In past articles, especially in my recent series, “The process of becoming an artist,” I have touched on some of the different ways that artists can separate themselves from their competition. In todays music industry when it comes to being an artist it is extremely hard to get noticed, but it is not hard to differentiate yourself from the rest of the artists out here. Every week around 40,000 songs are released for public consumption. That means hundreds even thousands of established and new artists are releasing singles, albums, mixtapes and EPs on the multitude of digital streaming platforms with the hopes of getting enough streams, downloads and listens to get noticed by the right person at the right company or label. Social media has become the driving factor in how artists are found and how and where they are most branded and seen. Most of you are probably thinking, as an artist how can I separate myself from everyone else that is making music? What am I doing wrong? Why am I not getting the notice and recognition that I should be getting? (now this is a different question and answer because the recognition you should be getting is subjective and most artist feel as though they should be getting all the attention and recognition when they are putting in none of the effort to do so) What are the ways I can differentiate myself?
First and foremost, it comes down to the quality of what you are putting out. Whether it is your music, your image, your brand, your style, or anything else you put out to the public, quality is key. As cliche as it is quality over quantity is still the rule. You could put out 100 songs a week, 1,000 posts a week and tweet until your fingers fall off, but if what you are putting out is of no substance and has no quality to it, it will never make any difference.
When it comes to your music you have to make sure that it sounds comparable to everything else that is being released. You are not only competing for the attention of the public with the new up and coming artists, but you are also competing with the already established major artist. Think of it this way, if me as a consumer of music goes to Spotify on Friday to listen to all the new music that is released, (and believe me I spend literally all weekend from when I wake up on Friday to the time I get to work Monday morning listening to all the new music release that week from both established and new artists) what is going to make me stop and listen to your music considering you are an unknown artist I have never heard of, when I have 15 albums of 20 or more songs to get through from major label artists. If I am going through a playlist of new artists (meaning up and coming artists) the first thing that is going to turn me off is the quality of the music and the quality of the sound. Even before any lyrics are played through the speaker, if the sound quality of the track is terrible I will skip the track. If when the vocals come on I hear them distorted, or incredibly loud compared to the track, or so low that the track is drowning them out I won’t make it past the first 15 seconds of the song and move on to the next one. Spend the time learning how to make your music top quality if you are choosing to do it yourself. YouTube university is your best friend in this case. If you don’t want to do it yourself, or if this process isn’t getting your music up to par with the rest of what is being released, then I suggest you search for a studio with a professional engineer to help you with this. This is going to cost you a little bit of money but it will be worth it in the end.
When it comes to your posts on social media the same sentiment holds true. Quality is king. With millions of people using each social media platform each day, and billions of posts on those same platforms each day what is going to make me stop and look at your picture or your post or your page compared to the next. If I am scrolling through my timeline on Instagram and I am seeing all these beautiful quality pictures and perfectly shot videos, and your pictures are blurry and I can’t even tell what the picture is supposed to be, why would I take the time to try and figure it out. If you are posting videos with awful audio and the phone is shaking all over the place giving me sea sickness why would I continue watching? Especially when the post above and below your post is the exact opposite. A beautiful shot of a scenic view and a quality video showcasing an artist in the studio where I can see and hear everything that is being said and recorded. I am going to stop and watch those and completely bypass what you have posted. Take the time to make sure your pictures are clear, your videos are nicely shot and the audio is great. A picture is worth a thousand words, and on social media a picture can be worth a thousand likes and hundreds of followers which could be the difference in you making money from your social media accounts or just being another personal account.
