonna say the artists because they will show up in my mentions, and I'm not looking to get canceled, boy. Swifties, barbs, beehive. No, it's definitely Swifties. Yeah, you said it. You didn't say it. I'm coming for all the smoke from the Swifties right now, bro. No, I don't want it. There's death threats in my DMs now as we speak. Yeah, yeah. Oh man, no, I think that community part that just hit home, for us, bro. I got chills. I seriously, man. I just the way you distinguish the fact of like, you know, them engaging with you on such a deep level, but then with each other. Yeah. That was the fucking bar, bro. Because I think what we're trying to also cultivate, even just, you know, I I really like comparing us to artists sometimes because like as content creators and podcasters, whatever, we do have very like similar things we got to do. Like we do have to build an aggregate audience that then is gonna, to your point, we have a good amount of followers.

And someone asked us this actually within our community, like how many followers do you think are actually fans of yours? And it's it's much less. Like it's astronomically less than our followers and our view counts, et cetera. Um, so it's just like I really want that holy grail of the one more time community, like members of it like helping each other and feeding off of the same like energy and mission that they're all on, which is like obviously to level up their music careers, right? So that's what we're striving for. And I think we could even do a much better job, of course. And I think artists really miss the mark. And I think a big thing that I noticed is that like if you have a small community, it's like you think because it's small that you shouldn't like feed it enough. You know what I mean? Like, if it's only five people that are engaging with each other, well, that's fucking five people that can then turn into 10, that can then turn into a hundred, that can that can then turn into a thousand. You can actually give them the most attention at that point. Exactly. Because your time, it gets harder to do the bigger it gets.

So yeah, so that's that's where I think maybe some artists that I know, even um, you know, make the mistake of uh, well, I don't know if it's ego or if it's just you know, like self-doubt, you know, whatever it is, right? Like they don't think that it's worthy of like giving attention, right? Because it's not this huge, massive thing or something. And that's a mistake, right? Um, for whatever reason, and the reasons will vary depending on the artist, but it's a mistake. Uh, one element that I didn't uh point out before when we went through community is while it's great that fellow fans are interacting with each other, as an artist, you should not be beyond reproach, right? You want a successful community, you should be a part of that community. After all, it has been procured or developed because of you. I see artists all the time who are unwilling to lean in when they see this growth happening. And what they don't realize is the smallest of interactions.

And what I mean by that is like sliding into someone's DM and saying, Hey, I saw that you shared the link to my new album last week. I just want to let you know that I deeply appreciate you supporting me. Just that two sentence message, right? That could turn what would be a on the fence super fan or casual into a diehard ride or die lifer, right? Because not only are they gonna feel special because they were recognized for their effort, but they're gonna tell other folks about it. And then that's gonna bring them into your orbit, and then you have the chance to do it all over again. It's it's not much effort, it's low-hanging fruit. You can dedicate 10, 15 minutes a day to it. I do it, right? I see who's talking about what we're doing at Audiomack, or if folks compliment some of the educational threads that I produce, and I'll either publicly thank them in response so that everyone can see, or if I want uh, you know, more space to share my thoughts, I'll find their email or I'll DM them and I will thank them for engaging or amplifying or empowering, or whatever the case may be. And then these are the same folks who are always retweeting me, they're always sharing, they're going to bat, they're like the Audiomack street team on social media, and it's no surprise why, and it's because they feel a closeness to me that I made possible by taking my time out of my day to do that.

Man, it's good stuff, man. Dude, so out. I mean, no, I think I think that I think I'm just gonna let that sit there because I I just that's that's so important, man. That's literally so important. Um, all right, so you do a ton of artist education, and I think that's been in your blood since like the DJ booth days. I didn't even realize DJ Booth was also like very educational in nature. Like I was doing my homework and I was like, I I get I had definitely heard of DJ booth, you know, during like the blog era, et cetera. Like my friend uh in college put me on to like every major blog, and obviously DJ Booth was one of them. I didn't know because I guess you know, if I'm not in the industry, if I'm not an artist, I didn't like consume that part of the ecosystem of DJ Booth. So that that artist education thing that you still like you know fully embrace as as part of your personal brand and obviously as part of the Audiomack brand has been a thing for a while. Like, what are some other resources or like what if I'm a new artist, I guess, what should I learn first, right? Because it is kind of overwhelming, right?

