 So I grew up one of those kids raised on punk, who thought major labels were the most evil thing this side of Oxycontin manufacturers. I spent my teens and twenties scoffing at this stupidity of the majors and all their phallops as they went from their highest profits to being an industry that had lost nearly all of its value. And I was mad at these labels for being such fat cats they couldn't see the world under them was changing. And I saw the consequences handed down to all the cool indie records I worked on as their budgets got obliterated. But then all of a sudden, I was given an offer that was hard to refuse. Warner Music Group, one of the three major labels that exist today, offered to pay me to make podcasts to go in and show the DNA of their labels and how they actually nurture artists with no editorial oversight, unprecedented access to the artists, staff, producers, and managers to tell unpolished, real stories of how they got to one of the biggest labels on earth and how they make the music that has such a huge effect on the masses. So in this episode, I'm going to tell you what I learned there and the lessons DIY musicians can take away and apply to their career. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon, music marketing nerd who's teaching musicians how to grow their fan base from zero to 10,000 fans. And this is Muse Formation. So if you didn't know this, in addition to working on music, I got a real passion for podcasts and started making them a part of my life around 2006 and producing them in 2010 along before they became popular. And today my company Muse Formation produces and markets over a dozen top podcasts, including two that have regularly appeared in the top 200 of all 1,100,000 podcasts. But before I got there in 2017, I was asked by Warner Music Group to make some podcasts for Atlantic and Electra with the ambitious goal of making some of the realest looks inside the process of making records that the world has ever seen and giving listeners what they really enjoy about podcasts. A more realistic view of what is happening compared to the fluffy documentaries you see in the mainstream all the time. So despite the fact that my young punk self would want to kick my old self's ass, this was an offer I couldn't turn down. And while a busy guy, I have been on a mission since all the way back in 2009 to put out the realest information in the music business. Since I truly believe that if DIY musicians knew what many of the overly funded groups in the mainstream knew, we'd get better music and art. And if that's my mission, then well, how could I say no to them paying me to do this? So I put aside my fears of being in some weird sci-fi movie where my younger self clad in leather jacket and spiked belt would come to beat my ass in the future. And I went for it. Now I'd been in major label meetings for producing and marketing for the past 17 years on a regular basis. So I figured none of this was going to be that crazy. After all, I'd been in all of the major labels' walls back when there was seven instead of three. And I would see all sorts of ridiculous occurrences and meetings that people barely believed me when I would tell them about. But what I was tasked with at this job was different. I would see the whole ecosystem working around artists, and as someone who's always either been on the part of the marketing team or the production team, I haven't gotten to see the inner workings of how it all works together all the time, which got me curious what else was going on. So I had to get in there and get to work. And until COVID hit and they decimated the department I worked in, I got to do that each day and it was super awesome. And if you want to hear the result, I made a few podcast series for them. First, there was Atlantic Records inside the album, where I hosted and made many documentaries on the Atlantic roster with artists like Wallows, Dashboard Confessional, Jason Maraz, Nothing Nowhere, Grandson, and a ton more. Then I made Landed, where I actually got to ask the staff whatever I wanted and you get a real grasp on what the arms of the major labels actually do. And learn what's actually happening to promote the biggest acts in the world. And I'm so proud of this series, as I think it gives an incredible look inside a major label like no one else has. Third, I worked on What I Say, a podcast where we'd mostly chat with the new artists on the label and give an intro to them, but also worked on some specialized content for other more established artists, where we upped their profile and made interview pieces to raise awareness around them. They all still exist and are linked in the description, and I'm always psyched to see that they're still getting streams. But as promised, this video isn't about what awesome work I do, but instead what I learned. So let's go. So all my life, all I would hear is that major labels shaped artists and turned them into these commercially viable products. I watched tons of movies where they told artists to get a new haircut or get naked in their video or else they would ruin their career and drop them. Well, in the 17 years before I got to Atlantic, I had already worked with some of the biggest artists in the world, and I had kind of gotten a little hint that that was all bullshit. And while it occasionally happened, it really was an inaccurate portrayal of the music business in this century. I mean, if only I could name names and tell you about the time, I saw one of the biggest stars of a label scream at the president of the label that no one asked their opinion and have the president apologize and then watch that same president