There were 216 million people in the United States in 1975. There are 347 million people in the United States today. So don’t compare the concert scene of yesteryear with the concert scene of today. There are over 50% more people! That’s why so many acts can sell out stadiums, which are not getting any bigger (as a matter of fact, a lot of baseball parks have gotten smaller!) You may not have heard of the act, but they can sell out Madison Square Garden!

There is a limited pool of dollars at streaming services. And not everyone can get paid. You can complain about this, be wistful for the days of yore, but in the days of yore most acts would not be able to play in the game at all. Recording was expensive, and distribution was closed and the truth is you have fewer barriers to entry today, but climbing the ladder to success is ever slower.

Movies come and go. When done right, records are forever. However, all the hype is frontloaded. Many of these highly-hyped albums fail in the marketplace, if for no other reason than expectations are so high. Unless you have the kind of music that many will cotton to, be wary of the overhype.

Nobody can press the button. There is no easy path to success. If the major labels can’t break an act, what are the odds that you can go to the top quickly? Essentially zero.

Don’t follow trends, they mean less than ever before. Be yourself. This is not the late seventies when disco ruled, nor the nineties or first decade of this century when we lived in a hip-hop nation. Everybody’s into different things. Chasing trends is a fool’s errand, if anything it short circuits your career, because true believers, upon whom you depend, will abandon you for selling out.

If you can’t say no to money, you have no credibility. Not every offer is good, not every offer is right.

We haven’t broken a worldwide superstar since Adele. And her latest album didn’t reach the number of people the previous one did. That paradigm is kaput. No one can reach everybody, don’t even try.

There’s an underground of hobbyists. Think about writing and performing music that they can play and sing.

Play the hits, but throw in some obscurities for hard core fans so they’ll keep coming back.

Speaking of hits… If you’re a heritage act, stop trying to have them. Then again, if you put out new music and it’s not a one listen smash, don’t even bother. If you’re a heritage act your audience is your fans, not the gatekeepers. Keep this in mind. What do your fans want to hear? This does not mean you cannot experiment, but be sure to let people know that’s what you’re doing, especially if you play this experimental music live.

Some fans are savvy, most are not, especially older ones. They go to the show to hear the hits. Having said that, there’s a huge business in acts that have no hits. These are the acts people like to champion. I hear more about Goose than most of the acts in the Spotify Top 50.

Don’t beg your fans. Give them opportunities, make them feel like insiders, but don’t treat them like Girl Scouts who have to sell cookies.

If you want to be taken seriously with your new music, you cannot get plastic surgery and act like you’re twenty five. It’s creepy. You have to mature.

If you can’t sell tickets without production then…your music isn’t that good and your fans are not that dedicated.

No one believes that any act is retiring anymore. Having said that, fans are not pissed when you go back on the road, because they’re such fans. We learned this with Motley Crue.

Age is no longer a deterrent. Unless, of course, you’re playing a young person’s game. Chris Stapleton is forty seven. He was unknown by most until he hit forty. He’s selling authenticity and maturity.

You can hate Morgan Wallen, everybody you know can hate him, and he can still sell out stadiums.

Failing is not the stain that it once was. As long as it’s an artistic experiment. If you play large venues at high ticket prices and can’t sell out, that’s going to hurt you.

Charge what the tickets are worth. That’s the only way the bots and scalpers can be beaten. Sure, there will be complaints. Then again, I can’t write a single thing without getting negative feedback. No one pays a fortune for a ticket and then complains it wasn’t worth it. They’re thrilled just to be in the building! You cannot let the tail wag the dog. Look at the price of food. Everything is expensive but concert tickets should be cheap? Dinner is a hundred and fifty bucks but a show should be less than a hundred? No one asks to buy a Mercedes-Benz for ten thousand bucks, why are concerts underpriced?

The press always gets it wrong when it comes to music. Because the people writing the articles are not regular music beat people and those who are on the beat are not the best and the brightest. Sorry, but it’s true!

