A short interview-style conversation (two speakers) advising young musical artists. Speakers critique the industry tendency to chase past hits and record-company risk-aversion, cite Prince as an example of leveraging artistic integrity, and recommend that new artists prioritize truthful, uncompromising creative expression—because statistically most releases won’t be commercially successful, but authenticity prevents regret and fuels long-term commitment to the work.
Chapters
He didn't chase after his last hit. I could tell you as a, you know, actively in this space, so many artists are. They're chasing after the last hit. Most of the new artists that have hits really are. It's like most of them, record companies think, how can, how can we slow the decline? Instead of the artists that saying, how do I. How do I increase my creativity and challenge? And like, do you think Prince was.
Ever trying to write a hit?
I think Prince was a straight up genius and I think he, in his own unique way.
Got the number on the music business. He knew what it was and he knew when he had the leverage that he could write Slave on his face and go on television and force a conversation. Even if he couldn't force the business to change, he could force a negotiation, which he did.
So what advice would. Would you give a young artist in the spirit of that conversation? I mean, of chasing hits?
Well, on chasing hits, I would say there's so much volume. We're talking about.
Hundreds of thousands of songs released a day with no filter to the same digital distribution ecosystem that is applicable to the biggest artists and the small stars, right? So if you start on a sure volume basis, statistically you're going to fail. And what I always say to artists that I work with is the least we could do is be uncompromising about experiencing, writing, creating and recording the truth, whatever the truth is. Because that way, if it's not commercially successful, which statistically it probably won't be, you won't look back and go, oh man, that wasn't me. I just did what they told me to do. Be who you are, express yourself and be kind. Completely untethered with your uniqueness. Then if it doesn't connect, you'll look back on your life and you won't feel like you sold out or you bent over backwards to please the palette, the musical palette or commercial palette of somebody else who didn't have to live the life you lived and could be moved from one company to other or decide, I want to be a real estate broker. And the second piece is that if it is successful, then it's the truth. Then you won't feel like shit promoting it. It'll be a mission. It'll be connected to you and you'll want to do the work and you want to go on social media and post about it, and you want to evangelize the music that you create. You know, when you think of why certain artists are just indefatigable with touring and whatever it's because they're obsessed with the music that they create, because they're desperate to share it with people. If you're a new artist and you're thinking about it, it's like you're going to lose, statistically, I mean, commercially, you're going to lose. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It just means start with the truth and then see where it take.
