Here’s How Easy It Is To Get Lost In A Record Label
It’s easy to get discouraged about no one hearing your music when you know that you’re competing against almost 100,000 other songs uploaded to streaming services every day. The only consolation is that most of these uploads come from indie artists, and the vast majority of them will never get as much as a single play. But once you get a label deal, you think that maybe you have the muscle to push through until you find out how easy it is to get lost even with that kind of marketing engine behind you.
According to the data tracking firm Luminate, around 4% of the 98,500 tracks that are uploaded every day come from the major labels. That sounds okay on its surface until you do the math and discover that figure comes to 3,940 tracks! So if you’re signed to a major label, your single might be one of almost 4,000 that are uploaded – for that day!
That doesn’t mean that you’re up against 3,939 other artists, as many of those songs are different mixes or versions of the same songs, but it’s easy to see how you can get lost in the shuffle if you’re not a label priority. But remember that this is just one day!
Another way to look at it is that for every track that a label uploads, there are 24 more from other sources (indie artists) that are uploaded.
Let’s Look At It Another Way
These numbers can certainly be daunting if you put your career in the lap of a label and you’re pretty much hands-off thereafter. The way to look at it is not to look at it. It’s up to you to build your own audience and to build it one fan at a time. It’s been proven through the years that the longer the build, the longer the career.
That’s certainly not as much fun as being an overnight sensation, but then again it’s not much fun to flame out overnight as well. Remember that 70% of those that have hits as a result of TikTok are one-hit wonders who never see the charts ever again!
