 So I've probably watched a video with a title like this like a hundred times on YouTube. You know, it's the type of grifters who come to this platform, love to con musicians with and pretend they know things about. But the fact is, most of the people who make these videos are just regurgitating an article they've read somewhere. But in this video, I wanted to actually show you how I see artists get signed to labels, booking agencies, and management companies from my own experience and from discussing with my network of A&R, managers, and booking agents. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon, a music marketing nerd who's teaching musicians how to grow their fanbase from 0 to 10,000 fans, and this is Muse Formation. So our first method, which is by far the most popular method for major labels today to find artists, is they watch charts and trending data. Unlike five years ago, A&R are able to easily see which artists are trending before anyone else knows it with software that shows when an artist or song is growing very fast. And these platforms can narrow that down to genres and all sorts of other filters, so if you're a person who's scouting talent, you can easily see only what you want to see. And this technique isn't old, it's just gotten way easier to do from your couch while a computer does the hard work. When I was a teenager, I was a scout for some A&R at Big Indie Labels, which basically meant they recognized that since I read one of the coolest record stores in New York City and did sound at clubs, I knew what artists the kids were excited about before a lot of other people did, so they'd bribe me with some pizza or a beer and bragging rights of being an unpaid scout in order for me to tell them which groups have a lot of enthusiasm before everyone else finds out. But now they can see that with data, and one of my last videos was about Chartmetric, which is a perfect example of the type of platform used to analyze this data, and that video is linked in the description if you missed it. Anyway, Chartmetric lets you see if an artist is trending upwards and if it's genuine and not a bunch of bots they bought. Since when we first got this type of data, a lot of A&R made the mistake of siding groups who used bots to generate plays, but now we're past that era, and while tons of clowns still use bots, it's easy to see their little clown noses, and they think they're fooling people, but really they're only fooling the other members of the clown car. But aside from Chartmetric, there's a handful of platforms designed to alert A&R of artists on the rise, and if we're being honest, this is where most A&R and managers are looking to find artists these days. This is because these people have always been looking to find artists who audiences react to genuinely, and now they can easily see that and decide from the pool that they find. Now, they'll probably meet them and see if they have a good personality, if they're really going to be in it to win it, but this is the first step oftentimes. So I can read some of your minds though, and you're wondering how you could exploit this. But here's the thing, I actually think this is largely good for music. Since if an artist is trending, it means fans are legitimately reacting to music and telling each other about it, and that's why the music is trending. But what this tells me is if you want to be found this way, well, you should be doing all the things I tell you to do on this channel, and I know some of you will push back on me and say, what about artists like Bad Baby or the latest TikTok influencer 4-Boy turns singer? Yes, some managers in A&R are legitimately interested in working with these artists. But there's a hidden detail to how those people get signed, but I need a few minutes to get there, which brings us to our next method of how musicians get signed today. So our next method is cosigns. But before we even get into what I mean by cosigns, I want to talk to you about what I like to call island boys. And while I do not mean that you are questionably awful people with an extremely cringe look, and there are some similarities between what I call island boys and the atrocity the internet calls the island boys. What I like to call island boys are the artists who don't interact with their community at all. They don't work with directors who work with other artists in their scene. They don't use mixers who other artists in their community use. They don't play shows with anyone in their community. And yes, if you are familiar with this channel, they've done none of the work I talk about in my series on community, which if you haven't watched, I want to remind you it literally starts with a video where the thumbnail says my most important video. Might be a hint you should watch it, chief. So it's linked on the end screen of this video and in the description. Anyway, these artists are islands, and because that no one ever hears about them, even if they're good, since they're stuck out on this island that almost no one ever goes near. Whereas the artists who do interact with other artists, directors, producers, and mixers, well, they amass a bunch of people that are recommending them, which then ties them together in algorithms, which helps recommend them to other listeners, and they get organic mentions from influential people, which gets you listeners. But let's talk about the opposite of the island boys. One of the most common paths where an artist gets signed is through cosigns. When artists do their community work, they're able to find the people who are doing the best work in their community. So here's a good example. Let's say you've filled out your community spreadsheet, and you see that all the artists who are a little bigger than you are being mixed by the same two people. Let's say you hit them up and they love what you do and want to work with you. So you make a track with them, and then that mixer sends it to their mastering engineer. When you release your song and you tag the mixer and the mastering engineer on Instagram, and they reshare your song praising it, you know who else sees it? All the other artists that they work with, their managers and A&R also see it because they follow those people because they work with them all the time and they have a relationship with them. And as long as your music isn't trash, you're probably going to have your world expanded and stop being an island. I don't mean to imply that doing this once will lead you to be signed, but doing this consistently and then having other musicians from your community who also work with these people sharing your track. Well it continues the chances that the people in your community who work at labels, booking agencies and management companies are going to check you out and see you're talented and know you're part of the community and want to work with you. We all know all of us check out artists when we keep seeing their names being mentioned, especially by people we respect, it makes it way more likely. So this is the ultimate hack to doing that. Now of course this all compounds when you've done the same thing with directors, photographers