When researching the area of the creative industries I’m interested in, which is being a recording artist, I realised that it’s very multi-faceted as it’s unique for each individual trying to get into the industry. One way that might work for one person, may not work at all for another. However, one thing that is essential when it comes to being a recording artist is being virtuosic at your instrument/instruments. (City, University of London, n.d.)
Without being able to play an instrument well, it makes it very hard to record or write anything. Being a recording artist can be quite different to any other sort of job because you don’t necessarily need to have any professional qualifications or degrees, just the ability to play an instrument, and play it well. In many ways it could be best summed up by Ellen J Langer who says, “All it takes to become an artist, is to start doing art”. (Langer, 2005)
Due to there not being a clear-cut way of becoming a recording artist and becoming recognised, networking with as many people as possible is a really good way for artist to become known within the industry, as you don’t know what each conversation may lead to. (City, University of London, n.d.) You could argue that who you are as a person could lead to you becoming a recording artist, for example if someone was looking to sign you to their label, they may not want to if you turn out to be an unpleasant person.
When pondering this question, I began to think if there were any recording artists who were drummers that I could get into contact with. The artist that came to my mind was Alden McWayne (known as gucci_pineapple on Instagram). Despite not being able to arrange a time to chat about his usual schedule as recording artist/drummer, I explored how effective his use of social media is, as a way of promoting and marketing himself. I discovered his band’s music with his brother (Dana and Alden) through his Instagram, which shows that his way of promoting can be effective. These posts often involved him creating skit like videos, where he is being himself and interacting with the general public; he comes across as being quite an eccentric person that is friendly. There is an element of him having a likeable character that makes you want to listen to his music more. He also posts videos of him playing covers and originals with other musicians, recorded in what looks like a bedroom. He found a style of social media promotion that was unique and as a result, has found new followers of him and his music, with myself included in that. Now that he’s built up a base of followers, that can give him a platform for promoting his tours that are coming up and bits of merchandise that they are releasing. However, social media is an ever changing tool that has to be kept up with. Therefore, to keep growing, Alden may have to adapt or change what he’s doing.
With the emergence of more digital platforms and social media to release and consume music, this has led to artists changing how they earn money. This has many positives as it has offered artists more diversified income sources and further encouraging/forcing artists to engage differently and more creatively with their audience. (Walfish, 2023) Some examples of alternative income sources would be tours, royalties (streaming services, radio and TV), selling of physical copies (vinyl, CDs, merchandise).
Despite all this, each of these different income streams are a bit more complicated than it looks on the surface, with many potential financial and legal challenges. A well-known financial challenge that recording artists face is the lack of pay out and income coming from streaming services like Spotify, with only £0.0024-£0.004 being made per stream, and even then, there is a split of 70/30 when it comes to the royalties. (Ditto Music, 2024) (30% of those royalties going straight to Spotify and the other 70% going to the artist or rights holder). (Ditto Music, 2024) Furthermore, the rights holder might not necessarily be the recording artist and tends to be the publisher or songwriter, which often occurs if, as an artist, you are signed to a label. (Ditto Music, 2024)
Due to this lack of pay out from streaming services, recording artists may have to rely on other forms of income, such as the selling of physical copies in the forms of CDs, vinyl, or digital downloads (known as mechanical royalties (Walfish, 2023)). Or an artist may seek to sell other forms of merchandise or go on tour, with selling merchandise becoming more a significant source of revenue for artists. (Walfish, 2023) Tours also used to be a good form of revenue, but they too have become a bit of financial challenge, with tours being considered as financially unsustainable due to the cost-of-living crisis, which has not been aided by the impact of COVID. (Sutherland, 2022) Due to these factors, it has resulted in recording artists cancelling tours that they have planned; and even if they do go ahead, ticket sales have seen a decline of 40% in recent years, drastically cutting the amount of income artists would gain from a tour. This has turned tours into another unstable source of income. (Sutherland, 2022) According to Naomi Pohl, “We’ve really got a problem in this country in that our musicians and creative people are so low earning”. (Sutherland, 2022)
With there being so many financial challenges when becoming a recording artist, especially when you are starting out as you will have low level exposure and are unlikely to have many listeners, and the limited royalties you will gain will be even smaller. Because of this, when you first start out as a recording artist, you may have to consider having more of a portfolio career, which comprises of having multiple jobs at the same time, being either part time or more full time. (Danyew, n.d.) These jobs could consist of anything both music related and not, such as being a peripatetic music teacher, composing, or arranging, depending on the skills that you already have. As your career as a recording artist progresses, it may be more likely that you no longer need to have a portfolio career or do as many jobs as before, due to earning more from royalties as you become more well recognised as an artist. Starting out with a portfolio career is not necessarily a bad thing as you gain a diversity of knowledge and skills which will prove to be more helpful further in your career.
