Promoting Your Music in 2024 with Alex Akimov - Music Production Podcast #357

Alex Akimov is the founder of Simple Social, a music digital marketing agency, and Sound.Me, an AI-powered artist and creator platform. He has worked as an artist manager, promoter, and touring guitarist. Alex explores ways to help artists reach their career goals.

In this episode, Alex discusses his music industry experience and current focus on Simple Social and Sound.Me. He shares strategies for releasing music and building a career in the music industry.

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Show Notes:

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:00.962)

All right, Alex, welcome to the music production podcast. Great to have you here today.

Alex (00:05.152)

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Brian Funk (00:07.39)

Yeah, it's great to have you. You have a lot of experience in the music industry, right? I mean, you started out, which I always like to see when people are involved in the business and they start as musicians and you were a touring guitarist.

Alex (00:18.452)

Yeah, we'll start everybody starting as musician, DJ, producer, singer. So it's always starts like that. Uh, I think for everybody we were working with, they all, they all started musician at some point, but I kind of. Yeah. I've been a musician. I've been a manager and I've been now I'm a promoter. So I can understand it from every angle you can possibly imagine.

Brian Funk (00:21.239)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (00:36.138)

Right. Yeah. Well, that's always good because, um, things don't usually work out in any field really without that kind of, you know, foundational background to know what it's like and, uh, for the people that you'll be serving ultimately. And you're doing quite a lot to help artists promote themselves and get the music out there. Um, you've got a couple of companies. So we've got Simple Social, Sound Me. You've also got your own YouTube channel where you're

Alex (00:46.348)

Yeah.

Alex (00:52.385)

Yeah, of course.

Brian Funk (01:05.538)

doing a lot of nice tutorials and information about how to get heard and ideas, albums versus EPs and singles and stuff like that. So quite a lot of information there. Right now, what would you say is like your big focus? What is the thing you're working on the most these days?

Alex (01:17.368)

Thank you.

Alex (01:26.916)

Sound and simple social. So those companies, the company is the biggest focused right now because we are I'm doing the whole rebranding and I'm doing the whole We're changing, revamping the websites. It's just you know trying to make everything better everything more You know user-oriented, promoters oriented like you know, so we trying to that's been the main focus how to How to basically get it to the next level next point and try to get

You know, just try to get better at it. Because we're always trying to get better. Right? That's our main goal. Always trying to get better.

Brian Funk (02:00.15)

Yeah, it's a good philosophy to have. We are in a wild and crazy changing time these days, whether it's AI, social media, you name it. What do you think artists need to be doing differently these days? It seems like the landscape changes overnight all the time now.

Alex (02:20.956)

Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's driving me crazy too. So not the only one, because you always, every single time we're trying to get things done and we're trying to, okay, I finally found what's working is like, boom, it changes. And it's just, it's complicated. I'll be honest with you, it's complicated. That's why so many people quit and they just can't sustain it. It's hard to be an artist, really hard. And it's, you have to put out so much music and so much content.

Brian Funk (02:24.084)

Hehehehe

Alex (02:48.332)

That's just crazy. Like, you know, if two years ago artists could be like, yeah, I don't feel like posting, I'm just gonna release music, people are gonna like it. Right now you're just gonna be smashed pretty fast by somebody else who's willing to do the content. And it's just really hard to get discovered now and really hard to get through. Hard and easy at the same time. Hard because you have to produce a lot and you have to be on top of it. Easy because if you're doing something right, the algorithm's gonna pick you up and take you to the next level.

Brian Funk (03:12.854)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we have that kind of blessing and curse, double-edged sword, that we can reach anyone in the world, but that means everyone else can reach everyone in the world, and it creates quite a lot of noise and traffic everywhere. Now, as far as things today,

Alex (03:25.502)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (03:34.29)

Like what you mentioned, right? Like if you want to be an artist, you're not just being an artist anymore. You don't get to just work on your art. There's so many other things that you got to think about. Um, what do you recommend people focus on? Cause I guess you can't really do everything, right? You got to sort of make choices somewhere along the way.

