 What's up everybody, once again it's Brand Man, Shawn and this video is brought to you by brandmannetwork.com because I signed myself. Now this video is particularly interesting because it originally was at the end of another video but I felt like it ranted and became a video in and of itself. So what I'm about to talk about here is really just how you should probably think about what I call music label services companies or just label service companies for short. And what those are, that's my way of coining a phrase really between companies like Amuse, AWOL, United Masters, anybody in that in-between space. Empire might even make it into that space kind of sorta. But this is a new, more exploratory space as the industry tries to evolve and figure out. We take an opportunity that is all of these independent artists that are rising up and they're starting to bubble and how do we be able to do this at scale because the old system isn't working and we can't fully get rid of the old system but we do need to figure out a new system before the old system completely dies. So what I do right here and you're about to see it, it's just break down first how they describe themselves, what you'll kind of help inform how you should even think of them in the first place. And really quickly before I show this back end clip, the clip that actually inspired it was my interview and the snippet that I showed with J.O. who was signed with AWOL. I'll put a link to that video in the description below. But other than that, do not get confused that the video is going to look kind of the same. It's still just going to be me talking with a wall like this behind me. It's not going to be anything special. But once again, here it is. So we're going to hop right into the discussion and I suggest you guys if you are considering working with either one of these companies, go ahead and watch this on the way through or if you're already with them, go ahead and watch this all the way through. So just to get things started off, I'm going to start with you J.O. How did you get involved with AWOL? Because I remember it took multiple tries for you to even get accepted with them. Yeah, so I think I saw an ad on Instagram leading to their profile. And I know I listened to some of their artists such as like Kevin Gare and Love Songs. And yeah, I decided to apply around July of last year, 2018. And I currently are at the time I didn't have any of my own music out. I just had like maybe two covers. So I tried applying and I got denied. And at the same time, my friend who had some songs on the way applied and he got accepted. So I just started releasing stuff and then reapplied and they accepted me in October. So that's how that kind of started. But have you seen any personal gain or any additional benefit from AWOL since you've been on? On my own personal music, not much, to be honest. On my friends, it's inconsistent. He doesn't even know what's happening. Like the first is the very first song he put out. First week, 50,000 plays, no promotion, no extra anything. And it was like, OK, if this is what AWOL does, like, are we ready for it? So that's that's what got me hyped. I was like, I'm ready to sign with AWOL too. I want that. Then his second release got like 2000 plays after like two months. And then he just released another one again and it's already at 20,000 plays. And he's like, I don't know what the formula is. He has no idea what's happening and how like to control that. They do have a great like communication base, as far as like you can message them with email and get some responses there. But there's no physical location that's accessible to like the public. Even though they have locations like they have one in LA, you have to be invited there. So you can't really communicate face to face with some of these people. So for me personally, I've released a project in January and there wasn't really any push at all. Actually, there was no push at all. But from AWOL and no Instagram promotion, no playlisting. They do claim to give more like you have a higher chance of being on Discover Weekly and such. But I guess I don't really have a comparison of not being on AWOL because I didn't release anything before AWOL. So I got one song made Discover Weekly on that entire project. And I could see the analytics. I only got like 500 plays from Discover Weekly. Other stuff is from. Because you AWOL has those big requirements that they have. Yeah. But you pretty much didn't have anything really going on for yourself or released anything when you got accepted. Yeah. So I just had an original on YouTube that I sent in. And I think that's what really got me accepted because it was starting to gain some traction. A song that I wrote, a graduation song I wrote for my students at the time. So that was starting to get some traction. So I guess they liked it or someone whoever was reviewing it liked it and accepted me versus the first time when I had one cover, a John Legend cover that was two years old. Once again, that clip is from a full candy conversation that I had with not only J.O., but multiple artists right within that clip. It was basically you call it almost like just it was not even a panel. We're just chilling, right? But J.O., a couple of other artists who are signed with United Masters, a circle from Indiepreneur. And if you want to see that full conversation, you can check it out on brandmannetwork.com. But I want to provide some full perspective on how you should look at these companies. And it really just starts with how they describe themselves because I think there's a lot of confusion with it. So let's start with AWOL. For AWOL, it describes itself as cobalt's unique alternative to the traditional music label offering marketing. A&R, funding, playlisting, radio and global distribution. And I think AWOL is like the most transparent description of what it is and the clearest description of what it is. And I would call this entire category of companies, label service