This week on the podcast, Kevin Breuner joins host Dmitri Vietze to talk about how Independent self empowered artists are changing the game. Kevin knows independent music: He’s VP of Marketing at CD Baby, host of the DIY Musician Podcast (going strong at 241 episodes!), and an indie musician himself.
Independent music isn’t on the margins any more: It makes up 40 percent of music. When I was growing up, everyone listened to the same stuff. Now thanks to streaming, at any one time you might have a popular artist on a label and no one else even knows about them. Mainstream artists are having to work harder to maintention the same attention level. Pre-streaming, labels used to be genre specific—radio too—and other artists were viewed as competition. Now other artists are partners because there are a ton of opportunities to cross promote and work together to grow their collective fan bases. There are fewer gatekeepers now and the floodgates are open, and success is coming from surprising places so it’s the perfect time to experiment as an independent artist.
CD Baby has long been a prime mover in a number of the tech-driven seismic shifts in the music biz we’ve been tracking: Broken Gates, Self-Driving Artists, Many Paths to Success, the list goes on. We’re grateful that they signed on early as a Supernova Sponsor of the Music Tectonics Conference where we’ll explore these shifts and more. Kevin will be there, along with CEO Tracy Maddux and SVP Christine Barnum. Connect with them in LA!
Keep up with CD Baby on Twitter, Facebook , Instagram, and their blog. Also make sure to follow Kevin on Twitter as well.
Listen to the podcast here on our website or on your favorite podcast platform. We’re releasing card designs day by day here on our website. Check out the visuals while you listen! Collect all 18 cards only at the Music Tectonics Conference, October 28-29 in Los Angeles- and add some Shift Talker speaker cards to your deck! Just wait till you see that Golden Mulligan. . .
Did Dmitri miss any major shifts that are shaking up your corner of the biz? What should the next series of trading cards feature? Let us know! Tweet @MusicTectonics, find us on Facebook, or connect with Dmitri on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.