What are you doing wrong? You are not taking the time to make sure everything you are doing is to the best of your ability. You are trying to do what everyone else is doing and not being true to yourself. You see all these other artists posing in the clubs, in the studios and at these beautiful places so you think this is what you have to do too. Well, one you probably don’t have the name recognition and money to do these things but at the same time you are not executing what you are trying to do either. You’re taking a selfie of you in the studio in the dark booth where I can’t see anything but your eyes and captioning that you are working hard in the studio for your dreams. Where another artist has taken the time to take the exact same picture except in theirs I can see the whole studio perfectly and their caption isn’t a cliché that everyone is using but rather a quote from the song they are recording, thus tying everything together. You are being generic, they are being personable and clever. “Studio life,” is not the caption you need to put on every picture you take every time you are in the studio. Instead you have to caption the picture with something that makes sense to the time and picture you are taking. What song are you working on, what project are you working on, what is the song about, who are you working with. Any and all of these are better captions to use, and along with the proper hashtags your post can reach a wider audience than the total number of followers you currently have. Being generic is going to lump you in with everyone else doing the exact same thing as you. Think of it in these terms, nowadays almost every rapper has colored dreds and raps in a similar style, what is separating, Lil Uzi, Trippie Red, and Lil Yachty from the rest? (and no the answer is not that they are signed to a major label because at one time they weren’t and had to separate themselves from all the others that looked and sounded the same) The answer is their narrative. They exude a narrative, a brand and a style that separates them from the rest. How they portray themselves is what is separating them from all the other artists that look and sound the same. It is not that their music is so much better than anyone else, it is not that their look is so much better than anyone else, rather it is how they portray themselves and the narrative they show in regard to themselves as an artist is intriguing and intoxicating to their audience. They connect with their audience in more ways than just their music, and because of this their audience is hanging on what they say and do rather than just their music.
When you are a new artist you have to figure out ways to be different. We all know growing up in school we were either told that being different is bad, or that being different isn’t bad it just means that you are being an individual. What ever the case maybe, when it comes to music being different is a good thing. If you are trying to become the next Kanye West it isn’t going to work, there is already a Kanye West. Nobody wants to sign someone that is exactly similar to another artist. Instead you have to have the aspects and talents of Kanye West, while being the first you. Striving to be just like another artist is not the way to go. However, it is never bad to have a mentor. What I mean by mentor is not necessarily someone that takes you by the hand and teaches you the ins and outs of what you want to learn, but rather someone that you aspire to be like that is at the top of their field and learn everything you can from them. When I was first becoming an engineer my mentors were David Pensado, Ali, Jaycen Joshua, and Young Guru. I have never met or even spoken to any of these engineers, but all of them are considered to be some of the best engineers. I would listen to all the records they worked on, I would watch any video I could find online about how they mix and what their techniques were. I can’t tell you how many of their techniques I tried to replicate and how many more I stole for my own use. Studying these great engineers is what made me become the head engineer of the publishing company I currently work for and what gave me the opportunity to work with Grammy Award Winning artists. As a new artist you have to do the same. Find an artist or artists you admire and deconstruct everything they do. From how they create songs, to what their songs sound like, all the way down to how they look and how they use their social media. If you can get all of these aspects up to par of these artists but put your own spin on it, you will win. It is not going to happen over night, it is going to take work, months and years of work but you have to go through the rain to get to the sun.
Differentiating yourself is not a hard thing to do but it is a hard concept to master. New artists want to ride the wave of what is popular. The looks, the sounds, the styles everything that they see making artists popular and getting signed is what they think they need to do to get to the same place, not realizing that the artists they are seeing getting signed are getting signed because they were popular, and they were popular because they have some aspect of them that is different enough that a large audience connected with them. Being different is never bad especially in music, most of the time being different means that you are being an individual and this means you are being yourself. Being yourself is easier to sell than if you are trying to sell yourself as something you are not. Why is this? This is because if you are trying to sell yourself and the persona you are, you don’t have to get yourself up to sell what and who you are. However, on the other hand if you are trying to be and sell something that you are not, this means every time you go out or try and sell yourself you have transform into something you are not, and run the possibility of slipping out of character.
Create good quality content, create good quality music and being yourself is what is going to differentiate you from the rest of the field. Everyone now is trying to be the same thing because they see that as what is working. If you just be yourself and make sure your quality is good, you will have a better chance that the rest of the field.
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