drop a similar artist for simply complaining their album was taking too long to come out. I've seen some strange shit, but I learned a lot about these stories, how and they may have happened at times, but they were hardly the rule and mostly the exception. What I saw at Atlantic was a trust in artists, that they are visionaries, and that the staff can help them consider their decisions more and put them around the best producers, directors, songwriters, etc. to nurture those decisions. But the artists really were in charge as long as they didn't break their budgets or timelines and really put in thought into the songs they felt passionate about. And if the A&R didn't love them, the artist often got a pass from the A&R. And sure, artists may have been asked to make some alternate versions, but truly, this is not what I had always heard. The artists were signed because they saw them as being exceptional and some trust was placed there. Now granted, in my time there, I did see some artists make terrible decisions, and when their songs got less streams than some of my YouTube videos, would they get dropped? Well, yeah. But I was continuously shocked how much the team at the label ate shit when it was clear they didn't agree with the decision and still worked hard to push the artist's vision. In my interviews with the head of A&R, Pete Gambark, he repeatedly mentioned and gave examples that you can guide artists' creative choices when it comes to their songs, but forcing your will on them creatively never leads to good songs. Since what makes good songs is making what you're passionate about not what's trendy or forced on you, which was nice to hear since the year before I had written a whole book on that subject and I kind of was a little worried about when I got in these walls and took a further look, I may be wrong. But sure enough, my book was proven even more right. And just so you know, it's available wherever fine books are sold. But really, the label didn't polish artists or force a vision on them or craft them into these plastic molds or templates of other artists. Instead, it gave more thought and tried to find what was unique about each artist and how they could express their authentic selves in a unique way that would set them apart from the rest. And truly, this showed me a thing that I have often seen in my career, which is so many of the blowhards think they could shape an artist and tell them every move. But most of the greats in this business simply find the best talent that has vision and they can trust that they have good intuitions and just help them be better. It always felt counterintuitive to me, but man, have I seen that in my years in this business. But let's talk about the thought and direction some more. The thing I thought was really interesting is once an artist got to the label, instead of it being, it was much more like, hey, here's some talented producers, songwriters and other artists we think you'd work well with. Go see what you create. Imprints of WMG like Neon Gold would host writing retreats, and in my documentary on Matt Maison on Inside the Album, you hear how these collaborations taught him to be a better songwriter and helped Berth one of his biggest hits. The label trusted that if you put talented people together, they create great things and also have conversations that will teach the artist what artistry is at this level. The fact is, many of the lessons of how to grow in music are often best delivered from colleagues and collaborators rather than some suit who's more of an authority figure. Plus, with your artists and creators working together, they know the artists often learn tools from each other on how to create amazing things from working with those who are good at making great songs. It's win-win all around. Brian Eno called this seniors, where what would be largely determinative of your creative output would be the people you surround yourselves with. And as a common trot about saying goes, you are often as wealthy as the five friends you spend the most time with. And it's also true that being around really genius people gives you thoughts that rise you to a new level. And I often tell musicians who are striving to get to higher places of creativity to get closer with everyone they know who is great and put yourself in closer proximity to those greats more often. And really, take that seriously. Whenever you have an opportunity to level up and be around someone who's truly creative, make sure you place priority in being around them more than your dipshit friends who are just playing video games all day. The fact is collaborations and co-writing is mentorship. And where you learn how to write and sing better and the more people you work with, the more you learn. And what I'm constantly telling you on this channel is to do more collaborations and work with other people. This is exactly where it comes from. As I watched how it made artists grow to find how they want to express themselves. Instead of it being that they turned into some mold of a major label artist, they actually had to find their own unique self and how to be their own unique vision better. It really was a sight to behold. Also, if this video is giving you value, please hit like and subscribe. If you want to get notified as I post videos on how to go from zero to 10,000 fans, I really, really suggest you do that. Okay, back to the fun. One of the most shocking things I saw that I had missed in my younger days is the A&R had so much of a say in what happened when promoting the record. But at Atlantic and in the new music business, that's changed. The A&R was in charge of helping