Alex (03:53.308)

Um, I would, that's a good one. That's a good question. I would say my, my recommendation would be try to figure out how to optimize your time, try to learn time management. And it's been really hard for me as well. As the artist is the artist. I didn't care that much because back then when, when I was a guitar player, it used to be my space and you know, YouTube just came out and things like that. It was so new. Um, but to me as the entrepreneur and as the business owner, it's really, it's all about time management. How you manage.

campaigns, how you manage people, how you manage your time and how you manage, you know, to meet people's expectations. So it's like if you look at it, look at yourself from the business point of view, right, as the business. So every artist I think should do it, should look at themselves as the business. Because that's what you are, you're trying to sell product to people, you're not just going to be there, you know, running around being like, oh, everybody listen to my music, I don't...

It has to be your business, right? You're trying to make money from this, you want success from this, you're trying to make living out of it, so you are a business. And every single time you invest in this, every single time you put time into it, it's investment in your business, in your future. In this case, you are your business, so you're your own asset, but in other cases, it's just, you know, for businesses, it's, you know, other things that they do, but in your case, you're an artist, your music is your asset too, so. And you have to figure out how you're gonna maneuver your time and figure out how you're gonna...

You have to post, you have to write, you have to compose, you have to produce, you have to make videos, you have to go perform the shows, you have to talk to your fans and do all this kind of stuff. And if you figure out how to manage your time properly, you're gonna be able to do that.

And I also got, I started to like my main goal and my main thing, right, is throughout the whole year has been time hacking, right? I'm trying, always trying to hack my time and time is the most valuable thing for me, right? And I'm always trying to figure out how I can hack it so I can do multiple things at the same time. So I can just deliver more results being myself, right? And do much more just by myself versus of, you know, versus other people.

Alex (05:58.708)

what their capabilities. So I'm always trying to push myself farther. And to me it was, I started to get, recently actually started to get into mind mapping, which is a very interesting thing. And I think it will be really, I don't know if you've heard of it, have you?

Brian Funk (06:11.443)

Is this the kind of like visualization of something on a paper or on a screen where you're planning out ideas? visual aid

Alex (06:18.75)

It is. Yeah, and you kind of break up like, and I think for the artist, it will be super helpful. I started using it with other artists that I have a little bit, and it seems to be working really well because you can map the idea, all right? I need to release a single, right? So, and then you put everything on the map in front of you. What else do you need to do besides just one single, right? Content and everything. And it's just kind of like the whole picture becomes very clear about what you're gonna be doing and how you're gonna be doing. So that's what I think is important.

Brian Funk (06:31.575)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (06:45.098)

Is this on a piece of paper? Is this on a... Okay.

Alex (06:47.808)

in the iPad, but you can do it in a table, whatever you want, just sticking out on the whiteboard, some stuff like that, free form from Apple, something that's easy just to visualize everything. You look at this from the whole perspective, it's like, all right, I'm releasing an album, right? I'm releasing a single. And you look at this, everything and everything's right in front of you. So you can see exactly what movements you need to make and how to get to them. You know?

Brian Funk (07:11.414)

Right. So you're basically breaking this big goal into a lot of sub goals and steps to get there. And then I guess follow up steps too, because you're talking about promotion and getting the word. It's one. It's a great accomplishment to release something. But there's so much that aside from that, that goes into it. Otherwise, it just kind of gets heard by a few relatives or something like that.

Alex (07:15.22)

Mm-hmm.

Alex (07:27.777)

Mm-hmm.

Alex (07:35.824)

It's hundred thousand songs a day uploaded to Spotify. I think by the end of this year, we're gonna be at about 150,000 a day It's a little music how How you compete how you know get yourself hurt? Why and that's and I think that's where the digital advertising comes in You know a lot of people don't believe in it, but I think it's very foolish because you Pay for the algorithms you pay for the right promotion you pay to get yourself out there and when people

Brian Funk (07:38.99)

100,000.

Brian Funk (07:42.166)

Mm-hmm. That's a lot of music.

