Making it in Music: Persistence is a Strategy

At the beginning of the holiday break, I read a really thought provoking article titled “The record label crisis”, by Patrick Clifton . It starts with the line:

"British record labels are in a crisis. They can’t “break” emerging artists and this is creating a problem that will impact every part of the music industry in the years to come."

There’s a key word in here that I thought about a lot in 2023 – “break”. In the music industry, the idea of “breaking artists” seems to roll off the tongue, as some kind of achievement or North Star for what we do in music. And although I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of “breaking” a number of artists in my career, I’ve also worked with, and continue to work with, many successful artists who wouldn’t satisfy whatever the industry stand is of a “breaking artist”. They’re not on the radio. They’re hardly on playlists. They don’t get booked on the major festivals. But they do make a living. Often own houses and often own their masters and are building true wealth for themselves and their families.?

The article continues:?

"A new generation of artists is not building fanbases that will buy gig and festival tickets in two, five-, or ten-years’ time, and is not popularising songs that will have ubiquity in our culture once this generation of music fans reaches old age."

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, but that next bit is where I think the opportunity lies and where I am excited for the future of UNIFIED Music Group and the artists we work with:

"Independent artist services companies have had success bringing artists to the mainstream but lack the scale and market power that major labels can deploy to turn popular artists into global superstars."

Global superstars are very important. In 2023, we were fortunate to promote Zach Bryan’s one and only Australian live show. Getting to work with a super star like Zach is something I’ll cherish for a long time, but the world doesn’t just revolve around superstars.?

Patrick Clifton’s ideas and arguments really resonated with me, but there’s a wider conversation to be had.

I want to encourage more independent music companies to continue to invest in artists, and ask the major labels and the entire industry to think about what it means to invest in artists.?

At UNIFIED, we started all the way back in 2002 with Boomtown Records, where we signed and developed punk and hardcore bands from Australia. I’ll never forget when one of our early signings The Getaway Plan released their debut album in 2008 with an ARIA Albums Chart debut of #14. It felt like we’d hit the jackpot and things couldn’t get bigger than this. Although The Getaway Plan were far from making a living from music at this point, it was the beginning of a career that could have been very lucrative.?

Working with The Getaway Plan was a formative experience for me. I was able to take my learnings as a fan of the music the band played, and employ marketing techniques to help them build their audience. We actually invested quite heavily, and I personally leant heavily on my credit card at the age of 24, to send the band to America to record the album.??

Then in 2012, after 3 albums on Boomtown Records, The Amity Affliction released their first album via Roadrunner Records which went straight to #1 in Australia. Although we were no longer the label, we were still (and still are to this day) the band’s management company. I’ll never forget this moment where as a company we celebrated our first ever #1 album. It happened with very little radio support or the traditional media that most chart-topping albums at the time enjoyed. It was a tough call to let the band move to Roadrunner as they actually had another album in their contract with Boomtown. As the manager of the band though, it was the right call to have a global label invest in them to help them realise their potential. In hindsight, we could have done it ourselves, but the financial risk for me would have been a huge stretch, so the support of the amazing team at Roadrunner really did allow the band to take that next step in America.?

Shortly after the release of ‘Chasing Ghosts’, we discovered Vance Joy. And this took things to another level. After working for 10 years supporting alternative heavy artists to get towards or to the top of the charts, there was an element of working with Vance Joy that felt easy. This came easy due to the amazing music written and recorded by Vance Joy, which meant we were able to enjoy the mainstream exposure that I’d often dreamt of but was never able to access at that time with the genres of music we worked with. Vance Joy opened doors for so many including himself, and of course for myself and our company. The experience opened my mind to how you can break an act on a global level and the true power of what a major label can do when they have the product that works within their wheelhouse. Once again in hindsight, we could have signed Vance Joy to a label deal, as well as management. At the time though, I was mostly experienced in working with heavy music. I thought it was important that we didn’t get greedy and we ultimately did the right thing by an artist that I truly believed would be huge. I still back the decision we made and I think it’s why we are still working with him after 12 years.?

One of the main determinants of our success over the years has been our ability to understand things from a management point of view. We started as a very small label, so it was impossible not to get very close to the artists and try as best we could to deliver for them. Moving into management almost seemed inevitable. With the experience of building a label and then other businesses, we were able to invest in the artists we manage and ensure that the benefit was there for all involved.?

The last part of the article that hit a big chord for me was this one:?

"Success takes more time than anyone has patience for. In the transactional era, progression through the funnel had to be quick, as tastemakers needed evidence of commercial success to maintain trust in labels’ A&R skills. Chart success was generated in months, as daytime radio was a reliable leading indicator of a hit. In the post-transactional bucket, success takes a long time. A track might be popular, but the next track must go through the same process to find an audience."?

In September of 2023, we celebrated Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers’ debut album “I Love You” hitting #6 on the ARIA Albums Chart. We manage the band and they’re signed to our label. The whole company was so excited and although I didn’t want to bring the mood down, I reminded a few of the team that we signed the band in March 2020. So although the achievement was huge, it was 3.5 years in the making and the hard work is still well and truly ahead of the band and us.?

We had another milestone when Ocean Alley’s 2018 single ‘Confidence’ became a TikTok trend in October 2023. It went from 50,000 streams a day to over 750,000 streams per day. The song was already a hit with over 100 million streams and 6x Platinum in Australia. But after years of hard work, touring and building an audience, the band is now seeing another level of success as the song reaches more and more people.??

Both these examples show the power and importance of patience. Of finding great artists, building real relationships and truly investing in them.?

There is no right or wrong way to do what we do. I can only speak from the point of view of how we do things and how we plan to do them in the future. Personally, I am still very bullish on artist development. But we need to be patient. We need to invest deeply, and this doesn’t just mean financially. We need to spend the time and give the artists the support they need to succeed. Persistence is a strategy, and it’s what is needed to be successful. The world and the industry will forever change, but what won’t change is the power of a great song and the importance of supporting artists.?

As a company, I am proud of the way we invest in artists and although we aren’t always going to get it right, we are always going to do our best to get in early and build. Management has always been a core part of what we do at UNIFIED, and I see this as important as ever.