There's a ton of information out there. I mean, shit, we talk about so much stuff that if I'm an artist, I'm just getting started. I I'd love to know your thoughts on like what do you think the most fundamental things are to learn if I'm trying to like build a career? Great question. And it is overwhelming, and there is so much, and you're almost paralyzed by all the responsibility out in front of you. I I think a good starting point, if there is, you know, a preferred one, would be to identify who you're looking to reach. Historically, artists who sign to labels, the label will identify who their target market is. Like, Who are we trying to appeal to? And then records would be crafted and pitched to radio stations and marketed based on the the target audience, right? So they they this was not happenstance, it's not accident, right? You have to know who you're selling to.

And I think a lot of artists now, they make music with the intention of like everybody listening. And that just doesn't work anymore, in my opinion. I think it's it's important and valuable It's important to have a focused, narrow, granular audience in mind. Now that can shift and that can change over time. You don't have to stay the same artist. You could try new things, you can experiment, all of that. Um, but the way to do that is to figure out who am I trying to appeal to and then work backward. You're you're reverse engineering it, right? Because you already have the audience in mind. So clutch. I love that. Because that's just something, once again, I mean, I hope they hear it from you and maybe pay attention. they don't believe us, maybe they believe Z. Because it's just like, I don't know if they think that it um limits the creative freedom or something, right? And like I want to start with the music, and it's like, no, it's your point. I don't think there's anything wrong with reverse engineering.

It's like, what are the types of fans that I that you know that I want to get? And I think that's where it comes back to having like a clear vision, something we've heard a lot of executives and great artists talk about is like having that clear vision of what it is you're trying to achieve. And I don't think that it's clear enough to just say I want everyone to listen to my music, right? I mean, it's just it's too broad, it's too it's too broad. And again, we are in a niche era, right? And so to be successful in the modern music business, you don't need everybody to like your stuff. Yeah. Um, also, that's in my opinion, uh a fruitless endeavor, right? You know, how many times you got to run into a wall before you know it's gonna give you a concussion? Um right. Henry seven. Yeah. Yeah. That I mean, that that's how I would put a bow on, on on that question is like, don't give yourself a concussion. Reverse engineer everything.

Who is your audience, work backward. When you're in a campaign or in a in a release cycle, figure out when you want to release the music and then work backward to understand what you need to do from a uh content creation standpoint, from a pitch standpoint to give yourself enough time to get it all done. For sure. I think we lose a lot of artists when it gets when it comes down to like making the mute, like the mute changing the music and the way the music actually is created based on like what the rollout looks like, what the content is gonna look like. That's where artists I think jump ship. So can we like separate those? Can we make whatever music we like and then kind of figure out how to what the vision is and market it later? Because I don't think they're as open to the like, oh, I need a qu a a short intro because it's gonna play better when my sound plays on TikTok, you know? It's gonna vary by artists, it's gonna vary by by genre. Um, you know, it it depends what vehicle through which vehicle you want to share your art with the world, right?

I think just like we talked about before, there's this idea, you know, historically that you know, to be successful, you need to play stadiums or you need to sign to a label. In the same vein, there's this idea that you need to be an album artist because that's just what artists do. And when you sign to a label, they sign you to a an album deal. That that just doesn't, it's not true anymore. You don't need to release albums, you don't need to release EPs. There are plenty of artists who are wildly successful just releasing songs in individual caps uh products not tied to a larger capsule without any of the added pressure of having to market a full body of work or create a full body of work, um, which is hard and expensive and time consuming. To do it right for sure. A good one. Yeah, exactly. Or to or to do it at all, right? I mean, see that we're talking about that's a nicer answer. I could make an album today. But what goes into that, right?

You you're talking about creative vision, you're talking about sequencing, you're talking about um uh engineering, you're talking about artwork, uh, metadata, uh uh rights management. Like there's so many things to think about. Yeah, like why why put the added pressure on you when you can release more frequently in a preferred format that is currently uh consumed at a higher clip? Like go on, guys, go on Spotify. Look at the most popular artists who have released 18 to 25 track albums. The the numbers are publicly displayed, they will go down in terms of total plays as you reach the bottom of the track listing. So true. To the point that by the end of the track list, you're talking about maybe that song got a fifth of the total plays that the first two or three tracks got. If that, yeah. If that, yeah. Whereas you could have, instead of releasing one 20-track project, you could release four five-track EPs or five, four-track bundles or whatever, whatever, and the consumption rate would be much higher from start to finish because it's not a slog. Yeah, we've heard you kind of almost need to earn the full-length album these days.