Alex (08:04.824)

come and when people trying to release their song and trying to get hurt, you have to pay for it in the beginning especially. So you're trying to teach Dalgium, you're trying to explain to it what you wanted to do because in the beginning it doesn't know.

Brian Funk (08:18.39)

Right, so you're saying just to get eyes on your song or your video or whatever it is you're promoting. Yeah.

Alex (08:23.68)

You have to, you have to. Otherwise, otherwise it's just not gonna work. You know, it's really hard to get through the night. You either have to be so incredible, which is, you know, it's one out of dozen, you know, or you have to be, no, not even that. You have to be talented, which is one out of dozen. You have to be great, which is one of a hundred. And you have to be amazing, which is one out of thousand. And incredible to get everything handled to you by the algorithms and organically, you probably one out of a million.

So it's really rare and it's really hard. So, but more people who are talented make it than one out of a million, you know, because those people actually grinding and you know, one super talented person, like one genius that might not get discovered because it is going to get overpowered by people who's hungry and then.

Brian Funk (09:08.47)

Right.

Brian Funk (09:13.206)

Yeah, that's old expression. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Right? You know, I've seen it lots of times. Very talented people without the work. Or on the other hand, people that don't have the same natural skills but just work at it, work at it, work at it consistently. It always seems to be the way.

Alex (09:18.744)

Of course. That's the same.

Alex (09:34.112)

Yeah. That's a lot then.

Brian Funk (09:41.89)

That's comforting, really, right? You can't control the natural gifts you're given and born with, but you can control the effort you put in, in the work and the time.

Alex (09:52.232)

Yeah, absolutely. And as long as you grind, because I have no like natural talents like that, you know, like I was never a data scientist and things like that I developed it. I studied hard and I was working really hard in order to get it going. You know, and I was be able to figure out how to do that.

Brian Funk (10:01.047)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (10:09.342)

Right. Well, I guess that's definitely part of your background as a whole, right? Because I've read your bio, maybe you could just tell people a little bit about how you wound up here in this position from moving in.

Alex (10:14.957)

Mm-hmm.

Alex (10:24.12)

Well, to go short, I started as the guitar player back in Russia, back like 17 years ago. I came to study music here, wanted to tour the world and become famous, you know how everybody else does it. I toured the world, but didn't become famous. So, and then got shifted, got pulled into being a manager of a boy band. And my realization came because...

I always wanted to have my own business. I always wanted to build something and be like, hey, how do I promote something? How do I build something? How do I make my thing, my music heard? And when I had a boy band, I was trying to find companies who would do a good job for real, right? Because everybody started, it was back in 15, 16, and everybody was saying, hey, you need to get Spotify streams. You need to get all this stuff that's starting to come up. Instagram followers used to wait a lot of like...

a lot for the radio plays and for anything, how many followers you have, so that started to pick up. And I couldn't find a company who would do it. Everybody would bring in fake followers, fake bots, basically, like everybody bought it. And I was like, all right, well, if I can't find anybody doing it, I'm gonna have to do it. I'm gonna have to sit down and learn it, so that's when it was my first effort to start learning it. And I got pretty successful with the boy band, right? We got, you know, back then.

Back in 2016 we got 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. And 100,000 subscribers back then, it was a lot. Like 2016, 2015? No, it's not, not as much. Not as much weight here that it used to be 10 years ago. Because the biggest accounts, there was no 10 million subscribers yet on YouTube, it didn't exist. So the biggest ones were like 100 million.

Brian Funk (11:58.642)

Yeah, still is. Yeah.

Alex (12:15.668)

So that's when it was like PewDiePie didn't exist. So just started out, you know, like all this big show. Mr. Beast wasn't even out yet. You know, he wasn't doing what he's doing now. So he was all very small, you know, like 5 million subscribers. It wasn't heard of 10 million was nobody had this right. And we had a hundred thousand. So it was cool. And then, you know, we got nominated for Teen Choice Awards by using Twitter. We're going to touring, you know, playing shows with back then it was.

