 Music just isn't as good as it used to be, and that's a fact. That's how some of these music executive artists feel, and I think it could objectively be true. We're gonna make an argument for both sides in this video, but first we gotta start with a statement from Jimmy Ivey, head of Interscope Records, you know, the fame label. Well, he's not there anymore, but you know, he's done it and created a lot of great artists' careers. Obviously, Beats by Dre, he was a part of that deal and he's over at Apple Music. He himself has said, too many people today are making records for TikTok. TikTok always has to catch one, man. They used to make records for radio, but now it's TikTok. That's why all these pop records sound exactly the same. So if you're making records like that, making records with this formula, then you're gonna start seeing big hits written and recorded with AI. The more you follow a formula, I guess you're saying, the easier you are to replicate and replace, okay? They're following formulas. What happened in music is fame has replaced great. It's happened in society, basically. Fame has replaced great. Because just that whole argument that talent isn't really that much of a thing. They don't care about that. It's just a popularity contest. I think there's some merit to this. And that's his reason, his big reason why. Fame has replaced great, which is why music isn't as good as it used to be. Artists are making so much money in so many different places. As a matter of fact, I'll get to that point last because that's a whole another point. So we can address that part. Let's start here, all right? Do you think fame has replaced great? Yes or no? I say yes because I think fame, well, let me say this. I think air quote fame is more accessible than being great. I do think that, like it's perceived as easier to become famous than it is to make a song that everyone thinks is great. My counter to that would be fame is not the same as it used to be. Like fame is not an easy thing to come by. Popularity is easy to come by, right? But we've seen for years at this point that internet popularity doesn't always translate to real world fame. There are TikTokers with millions of followers that go walk down the street and no one bad enough, you know what I'm saying? And so they're not really famous. They're famous within a bubble, I guess, like this space, but they're not really famous in the sense of what I think they're talking about. So, but from an artist's perspective, or I would think from an artist's perspective, internet popularity is much easier to attain than being quote unquote great because music tastes so fragmented now. Like there isn't truly an artist, I feel like that every corner of the music industry considers to be great. Because there's too many options, right? We know that for every 95% you show me, I can think of an artist that has a 5% that you're missing, and so it's hard for me to see you as this 100%. So here's the issue though, right? Because overall, music might be more trash than it used to be, or not as good as it used to be, whatever measurement, right? But it's not all the artist's fault. Artist, it is not your fault if your music is trash unless it's not for these reasons that I'm about to state. Artists today are living in a completely different business model. For one, we talk about the superstar and what you're saying, right? It's harder to control attention, right? So it's harder to generate a superstar because there's so many people, so many eyes looking at so many places. If it's hard for me to create a superstar, which is where I'm gonna get the biggest gains and biggest benefit, then I'm not gonna invest as much money into it, right? If it's harder for me to make as much money in this business, meaning in a superstar or just from my creative output in general, or my investment in general, then I'm not gonna support the creative. So artists aren't getting funded to the levels that they used to, right? We don't see $1 million Hype Williams videos, right? So you would think, oh, well, what if I still had that $1 million in my budget? But then now creating a video is so much cheaper. So now I've got even more money to put in other places now. It didn't work like that. It's just like, nope, everything's shrink. So artists don't have the same level of back in support, the ones that we get to see. And now the ones we get to see are just a dude in the room that might've just popped up and went viral one day, right? Which doesn't mean that it's not possible to one day get that support or whatever. It just means if you're a random person in the room, you didn't get as many resources financially as well because that does matter when it comes to bringing artistic vision to light. That's why artists complain about money or they talk about other people having money that they don't have access to. Like that is a part of the game. So if I don't have that, right? And then on the other side of all this, if I'm stuck in this model where I have to create content, I got this beautiful independent landscape to exist in today. No, I don't have to be signed by a label, not gonna be successful without being signed by a label, but that means I have more responsibilities. So that means I gotta create content, I gotta watch my own books, I gotta get a manager, and I gotta damn near