Like you fans need to be demanding it before it becomes worth the time and effort, you know. I mean, you have to have fans in order, in my opinion, to justify releasing an album, right? An album is something that you're going to serve up when you know you have an audience for it. So this goes back to what we said before. Who is your audience? That's number one. You gotta identify who they might be, and that that can change over time. And then once you build that audience, do they want an album? Or are you just making it because you feel strongly about delivering your art through this vehicle? And if that's the answer, that's fine. But then on the flip side, understand that consumption won't be fantastic. See, I've never even thought about his comment around do they even want an album? Yeah. Some subsets of fans probably haven't listened to, I mean, even him who's consuming music all the time, like it's hard for you to get through full-length albums, I'm sure, right? Like, they don't necessarily want a fucking album.

So, like, to your point, why put all the pressure, the money, the time, like the effort into the like unless you want it, it's your opus. It's your thing. if you want it though, that's fine, right? Like, we're not here to tell you creatively what you want to do. But there are benefits to maybe not putting the stress of an album on yourself if your fucking fan base doesn't even like care about that you give them one, right? Yeah the the other factor here, guys, is in the time that you spend getting an album out to market and then marketing that album, yeah, you've probably gone months without releasing anything new. Yeah. Right. And all that time you're spending your funds on this album. It's like you're giving yourself one shot. Yeah. Releasing music at a steadier clip, you're you're buying more lottery tickets. You're giving yourself a chance at a higher hit rate while building up uh a catalog that will always exist so that whenever someone finds their entry point into your repertoire, they have more to chew on. And maintaining momentum as well.

100%. Yeah. Henry, we've entered a side a final segment of the podcast. Oh shit. Let's go. I know I could talk to Z for hours. Oh man. Such a wealth of knowledge. y'all. I feel like we just started. Follow at Brian Zisook. Is it Zisook? Zisook. Yeah, you were close enough, okay, Zisook. you're in the ballpark. All right. And that's, guys, that's why I'm Z. I don't, I think that's a good thing. We're not fucking playing around with this. You know what I mean? Is it Polish ? It's some kind of like Northern European. Are you a pole? I I am I am my grandparents are Jewish from Poland. Okay, you're a pole. Okay. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, Z, this is the Rapid Fire rampage. It's gonna be a three parts real quick and easy. We're gonna start with some short answer questions. Let's get into it. Starting with just give us your best 30-second, whatever the length of an elevator pitch is for why artists should be using Audiomack. How do you sum it up just to a T. Audiomack is a free music streaming service for creators by creatives that has been founded by and employs artists themselves who understand the plight of the modern day artists and have built a product that super serves that community.

So good. Fire, bro. I practiced that before. It's like he runs the shit. It's almost like he co-founded the company. That's great. Okay, Z, the year is 2030. Oh shit. Give us your best guess of what Audiomack and maybe just music consumption in general looks like. I think Audiomack continues its uh international growth, taking over uh large swaths of the map where we see um um uh multiple genres that have not yet come into popularity take off uh and Audiomack being the epicenter of that growth in terms of music streaming and consumption habits changing. I think we're gonna see uh a continued shift toward uh hyper localization. We're also gonna see a shift toward uh super fandom, and we're gonna see a shift toward greater social components being integrated into the music streaming experience. For us, we've already done that with uh Connect, which is our messaging tool and comments, which you can leave under songs and albums.

I know this is rapid fire guys, but I sometimes I just I have to be long winded. This is good. This is good. We love it. Bro, 2030 is not even that far away. Like the way you said it was like this futuristic thing. and I was like, but 2030 is in fucking five years. Like hoverboards, man. Hoverboards. Yeah, it's all about the hoverboards. Seriously. I love it. Z, what is one of the dumbest things you have ever bought? Um, oh man. Uh a hoverboard. No, I uh I I bought a bright red Abercrombie and Fitch tracksuit in high school. Oh my god. Oh. And uh I came home and uh my mother just started laughing. Yeah, and I can see why. I I asked her what was so funny, and she's like, Did you try that on in the store before you brought it home? And I was like, No, I just I picked out my size and I brought it home.

And she goes, go put it on. I put it on, and then she goes, look at yourself in the mirror. And I'm like, that's going back. Wow. That's great. Z, you have entered a fight to the death cage match with Daniel Ek. Oh god. Firearms are not allowed. Everything else is fair game. You get to choose your weapon. What do you choose? Oh, God. Oh, considering we're both bald white dudes, probably a razor blade. Man, you know, some stereotypes are true, Henry. That's why they're stereotypes, right? I guess. Um Z, what is your most controversial music industry take right now? This one's for the clips. Oh man, you guys are really trying to get me canceled. Yes. Uh-huh. Um I think my most controversial music industry take is that at the dawn of your career, the last thing that you should be worrying about is generating uh profit. I think the focus should squarely be on fan acquisition and audience growth.