Fifth Harmony and then Bibi Rexha, Troye Sivan, you know, this artist. And they toured the deal and stuff, then they decided, hey, we're famous, we need to be solo artists, ruined it for themselves. Basically went completely downhill. And when I was like, now what? You know, the boy band I spent so much time, invested so much love in myself into it, so now what I do? And I was like, all right, well, what if I start a business?

that's gonna help musicians and basically help them promote music. And maybe somebody needs it. And it turned out to be everybody needed it. It was such a big void that nobody could fill. You know, so I was the first one of the first people who did feel it.

Brian Funk (13:28.59)

Right. Yeah. Well, like we're saying, that's, that's a huge job in and of itself. Forget making the art, making the music, just all that promotion and all that time.

Alex (13:39.58)

Yeah, in studying it and understanding it, you know, in learning it and it's consistent learning, consistent. Like, again, what I was doing a year ago, I'm doing completely different things now, completely different scale. Absolutely. Like, you know, it's just like completely like every single month, every single year maneuvering to a different direction, different direction. If you fall behind, you're not going to catch up.

Brian Funk (13:42.018)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (14:05.366)

And now you're also getting into AI as well. You got, that's what sound.me is and utilizes some AI.

Alex (14:11.264)

Sound actually has AI implementation in this, which is very interesting. And we, basically what it does, it analyzes creators, right? We're like at the moment, the biggest platform in the world for the TikTok influencers. And we started YouTube Shorts as well. So we have over a million creators worldwide. And the cool thing about Sound is, it works exactly the same as digital ads. If I want to start writing my ad in Brazil now, I can press the button and start writing the ad in Brazil. Same thing.

creators in Brazil, I press the button, I get creators in Brazil. And the way AI steps in, right, it analyzes everybody from, you know, how many, how much engagement creators get, right? Followers, likes, shares, comments, how often they post to you, what kind of content they post, you know, they're training up, training down, whatever's going on, so all these points come to analysis, and then it tells the creator how much money they're gonna make per post.

So each campaign is different, each thing is different. So sometimes they can make, you know, it depends depending on the budget, depending how we're gonna break the budget. Sometimes they're gonna make a couple hundred bucks, sometimes they're gonna make a couple thousand bucks, sometimes they're gonna make 10, 20 bucks. And it's always various, right? And it's so cool to see it and be like, oh, this person's like, you know, worth that much for the system. You can look at it and be like, oh yeah, this is what they're gonna get, this is what they're gonna make. And when we started it, right, my expectations were, oh yeah, I'm gonna get.

you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe I'll get thousands of like, you know, people on the platform and, you know, just try to work with them, try to figure out how to do it. And now we're over a million. It's been almost two years in March 16th. It's going to be two years since we launched. So huge, fast, you know, rapid, and it's still growing, still getting bigger. So.

Brian Funk (16:00.814)

How do you service that many people?

Brian Funk (16:07.598)

Uh oh.

Alex (16:07.834)

Cry every night Like services people it's hard no, but see all the jokes aside like it's hard it's hard to manage Million influencers on the platform, you know, I did stuff and we kind of like You know, I've never I've run my own business right which is simple social and it's fine. We're doing we're servicing a lot of labels We're working with artists. We're doing this thing, right? But I've never been in the situation that all of a sudden I have million people on my platform who I have to work with

So, and I had to figure out everything backwards, right? So, cause usually people start small and they grow to it, right? They'd be like, oh, now I need to add this, now I need to this. What it means like, oh shit, now we have to add all of this. You know, we have to get customer support. We have to get freaking people approving everybody. QC and quality control, like we had to raise up. We have to figure out the sales team. We have to figure out all this stuff. And we had to do it like really fast. And we're like, okay, now what? How, how are we gonna pull through this? And it's really difficult, you know.

It's really difficult. And also like development too on the platform, how you're gonna sustain, you know, cause we have days that like 200,000 people are doing something in that given time. It's a lot of people, you know, doing something. It's like a lot of people doing things at the same time. So how do you make sure your website doesn't crash? How you make sure that everything is like, you know, and also I didn't expect I've learned so much within these two years that I didn't expect, right?