It doesn’t matter what the critic has to say about your show, it matters what the fans have to say!

Sure, a lot of the acts act like nincompoops, but you’d be surprised how far intelligence will get you. David Crosby was a notorious a*shole, but he was taken seriously and quoted everywhere because he was a deep thinker.

Complaining will get you nowhere.

Either interact with your fans or don’t, don’t go online occasionally, that never works. Keep social media at arm’s length unless you’re going to participate multiple times weekly. And never have a team member post on social media, people can tell the difference, you’re fooling no one, it must be you or nobody!

Have a sense of humor. You may be aware of this story:

“Katy Perry dissed by fast-food giant Wendy’s after Blue Origin spacefllight: ‘Can we send her back.'”

https://pagesix.com/2025/04/15/celebrity-news/katy-perry-dissed-by-wendys-after-blue-origin-spaceflight/

The best thing is Wendy’s refused to apologize. Don’t get all up in arms if someone is making fun of you, everyone’s fair game these days, and it’s the price you pay for being famous. Best to make fun of yourself. If Bill Maher knew the game he’d do so re the Larry David blowback, but he’s busy defending himself, which makes him look like an outsider who believes he’s better than we are. I mean come off it.

What are you famous for? If you’re a musician, beware of blowback when you step out of your lane.

Stay out of the gossip columns, unless you’re Kim Kardashian or someone using music to build an empire that has nothing to do with music.

There’s not enough money in music to compete with the billionaires. But you can make them truly angry by pointing out their flaws. That’s the essence of art, speaking truth to power.

The more the lyrics sound like you, the more people can relate to them.

Leave the rough edges and mistakes in, this is what hooks people.

Only auto-tune if you can’t sing at all. It eliminates all the humanity from records.

Slick works for the Spotify Top 50, it doesn’t work for everybody else.

You have to commit a major faux pas to lose your fan base… Zach Bryan is still selling out stadiums despite the girlfriend story.

Get a manager who’ll work for you, who may not be the best manager extant.

If it’s on hard drive, you lose respect. Play completely live, don’t try to sound like the record, that’s for the Spotify Top 50, and that’s a lot of pressure. You don’t want people to remember where they were when they heard your song, you want them involved with the live show, and that only happens if it lives and breathes and there are mistakes.

If you’re not a great singer, it doesn’t matter how great your lyrics are, find someone else to sing your songs.

Bands are harder to keep together than ever before, because the money’s just not that good.

Managers, agents and record companies will work you to death. Say no before getting hooked on drugs to get through.

People don’t want to own music, we live in an on demand culture with access at our fingertips. Been collecting DVDs of movies recently?

You must have videos on YouTube. Sure, make a video for a recording, but people love live stuff more. If someone wants to go down the rabbit hole don’t put up a roadblock, allow them to go from clip to clip for hours.

You can’t game virality. The only way you can win is to be in the game all the time and hope that something catches the public’s eye/imagination.

Never put restrictions on your music. Let people do whatever they want with it. The Beatles will be remembered in fifty years, you won’t. Get down off your high horse and be thrilled anybody wants to spend the time with your tunes.

If you don’t write a lot of songs you’ll never have a hit. Not only is it a muscle, working breeds inspiration, it puts you in the right head spot.

Being able to play your instrument never goes out of style.

Nobody knows everything, the world is too vast. If someone tells you they do, ignore them.

Be a student of the game. Read Don Passman’s book and look at the charts and get a feel for what is going on.

If you’re not willing to be broke, don’t plan on being a musician.

You’ve got to give to get. If you want all the money, you’ll get very few opportunities.

Those with success have all the leverage.

Don’t complain that the game is stacked against you, that Spotify and Live Nation are the enemies, this just puts you in the loser camp with the rest of the naysayers, and no one really in this business will take you seriously.

People will take your money saying they can get you gigs, make you famous… If you’ve got to pay for the opportunity, say no.

You have to stay in the game to get lucky. No one ever knows what will be their big break and it’s rarely what they think it will be and it almost always comes later than you think it will.