run the team myself and build my audience myself so I don't even have as much time objectively to put into the art. So the artists back then had more focus just on the art itself while it was being ran by other people around them. So if you think about less time being put into the art for the artists and less focus being able to be put into the art, then that probably takes a hit on quality, right? Then you take computers, allow more of us to create this content, right? And put this music out without being tethered and broken down by gatekeepers. Great, I can give my music to Jacory by myself. But also I can do this in my room in my studio. Accessibility is nice, but isolation also creates creative chasms, right? Where I don't get to collaborate with, let's just say the three of us who are in this room right now, right? We're all collaborating, we're gonna come up with ideas and you don't have artists collaborating as much. So now you got less people involved, that's gonna take a hit, right? It doesn't mean you can't do great music by yourself, but all our goats, the favorite artists that we have, they got a couple of songs that they did like that are just them, but they got a lot of songs that were them and a lot of others, you know what I'm saying? Like you're not even in the same room as the producer no more, all right? So you don't get as much money, you don't, you have to work harder and have less focus on just the music itself. And you don't really have as collaborative as an environment, a truly collaborative. We're in the same space, like jamming together versus, oh, I sent some shit over and now it's asynchronous in how we build a song. Like those three things, to me objectively, make it harder for there to be better music in terms of the top, the top of the top end. Doesn't mean there's not a lot of good music and some great music out there, but it's harder to be as much great music because you don't have as much focus on it. Yeah, I don't top of that, right? Is everything you said and everything you said has led to more competition, really, right? More competition. And I will argue, right? He bought the point of like, you know, when artists make music for the radio. And so let's just say, let's just say what? The last time I would argue artists were making music for the radio was mid, early 2000s. So let's say mid early 2000s and back, right? And up, I guess, yeah, up. It was not uncommon for you to know about like 12 artists that came out that year, right? So the industry at any given year might introduce 12 to 20 new artists to the masses. And this becomes the new pool of people that they're comparing each other to to say who is great. Maybe, and then maybe artists that came before them, right? So artists come out in 2000s, they're gonna compare to the other 19 artists that came out this year. And then maybe 50 of the artists that came from the four or five decades before. Versus today, today, I don't even know. I can't even think of the number of amount of artists that get introduced to the average consumer showing a daily basis, you know what I'm saying? So it goes back to what I was saying earlier, like, what you had as your model for great used to be a lot smaller. Like I could look at these five mega artists that would pop and be like, okay, this is what a great artist looks like, right? They all have these same qualities and not knowing at that time that there were, there were thousands of other artists that tried to be where they were. We just don't know about them because the channels at that point didn't allow them to make it that far. And so we think that all our music was all sunshine and great and every artist making music back then just had this amazing bone damage. Like, bro, no, you just don't know about the other trash artists that existed at that time. Like, I've been in like good wheels and, you know, like thrift stores and record shops before, you know, you go to like a little dollar bin where they have like, you know, some records for sale. You start saying, you're like, damn, who? I ain't never heard of Willie Earl James and I ain't never heard of, I ain't never heard of, you know what I'm saying? Whoever the artist is. And that's when it clicked for me. It was literally the last time I was going through. And I was like, man, bro, like, damn Willie Earl James, you just didn't have the resources to make it to the level of like a James Brown or whoever, right? But the world will never know about you. And we just gonna think that that time period was great because we know James Brown, we know whoever, you know what I'm saying? And so I think that's where it becomes unfair to artists in a certain instances. Like it's all the things you said, it's increased competition. So of course the quality is gonna suffer because even in order for me to survive, to get to the point of being decent is a lot. You know what I'm saying? Let alone talk about staying in the long enough to be great. We talking about just getting to the point of being okay. That's another thing, yeah. Cause a lot of times you're not only are you gonna go through some type of artist development in the older days, but again, you're just in it so long the time you're working on your craft before you hit is a whole another level. Versus we could create a song right now and if it hits, we'll literally