Brian Funk (17:15.342)

Hmm.

Alex (17:29.88)

Apparently every single time money is involved, there's gonna be people who's gonna try to lie to you. So how do you fight with them? People gonna try to steal your money. There's like a lot of, not that many honest people out there, you know, and you look at it and it's like, oh, okay, so that's how people cheat and that's what they do. And they get smart, they get clever. We started, I started seeing like people selling accounts, verified accounts from someone that me on the platforms that they sell accounts.

Brian Funk (17:35.095)

Really?

Alex (17:57.728)

You know, you can buy Google accounts, you can buy some of me accounts just because, you know, and it's like a lot of that, a lot of this happening. People would lie about, you know, what they are, what they're doing and everything. And, you know, I, yeah, it's funny. It's really funny.

Brian Funk (18:12.142)

Hmm.

Yeah, I guess we've seen that for ages, right? We've seen that with social media followers and bots. And yeah, I see it once in a while. They come at you at various angles. They're offering me followers and subscribers. And it really, it's damaging to your credibility, ultimately, to go down that road because...

Alex (18:16.728)

I'm going to go.

care.

Alex (18:32.041)

Yeah, that's...

Alex (18:36.682)

100%.

Brian Funk (18:38.578)

It doesn't take long for somebody to realize what's really going on here. And to see all these kind of make-believe people following in them.

Alex (18:43.undefined)

Next minute.

Definitely and you also if you think about like I started to see a new one right then you think that they started doing so Spotify playlist third party play listing is dying down So it's pretty much all if I is really cranking down and so it's gonna be gone, you know sooner or later But what I started to see is like there's still companies who do this third party playlist and they take artists Right, they find artists that new song in the list

They go on Instagram, I think they scrape from IG, whoever posted and promoted it. So they edit on the third party playlist. They get a lot of bought-out streams. And then they come to the artist and they do two things. The first thing they say, hey, you like how we're promoting you, so let's do more here. Give us money, we'll promote you more, put you on the more playlist. If you refuse, they're gonna say, okay, then we're gonna keep you and we're gonna bought you so hard, so pay us money to be removed. So now it's a new thing. So it's like, if you got into that loop,

like how you get out of it, you know, like, and you're trying to do your career, you're trying to do your music, you're trying to get real promotions. And then somebody takes it, adds it and is like, Oh, you have to pay to be, keep, keep staying here. Or you have to pay me to keep, to remove you. It's ridiculous. So, but yeah, that's a new thing that started to happen, which is scary.

Brian Funk (19:59.638)

So are there certain statistics that you find more reliable than others? There's obviously stuff like that can be gamed, right? If it's a bot playing the music. Yeah, maybe you have hundreds of thousands of streams, but like it's not really anybody listening to it. Is there any anything that you feel has credibility? Good dead in Mockers.

Alex (20:25.717)

Yes, like advertising has credibility. Spotify tools have credibility in advertising. So if you advertise it for real and using Spotify tools, meaning like marquee, like clips and things like that, that's what has credibility.

Brian Funk (20:28.31)

What?

Alex (20:37.488)

Everybody who's doing third party services. I've that's why I never outsource I don't like outsourcing the only things that I've been outsourcing people and I stopped doing it this year is third party playlist Because I never got a chance to build my own Spotify playlist I just was never my interest because I never seen a value in this but some people want it, right? So I found good networks question. You did deliver now they all gone

I do everything in house right and I think this is really important because you If you come to somebody like in sell the service, there's a little in music industry There's a lot of people who resell stuff right a lot of people who resell Other people services, right? So I'm always trying to be the source so I always want to be the source for people come to because I'm the one who's doing it, right and What happens is? when people go into

You know, let's say they...

Trying to do everything for real they're trying to achieve things in the real way right and they're getting screwed fixing it really hard So I would like you know, I would never mess with this but always try to find the source I think you know and for the tools and data You know just look for spotify whatever they provide whatever they tell you to use I use chart metric and also your backend the backend of your spotify if it looks like a roller coaster It looks like a blueprint for six flags then you're gonna know You know you have to think about it like will users behave like

Brian Funk (21:57.314)

Alright.