And the reason why is when you shift your focus to thinking solely about revenue generation, it fundamentally transforms the way that you make music and you try to appeal to an audience. The two are a bit of oil and water, right? Art and commerce just don't always mix, and it just comes much easier once you already have that fan base uh in place. I don't know how controversial that is, but no, what he's saying is if the podcast isn't making any money, then we're doing great. Hey, Z! let's go. Once again, we always like to compare artists to us as podcasters. So there it is. All right, we're in the fan acquisition phase. Yeah, yeah, it's all good. Fuck a profit. Yeah, we gotta figure out rent, but you know, we're fine. But shout out to our good sponsors over at DistroKid. Yeah, if you need distribution. Man, maybe Audiomack. I don't know, bro. Hey, we can what are we talking about? Z, what are we talking about? Anyway, I I think you know a guy, right? I do he's white and bald, and he carries a razor blade around in case Daniel Ek comes up, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Last one of the ramp, or last one of the short answer. What is your favorite curse word? I mean, it's gotta be fuck, right? It's just so versatile. I mean, I my argument is shit is more versatile by a slight slight margin. No. No. They're both very they can make it happen. But anyway, that was a great short answer segment. We're going to the this or that portion. I'm gonna give you two choices. You just gotta pick one. Starting with drums or melodies, melodies, drums or flats, drums, genre playlist or mood playlist? Mood playlist, mobile or desktop? Mobile. And he is, I think uh you are on a phone right now doing this. There you have it. Uh vinyl collection or NFT collection? Vinyl collection? Was that a question? Or that was a disgusted answer. Like a dog.

Yeah. Dark mode or light mode? Dark mode. Documentaries or podcasts? Documentaries. sorry guys. That's okay. That was the only one that actually have a correct answer. No, you did not pick up. Really? My answer is documentaries, too. All right. Jeez. We'll edit. Sorry. We're editing that question out. Hey man. I like what I like. Adopt a cat who makes your bed or a parrot that speaks French. Well, considering I'm deathly allergic to cats. Uh give me the parrot. Still gotta make your bed. Britney Spears, hit me, baby, one more time, or Daft Punk one more time. Daft Punk one more time. Both answers were correct in that one. And the final uh one is become a full-time rapper or introduce a paid creator tier on Audiomack. Introduce a paid creator tier on Audiomack. Oh, selling out. Can't believe he just really has no bars. You didn't want to you don't you don't want to hear me rap. I don't know. I know my lane.

I'm sticking to it. Okay, fair enough. The final portion is the word association Z. I'm gonna say one word. You just give me the first word that you think of off the top of your head. Here we go. Starting with music. Joy. Politics. Sadness. Hit the hit the no hit the yeah, that one. Uh-huh. Motorcycle. Dangerous. Disco. Ball. Garlic. Uh yummy. Gen Z. Uh that's perfect. That's an acceptable answer, right there. We'll move right along. Yeah, yeah. Moving on. Florida. Uh. Shout out to all of our Florida community members. Shout out to the Gen Z in Florida.

We fucking love y'all. The Gen Zers in Florida just got double shit on. He didn't actually say anything. Wow. Unsubscribed. Yeah. Um, let's go to gold. Bars. Pot. Hot. Ghostwriter. Drake. One more time. Daft Punk. Yeah. Okay. I guess I. He does still they they do still rank higher than us. I accepted Daft Punk as the one, I think, earlier. You You tricked him. You tricked him. I know, I know. Mark Zuckerberg. Lil. Wayne. Audio. Mac. Woo! What a rampage. Oh man, what an episode. What an episode. Oh my god. So good. I know they're good when they fly by. Oh, yeah. I know. Snap of a finger.

When Henry's not fully prepared to whip out his phone for the rapid fire rampage. Yeah, yeah. That means you're like dialed in. Yeah, if I'm ready if it's getting long-winded, I'll like pull it out and kind of lazy like. Hey Ben, like, time to wrap this shit up. No, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. As always, please like, comment, subscribe, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcast, Audio Mac needs fucking podcasts. They do have podcasts. Right? We do, but yeah, we do. It's just not a thing. It's not a yeah. Let's make it a focus, Z. Come on. Think about it. Until next time, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting out of here. Peace. Peace, y'all. Bye, guys.