shape the record in songs with notes on songs and guiding the producer and mixer choices. But PMs, aka product managers, handled the marketing and planning around promoting the album after it was mastered. This to me is genius, since what I'd often see was how rare it was that an A&R would be good at both marketing and developing songs. And this is a big flaw in why so many indie labels would fail as it'd be one person doing this or maybe two and it'd be spread too thin. But it's so uncommon for somebody to be good at these two different mindsets. So having separate experts handle it all made all the sense in the world since the genius who is both a marketing mind and creative mind is so rare. A trend I started to see as major label budgets died down as the record biz really fell out in 2010 is that the managers became who was steering the ship even more. The fact was once major labels didn't have four marketing people working each artist anymore and instead one marketing person began working with four different artists it became that management had to do more of the heavy lifting. And what I saw over and over again at Atlantic is the management along with the artist that team were making plans and proposals hoping for the labels to come on board. And that's not to say that the PMs didn't have great ideas but the myth that the label has commissioned a thorough rollout and the manager approves that is about as real as the guy who's in your DMs who's asking you for $100 to give you 10,000 followers. Each year managers seem to contribute more of the vision as the labels are spread thin with other duties. And I don't think this trend is going anywhere either. A very weird fact I see rarely discussed is that so many of the artists I met were on their second major label deal. Perhaps they were previously in a developmental deal or put some songs out on a major record label but so many people I know get crushed when things don't work out for them that are much more minor than getting dropped from a major label. But one of the things I believed for over a decade that was reinforced for me at Atlantic is the artists who succeed in this business get used to failure and keep persisting. And as I've said in a previous video the artists who get paralyzed and depressed with each disappointment they go nowhere. This is a business of learning how to build resilience. The road to success in this business is constant gains and setbacks. If you've never watched the video where I talk about this it's linked on the screen or in the description below. I should also say there wasn't one way of doing things either. For example, whether it was rock or pop-backs for most of them they would go through a rigorous demo stage where A&R would give notes on demos before they got into the studio with the producer. And the producers would then do notes where outside songwriters would collaborate and try to punch up the songs to make them as emotional as possible. But that wasn't only the case. Take low country sound to imprint through WMG. When I documented artists like Brent Cobb and Shudder Jangs who worked with producer Dave Cobb who's one of the biggest in country music he doesn't believe in pre-production and told me on both podcasts I did with him about how not into the practice he is. They instead did what was right for the artist and trusted that their creative vision would get what's needed and be what comes across best. But really what I saw over and over again was the label had access to a lot of great talent and knew who to call for what each artist needed. The fact is they know who to call when an artist needs a left field idea whether it's for marketing or songs that can go a long way and in making an artist's career go further. So what does this mean for DIY artists? As I always tell you becoming well researched knowing every producer is starting to do great work that you could potentially work with and knowing what the marketing opportunities are by keeping your ear to the ground it's truly a lot of the game and that's one of the main advantages of a major label and while without a team you can't often get the objectivity and experience that a major label has that's exactly what they offer for the crazy huge cut they take off your music sales. As they say you get what you pay for but guaranteed many artists feel that pay isn't worth it which is why they run from the system as fast as they can. But truly developing a community of collaborators and ears who will give you good feedback is one of the main benefits of a major label and while anyone claiming you can easily equal a major label's infrastructure is a goddamn liar who doesn't get the game. I do think many of the philosophies I talked about in this video are some of the biggest assets of a major label and them knowing how to employ that and keeping out of artist's way and nurturing them is so much of what makes these artists great. Well if this video was enjoyable for you I really hope you'll like subscribe and get notified so we can keep having this fun together. If you have questions or want to flame me and call me a major label show the comments are right below dog. As well if you're not familiar with this channel we discuss how to grow your fan base from zero to ten thousand fans and there's a playlist on that on the screen right now as well as a playlist on how to navigate Spotify so your songs blow up if you want to learn more about that click on one of those playlists also thanks to Tom Mullen and Chris Lantinen who I worked on all these podcasts with and they help make these podcasts so great I'm so proud of what we did together. Thanks for watching.