without trying to be an artist have a hit song. And then there's people who will have that moment happen. And then decide they wanna take being an artist seriously cause they just happen to have a moment. All right? And then of course you have a lot of young artists that they call themselves artists but they aren't seriously artists, right? And what I mean by that is how many people like to play basketball, right? All right. There's a lot of people who play basketball but you have this filter of, oh yeah, you're on the organized team. So then you would have to go to the organized team in college and then you would go to the NBA, right? But people who love playing basketball, they still like are gonna play in the gym in college. Imagine if those people, because they had some kind of crazy dunk or put up some crazy points in the pickup game, all of a sudden could be launched into stardom and be threatening somebody in the NBA out of nowhere. And then that was happening every day. That's what I try to do with hot sauce that one year. They did and they were very close. I actually saw a whole documentary on that. Like Nike wasn't having that. They got in and went out of here. But that's kind of what artists are going through where you're in that phase where many of them are just young and they love it. They're just doing it for the joy but they're not necessarily going through that growing pain and commitment of saying, oh, I'm going to do this for a career seriously, seriously, beyond those initial pains. It's just like, oh yeah, I'm doing it for fun. And I kind of like being an artist. I like making music. It's the thing I do. And then it's popping. And I didn't have to go through any pain but when you had to go through the pain just to get seen, it's a whole different product. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes me think of another point too, right? Like artists don't get to develop in silence anymore. Right? Like we watched the artist develop, right? Cause even if you're to your point, I'm a small artist. I started making music. I got 30 followers. If I'm one of those 30 followers, I'm going to damn missy every step of it. I'm going to see when he or she goes from being nervous on live to being confident, right? I'm going to hear it when his song sounds like it got recorded in the trash can to the point to that shit song. Like you don't get to develop in silence anymore as an artist. So we see all of it, the good and the bad. This is when we get to the last point. So let's talk about the fact that most artists fail to understand that it doesn't take forever to monetize your audience. We had an artist literally begin to take off and make $20,000 from his brand new audience in the same month. But how is that possible? It's because we're in a new era, baby. Yes, you want to continue to build a relationship over time, but the first time you make money from your audience can happen today if you understand the new age music marketing funnel for artists. So if you want to hear about this approach and how you can apply it to yourself, I made a completely free video to watch at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize. You got to make sure you put the www or if you're on YouTube, you can find the link in the description and check out how we help monetize artists for completely free. I promise it'll completely change how you see things. Jimmy said artists are making so much money in different places, which is fantastic. But after they have a hit record and can earn a lot of money on Instagram and all this stuff, I feel like a lot of artists are taking their foot off the gas in the record making category. And that affects the quality of the work. Yes, yes. So that a lot of that comes from, hey, I didn't say, oh, I want to be an artist. I got to be an artist. And this is my thing. I was just making music and fucking off anyway. And it just happened to take off or the, or even if I thought myself was serious, it was serious level one, two, three and whatever that pains look like. But I would have tapped out if I had to go do level four or five before I popped off. But now I'm able to start popping and experiencing certain things on level two and three. So I'm cool. All right. And then I'm going to start making money on Instagram, merch, all these other ways to make money, which is good because you want artists to be able to make more money. But again, that's going to attract for those who aren't serious. Now, of course, again, there are, there are artists, you know, we know artists that are like, yeah, I'm about the music, I'm figuring out the rest of it and they have watched them figuring out a lot of these other elements to it. But they're still like, yo, no, this is music to the core but I understand the game and error that I exist in. They are out there. But because of the models that exist today, we're getting a lot much, a lot more of the noise. Entertainment industry as a whole is facing this. All right. Streaming models need quantity. So everybody is suffering because I don't necessarily need the best movie of all time. Because most of these people are watching movies passively while they're at work anyway and they're stay at home, which is increasing the demand for content anyway. So I just needed to be decent enough for it to be on. They don't gotta be