The game has changed in the music industry...

There are more than 60,000 songs released on Spotify every day, and the industry has never been more saturated with fantastic music. Everyone from 14-year-olds in their bedroom to Grammy-winning artists are creating incredible songs. And as an artist, it's become evident that your music alone is no longer enough to stand out or break through.

Even with this level of saturation across the industry, most artists fail to think outside the box by not taking music promotion as seriously as they take music production. Instead, they rely on out-of-date methods to promote their music. These methods are almost always ineffective, expensive, and rarely produce the desired results.

We'll run through what some of these are, the pros and cons, and the most effective way to get your music heard this year. There are many 'classic' approaches to promoting your music. They're worth a shot, have pros and cons, but none of them have quite kept up with the times. What has? Let's get into it...

Classic Approaches To Getting Your Music Heard

Record labels

Can record labels help you grow? Absolutely. They have their place, but most don't have the same power and distribution that they enjoyed even a few years ago. And the tide continues to shift away from them. But like all things, they have their own pros and cons.

Record labels have the benefit of established distribution and promotion (especially the top, major labels). Being able to tap into these resources can be invaluable and sometimes even leads to artists receiving advances when they sign long-term deals. Simply put, label heads know how the distribution process works, and the best label heads are friends with Spotify editors and curators, and will likely give you more opportunities to grow once you have signed with them.

But most importantly, record labels offer social proof and a form of quality control – the track normally has to be 'high-quality' to get signed, and then you're in the company of the other 'high-quality' artists who have signed to that label. It's a good look and gives an artist an air of validity and professionalism along with having a wealth of industry connections that can bypass the process's most challenging steps.

But now the downsides...

Getting signed to a record label can take a LOT of work. You'll likely reach out to tens if not hundreds of labels and not hear back. And even when you do get a track signed and released, you'll have to split the royalties. Once you get more attuned to the workings of the industry, you may also begin to get skeptical of the fact that you rarely own the masters of your recording, which can be pivotal in the shifting landscape as the industry moves towards high-valued NFTs and others.

And that loss of control is only the beginning! Releasing with labels often means you need to abide by their schedules, meaning it could take a long time to release your music. This is a bad idea according to the CEO of Spotify. Plus, if it's not an 'A' label, they may even make you pay for the promotion while taking their share of royalties. This means you're essentially giving up almost all of your rights to the music while getting absolutely nothing in return (save for a couple of hundred plays on a streaming platform). 

So can it work out with a label? Yes, but it's often a lot of time, work, and energy for not much in return. 

Blogs, YouTube Channels, Spotify Playlists

Music blogs, YouTube channels, and Spotify playlists are all similar strategies that can be effective for promoting your music. But you should expect a few things before you sink too much time into them. 

These outlets are amazing ways to gain exposure to a target audience for your genre. These are usually highly engaged users that can listen on the spot (e.g. on a Spotify playlist or YouTube video). And they are all run by real people, which can, in turn, help you get picked up by Spotify's algorithmic playlist curation (e.g. Discover Weekly and Release Radar). You are then presented directly to the ears of thousands if not millions more listeners. YouTube playlists have the additional benefit of true staying power and can continue to gain views (listens) for years.

But more than any other lever of this industry, these outlets can be incredibly tricky...

Because blogging has largely diminished in recent years, especially in the music space. The peak EDM-blog days of 2014 are over. It can be difficult to get in touch with the blog, channel, or playlist to promote your music. Expect tens if not hundreds of emails sent without a response.

Sure, you can use a playlisting service, but these are often expensive and again do not guarantee which playlists you end up on. It could be a large fee for dismal results — it's another 'pay for hope' method.

DJ Support

There's no doubt DJ support can help get your music heard, and it's gratifying when an idol of yours plays your song. Whether it's played on a radio show, at a festival, etc. it helps, but let's dive deeper into the pros and cons of getting DJ support from top-tier artists. 

The benefits of getting DJs to support your music are obvious. It brings new exposure to a target audience that's likely to enjoy your music along with social proof — "Tiesto played my track so it must be good". You're then on some level associated with that artist. Plus it can be incredibly gratifying to have your favorite artists play your music and that validation is what most got most producers into making music in the first place. 

But getting support from top DJs shares a lot of the downsides that record labels do. Similar to labels, you'll likely reach out to tens if not hundreds of DJs and never hear back. You can also pay a service to help you get DJ support, but the price often starts at several hundred dollars, and they don't guarantee anything.

Maybe some big DJs will play your tracks, maybe they won't. You pay for hope and cross your fingers. And even after all of that, it's difficult to quantify impact — e.g. it was played on radio show X, but how many new fans did you gain?

Trying to get as much DJ support as possible can be an efficient way to spend your time. But you have to weigh the pros and cons of whether you'll handle this process yourself, or pay a service, and how much it's worth to you.

These pioneers created a unique workflow for music creation. They sidestepped the constraints of needing studio musicians and prohibitively expensive technology by leveraging pre-recorded source material to create their music.

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