companies. They're not labels, right? They all are essentially, you know, alternatives, but I'll get into that in a second. Now let's look at how United Masters describes themselves. A new industry alternative for independent artists. United Masters provides premium music distribution services and facilitates unique partnerships between artists and the world's biggest brands. We enable artists to maintain full ownership over their master recording rights while introducing them to millions of new fans worldwide through our direct brand partnerships. Last but not least, let's go with AMUSE. AMUSE is a reimagined record label. We offer free music distribution to everyone and record deals to artists we believe in. We rethought music distribution, artist discovery and record deals and made them mobile, simple and free. All right, so again, if you really look at the common denominator, all of these companies really talk about themselves being an alternative to labels, right? And this is them trying to reimagine and adjust for the new industry, right? They're trying to figure it out. We have all of these new artists, these indies and it opens up the opportunity for so many other people to create music and be able to blow up. However, there hasn't been a way from a traditional institutional standpoint to manage that, right? And how do we tap into that? And these are all their solutions on trying to figure that situation out. And I believe it's going to be an evolving thing because essentially they're offering record label services. If you really think about it, except the big difference is essentially making it available for people in an a la carte manner. You choose which things that you partake in versus this is my record deal. And all of these things come apart of it because even in the old days, if you think about it, somebody who had a certain amount of leverage, even if you look at how Master P did his deal, or you have a certain amount of leverage or you're able to take a certain amount of risk yourself, you could have just picked the things that you wanted to do in your record deal, right? But that still just wasn't common practice. Now it seems that all of these companies and whoever else is involved in the situations have looked at the marketplace and say, you know what, we want to be able to take advantage of the opportunity. And a large part of that is this model because they're all different versions. They use different language because that's just their branding, how they go about things, but they're all different versions of each other. I would say AWOL is probably the most transparent and clear description of probably some version of what they all do. And what I want to make super clear, though, is all of these things pretty much have free distribution. But that's because it's a different business model to look at. This isn't tune cord, this isn't DistroKid. I would not even bunch them into the distribution services. And how you know what somebody's business model is, right? And what the service they offer is, it's based on when and how they charge. So tune cord, DistroKid, those types of companies, they're charging for the distribution because that's where they, you know, make their bread and butter. These companies, they're looking beyond that, right? They're looking more so for the distribution to be something that they offer to artists. But while you're on those platforms, they're essentially looking to figure out who are the artists worth investing more in and possibly provide those opportunities for them. As a matter of fact, Amuse said it blatantly. Again, they said we offer free music distribution to everyone and record deals to artists that we believe in, right? So how do they believe in you? A large part of that might be something like, hey, you're on our platform using our free distribution. But now I see that you're doing some things. You're getting a lot of traction. Hmm, we believe in you because we see there is some opportunity in you because obviously you have a fan base is building. You have some interest that's there and they can track that since you're using their platform. It's really just automating one of the traditional tasks of an A&R or a scout, whatever you want to call it. But that's the way to really look at those companies in general. And when it comes to the record deals or some of those label services, please do not expect that stuff to just be free. There's going to be something that gets exchanged, right? Because if I have a company and I'm connecting you with brands, I'm not going to just connect you with brands without either taking some portion of a royalty, right? Or taking some kind of big upfront fee from you. I'm going to get something, right? If that's my business, I'm going to get something. So anybody going into any of these types of companies and expecting to just blow up for free, right? They're going to have my music distribution and they're also going to give me all these great opportunities and get nothing out of it. And I don't have to do anything. That's just a bad expectation. It just doesn't make sense. I understand that they don't put it out there on the forefront, but it should just be assumed because that is just business. But as I always say in the music industry, if it looks like a lick, you probably are the lick. Or as, you know, most people say, if it's too good to be true, or it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. So just keep that stuff in mind. And it doesn't mean that these things are not too good to be true. But your perspective, right? On things might be too good to be true. This is the reality of it. Now, once again, if you want to see the full conversation, right? Of them talking about their scenarios and how they've dealt with these companies. These are artists who have actually either been signed to these things or use those services. Then you can check out the full conversation on brandmannetwork.com. 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