Being a recording artist consists of doing a lot of administrative work, alongside playing music and recording. Most days include emailing a variety of people whether that be booking different gigs or venues, or communicating with different musicians, band members or managers, an average day of a recording artist can involve a lot of admin. (Ike, 2016) This obviously depends on how far along in your musical career you are or whether you may be on tour or recording an album. Each day is different depending on the things. (Ike, 2016) Other things that you might have to do/skills you will have to develop is managing your finances, especially if you are self-employed, which initially is likely. Managing your finances consists of being responsible for tax, national insurance, student loan and pension, all of which would likely be sorted out for you if you were directly employed. (Harrington, 2024) Additionally, you would have to work out how you take holiday, sickness, or even having maternity/paternity leave and on top of that, working out finances of things such as tours and merchandise. (Harrington, 2024) Could show picture from slides All of these things have to be taken into consideration when it comes to organising your day. You have to be able to wear many different hats when you are a musician/recording artist and some of those hats you are going to naturally fit more than others. (Ike, 2016)
Being a recording artist sadly is not just making music but organising the business end of it all. (Ike, 2016) It can require you having or learning many different skills such as being your own manager, accountant, social media, promoter, artist. (UK Music, n.d.) This can be challenging both intellectually and personally as some of these skills may not come naturally and require putting time and effort into learning these skills. Another big personal challenge is how do you compete with other recording artists that are trying to do the same thing, to make yourself stand out? With technology and the music market being more accessible, it is also becoming an overly saturated market. Due to this, you have to make yourself and your music seen, being different from others but not so much so that people may not want to listen/like your music. (Walfish, 2024) When you are first starting out, you are finding your own sound, so in those early stages of working out what you want your music to sound like, you are likely to be imitating other artists. (Stein, 2022) It’s also important to listen to music beyond the genre that you might be working in as that can influence and enrich your own musical sound. (Stein, 2022) It’s also important to listen to the masters in their respected genres that come before you, so you can respect what has come before you, before moving forward. (Stein, 2022) Finding your own sound is a very personal experience that takes time and energy, so if your audience don’t like or relate to your music it can be a challenge to not take it personally. With us being in an ever-increasing digital age, it can be easier for people to publicly criticise the work you are doing. As a recording artist, you have to find a way of dealing with that challenge and managing it, in a way that you can use the criticism received to positively change what you might be doing. Or taking a completely different approach by ignoring the criticism and carrying on making the art that you want to create.
As well as juggling these many hats and challenges you need to have other personal attributes and skills to be successful in becoming a recording artist, with the main one being that you need to be passionate about what you are doing. (BBC Bitesize, n.d.) Your passion for music will come out in every other aspect of what you are doing. To quote Tom Misch’s opening track off his album Geography, Before Paris, “If you’re starting to try to be a musician or artist or something like that, because you wanna make money, because you wanna do a job. That’s the wrong way. You have to do this because you love it and it doesn’t matter if you’re broke, you still gon’ do it.” (Misch, 2018)
Passion ties into needing to have resilience when it comes being a recording artist, because it’s a job where you face many setbacks and challenges, which we’ve touched on. (BBC Bitesize, n.d.) It’s likely that your resilience is going to come from and be reinforced by your passion. (BBC Bitesize, n.d.) This passion and resilience are helpful for every element of being recording artist but are also very good attributes to have outside the music world too. Being a recording artist is different for everyone but one thing every recording artist should share is a love and passion for music; regardless of what genre you play, how well received or popular your music is, the passion for being an artist and the art that you produce, should be integral. To quote Ellen J Langer again, “All it takes to become an artist, is to start doing art”. (Langer, 2005)
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