and designers for your album and merch who are of course followed by all the A&R and managers they work with, and they keep seeing your name and increasing the chances you're heard by the ears of the people who are in this business who work with artists like you. Especially when you're doing this along with consistent sustained promotion, the right people who are actually in the business begin to see you. And if you watch this channel you know I've said the problem with Facebook ads is they give you the worst quality fans, but when you do what I'm talking about here, you get the opposite of those fans. And the people who are paying attention to those posts are the best quality fans you can ask for and they're connected with people in the business and they're often the gatekeepers who can open up doors for you and they're the people who talk to other people about the music they listen to and are connected all throughout a community. And what compounds this even more is if you're playing live with groups in your community and making content like going live on Instagram with other artists or having them on a Spotify music plus talk episode, you're just going to continue to increase the chances the right people see you. The fact is the more you do this the more you build a web around you and if this is blowing your mind you should be subscribed to get notified since this is what we talk about here. But here's the funny thing so many of you will think that's going to cost way too much money but the funny thing about music is oftentimes the people who are up and coming and doing amazing work are still cheap. I mean now that everyone and their mother has a home studio well the price for even really talented people is often cheaper than you think and that goes for video directors photographers and all sorts of other talent in the music business unfortunately. I should say once you have a cosign from a label manager or booking agent they then take you to the other teams and contacts they have and try to get them on the team. So if you're found by a manager they're often going to take you to a bunch of A&R and booking agents that they already work with. If you get the eye from one person who's in the business they will often take you around and share your music as you put more of it out and try to get some of their contacts to come aboard. If you want to see this in real life a particularly great story that illustrates this is the video I did with Barty Strange which is linked in the description. If I've been doing this YouTube thing long enough to anticipate the comments you all have it some of you will say you've done this but the people you work with never share your stuff. My first suggestion is find people who believe in you enough that they're dying to share it and then second examine if you actually tagged that person on Instagram since I've been accused of not sharing before and then the artist realized they never tagged me in a story or messaged me to tell me they did it if I don't follow them and it dies in my message requests but sometimes these people you work with just aren't proud of the work they've done with you for whatever reason and you should take this as a hint to find either a better match to work with or perhaps get singing lessons since you sing as bad as the aforementioned island boys. But like I mentioned I talk about some of you waste your time thinking all day about all 15 times each year some TikTok influencer gets signed as they pivot to music from doing some dance where they balance butcher knives on their forehead or something and you fixate on this exception to the rule instead of focusing on the rule. But as someone who's been very close to a few of the artists the unseen hand here is it's because they have pivoted to music and gone to a really well established producer and that producer then cosigns them and tells their fancy A&R friends about them and says they are actually talented and shows that A&R a fire track they made with them and then the cosign happens and all of a sudden send influencers pivoted to not just music but signed artists. Trust me every A&R manager I talked to to write this video has a story of the influencer they wanted to sign because they had a huge following but they were tone deaf or an idiot or they wanted to do something totally cringe like sing Tony Bennett covers and they had to pass on them even though it could have been a goldmine because they already had a huge platform. The garbage can of everyone I talked to's office is littered with these people. Trust me it's all about the cosigns if you don't get that remember I answer every question in the comments below but even if you are an island boy all hope is not lost which brings us to the third and final way musicians get signed today. Now let's say you were like forget that Jesse I am DIY till I die I don't want to work with any of these people I am a proud island boy. I'd first advise you to never call yourself that in front of anyone else again but I'd second like to remind you that the wise man Derek Sivers once revised DIY to be decided yourself instead of do it yourself. Since truly what really matters here is that you get to make your own creative decisions not that you do everything yourself since I doubt you're going to do that forever if you get funding since literally no artist ever does this when they realize they can concentrate their attention on what they're really good at and work with talented people that help expand their art and their minds. Anyway the final way people get signed today is being good at tiktok. Truly every person in the music business right now is coping tiktok all day trying to get it and also seeing the groups who are good at it and trying to get their artists who are not good at it to learn how to be good at it but they are also happy to skip that step and just sign an artist that's already good at it and you can see it in a lot of the signings that big indies are doing these days and majors. Now I'm not saying that if you sing as bad as the island boys but are posting numbers on tiktok you're going to have contracts thrown at you like bras from baggable set a kid rock concert but if you are talented at tiktok and make good music everyone in music right now is enamored at trying to understand the power of tiktok as they see so many songs blew up from it and if you're good at it you're valuable to a manager or label and when they see that you are someone who's a student enough to build a following well the fact is many people in music don't trust they know a hit when they hear one but they do know charismatic people that get followings are monetizable and that's what they jump on which kind of is like trending data which we first discussed but really these are the only three ways I see anyone get signed that aren't exceptions to the rule or total fluke but listen if this just blew your mind and you want to get this well you should definitely click on the video that's on the screen now since it teaches you how to do all the things I just talked about to build a fan base and get signed click and keep learning thanks for watching