the best movie because when I had your undivided attention back in the day and they had to go to the movie theater and do all that, they're like, nah, look, I'm not going through the barrier of getting ready, getting on a date, putting on my, my smell good as my grandma would call it. Drive it all down, pay for popcorn. Like, because you do all that, this movie better be good. You know what I'm saying? But oh yeah, I'm just got, I'm playing the movie during work or whatever, some chill stuff. Then it's a lower ass. So like, they're just like, yeah, we need more content. We need more content and it's expensive to pay these people who have spent time to be great and know their value. Why would I pay them all that money? We're not, but I could get 10 of the low value people who just trying to get their foot into doing it. Like everybody's facing the same struggle when it comes to demand for content and volume. And we know it's messed up. We know it's messed up, but I don't think anybody sees the way out right now. And I don't think NFTs are the way out either. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, there was advocate a little bit. I don't even know if it's messed up. I think it's just, I think it's, there was a point in time where I'm pretty sure that, you know, the artists in the 80s and 90s and 2000s probably like, man, I wish there was, I wish I could do what I want to do. I wish I could, you know, release music with no powers that'd be stopping me. I wish I could, you know, talk to my people directly. I wish that, you know, there wasn't this invisible barrier stopping me from being successful as I was. I wish that there were other ways to make money other than just the streaming and the pub, but we are seeing the results of those wishes come true. And so, you know, it's like in the movies with Genies where like, like the Genie grants a wish but as a consequence to the wish. Oh yeah, man. I said something like that the other day, man. Well, I forgot whatever I said. I said, hey, God. And I was like, hey, you know my heart into specificity. You know what I mean? None of those Okie dokes, you know, I didn't know what I was like, nope. I want this in this way without these consequences because that is a thing. And I think that's a good example for real. Like a lot of these things we did wish for, but people didn't consider about the responsibilities that they came with. How much that takes away from your mental and being able to just focus on the artist. So. Yeah, that'd be the thing, bro. Like especially the higher level music industry is the one that's been around for a long time. They always pull that car, bro. Years ago, they were saying, hey, the power's in your hands. You build your business. You do, I don't know if Jimmy's ever said that, but there's enough of them that said it to. I don't know. I feel like he did. Captain Flannan said the power is yours. So we can, that's close enough. Yeah, Captain Flannan, bro. Like two cameos in my heart, man. Who, who, who? I feel like they don't know who you're talking about, bro. It's like three niggas in the comments and I said, no, Captain Flannan. But I feel like I lost my point, bro. I completely lost it, bro. Now I'm thinking about Captain Flannan. Oh, and I was saying to, okay, I remember I was going with it. The higher end of music, music industry is X. Especially the ones that have been around for a long time. I always meant the case, but the power's in your hand. You got the power to be, you control your destiny. You control your path. You got all the resources that make X, Y, and Z happen. They push all of this really pro artist messaging that makes everybody feel like they can do it. That result results in everybody feeling that they can do it, which then results in everybody attempting to try it. And then we run into these issues that we get. You know what I'm saying? And that's how I look at it, bro. You can't have it both ways. Either the industry is limited and controlled and you know what I'm saying? There are X amount of great artists that get pushed out every year, which we ain't ever going back that shit. Or it's the fucking Wild Wild West. And to that point, what I like about today's structure of the industry is that the people have a lot more power to pick who becomes popular successful. And I will argue fans have never cared about none of that shit, you know what I'm saying? Fans don't care about quality as much as we think. Like quality is subjective, you know what I'm saying? Like if I like it and I think it's a good song. Fans don't care about quality. I don't think so. I think they might have a different measure, of course. All right, here's the thing. Okay, maybe not quality. And then fans don't have a true sense of taste in most of them. So they're just gonna take what they're fed, right? And I'm a kid, this is all the music I know. That's all I have to judge off of. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like I don't know, I think like, what we see now is the result of very, very small pockets of fans and consumers, and they find something they like and they champion it. And they champion it long enough that it becomes something. And let's say 20% of a given market push something hard enough to make it breakthrough. That's gonna be, assuming that 80% that doesn't like it, right? Because it goes against what the 80% considers to be good or great or whatever. And it was championed by this small group and it just pushed it to the point to where not where it was accepted by the mass group. But it was at least noticed and recognized by the mass group. That is what we see in music today. A bunch of really small pockets of consumers and artists talking to each other and so one of that thing breaks through. And then to your point earlier, right? Sometimes that shit breaks them on accident, you know? Like I didn't mean to leave over here. I don't know how I got over there, you know what I'm saying? But now I'm over there. And then they judging me and critiquing me as if I was always trying to be over there. See, and that makes me think about the fact that I think some people's gripe is the absence of unanimous greatness or as close as you can get to that. We ain't ever getting that, right? It's never coming back. And a lot of people champion this more fragmented error in space, but the thing is, always say, sometimes you're sold on a dream that doesn't exist by the time you get old enough to cash in on that dream. So I'm sold this dream of there's these massive artists, superstars who are so influential. By the time I got to a certain age, though, everything's fragmented and it's not even possible. It's very hard to become that level of superstar. The eyes are that much smaller or it's just not possible. So can I be satisfied even with the solid fan base and living as a career when I still have that void, that gap? I think there's a lot of artists that are struggling with that, right? And when you have the beauty of this indie space, the fragmentation has its own pros, but it has its own cons. And I think over time, people will start to acknowledge the beauty of something that does touch everyone versus right now we're over indexing on something being so individualistic and touching a small base as if that's better just because we were maybe missing that to an degree and they started to over index on something that's maybe un-pomogenous and hyper-commercialized. But now I think we're gonna eventually get back to that equilibrium where it's just like, yeah, all right, I do wanna be fragmented. I do wanna have my tribe, but now it is dope to have a moment where the world is like, yo, this shit is, you know what I mean? It's different to, let's see, as a kid. And this might be different. Everybody else's might have a different experience, but let's just say, all right, it's one thing for me to just get a gift, right, on my birthday. And that's cool, I'm celebrating my birthday. It's another thing for it to be Christmas and everybody's getting gifts and the entire environment and setup in the world is creating a vibe together, right? And taking off of work together, right? And that's just a whole another level and you can't do that on an individual level, right? It's like my birthday versus Christmas. And I think that's part of what we're missing. I mean, we see that in every other part of the world too. Like holidays, everything, like everybody's like, no, I'm in my own bag. And then people get all, you know, everybody starts to feel like grumpy, or you know what I mean? If you look online and everybody hating in their pockets. So music is, as always, like a reflection of society. And art is that, because here's the last thing that I want to say to that. People like to act like, oh, just because we have so much more music, it means that there's more greatness out there or accessibility is like the final frontier for what art needs. Is that true in every other art though? Because drawing, right? Painting has been extremely accessible for a long period of time, right? Does that mean the stuff that I was drawing is as great as somebody else who spent years really put it into it? I could trick you and make you think that all these other artists did it, you know what I mean? Did it and put my brand on it. But does that really make it great? So it's like, I don't know if just making things more accessible is why things are better. Oh, there's more music than ever. There's more art than ever. Cool. But there's been paintings everywhere and everybody not about to throw a painting from a rando on their wall. You know, like what really is making this great? Again, that's the opinion that's objective. But my artists today, I think they're in a delimitous way different than the old times, which is why it's not fair to compare directly. Jimmy stating radio means this isn't something new. The TikTok shit is not something new. There's already been formulas that people have followed over and over again. So I hate when they like to say that, however, the business model itself and what gets commercialized and put to the forefront today does not lend to as much greatness getting seen or created as it used to. Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. Artists, managers, whoever's watching, what do y'all think? All right, we covered this from a lot of different angles so we're gonna make this a whole pie episode. By the way, we've made a change. If you wanna listen to full episodes, check it out on Spotify, Apple Music, the DSPs. If you wanna listen to full podcast episodes, however, if you just wanna continue to watch clips and get the snippets, check out the next video popping up right now.