Alex (22:00.626)

like today they're streaming my song 3000 streams a day and tomorrow streaming one stream a day, is it user behavior? Do you use it behavior? Like how is it possible? And always think about it, this is mathematically possible. So, and I would also suggest never purchase.

Brian Funk (22:05.28)

Right.

Alex (22:18.78)

Services from the people who you don't know, you know ask them questions always talk to them and see who they are and what they do You know schedule call if you're not sure if you're gonna spend a good chunk of money schedule call with them and talk to them Be like, hey, what are you doing? How you doing? And if this is a lie about oh We're using networks. We have networks of advertise. This is all eyes of BS, you know, like there's no such thing exists It's like oh, I heard I heard it all, you know, believe it or not. I've heard it all I've seen it all pretty much

Brian Funk (22:24.298)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (22:39.47)

Thanks for watching!

Alex (22:46.88)

but people say like, oh, we pay people to stream songs at night when they sleep, put it in the, we're paying people for, we have networks of different advertisers and it's like, it's all a lie. We have pop-ups, it's all a lie, that doesn't exist. None of this working, none of this is real, none of this is true. So it's a bot that's trying to hide it, you know? That's all it is. So always, but always ask them questions. If they can't answer your questions, don't work with them, it's easy. You know, doesn't matter how persistent they are, you know, they can provide information that you need. There's other people.

Brian Funk (23:09.859)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (23:17.61)

It's a shame that we're trading real connections sometimes with real people. Like that's what we want music for is to connect with people, to express ourselves. But we're chain trading it for the numbers, the followers or the plays or the stream numbers.

Alex (23:33.12)

Because you always can get, people want shortcuts. People think they're shortcuts. And if somebody says, oh, all the record labels using us, you know how to tell, always how to tell that it's a fake company who's gonna screw you over.

You go on their website, this is for all of you who are watching, this is always a tell, no matter what. You go on the website, if you see a bunch of logos of different record labels, you know, you see RCA, you see Capital, you see Universal, you see Epic Records, everything there, right? This is a fake website. There's no way in the world that they're gonna allow any of these labels will allow them to put the logos in. And if the label's gonna see it, all the business is done immediately. So you know, me working with them, like, you know, I asked...

I asked him can I use your logo? Absolutely not. There's there's nothing in the question So you're not allowed to do that and also many times they put universal music group or universal logo right and they always for some reason Use movie logos because those are different logos universal music open universal movies is completely different logos None of them they allow to use but legit companies will never put the logo never

Because they know what's going on. You go to a waiver website, you will never see any websites. Like any links to the big, and they're pretty big, right? They have a deal with Warner and they've been servicing a lot of their labels as well and they've been in business forever. GAPTA, same thing. You go to GAPTA and you're never gonna see it. It just doesn't, it's not there. Why? Because they know the laws, they know the rules. You go to some bought it like farm thing, they're gonna have all of them there, showing like all this stuff. That's what labels use. Yeah, labels don't use that.

Brian Funk (25:07.478)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (25:11.534)

Mm-hmm. That's good to know because I've seen those before. Yeah. It's like, oh wow. Everybody's into this. And you're right. A lot of those sites I can't find anymore. They kind of, they disappear. Yeah. Hmm. It's tricky world out there for people trying to make it in the arts. Um, in our email exchange, you mentioned, um, that there should

Alex (25:19.233)

Yep.

Alex (25:23.296)

Yeah, we're going.

Alex (25:32.469)

Thanks.

Brian Funk (25:39.222)

you recommend artists always start with singles. And this is always kind of a big question people ask, do I do an EP, do I do an album, do I do singles? Why do you feel singles are the way to go?

Alex (25:52.3)

Because for EP and for album, you have to have a demand. If there's no demand for the EP, or no demand for mixtape, or no demand for album, why waste the music? So there are two things, right? Spotify is asking for what? They're asking to put music out four to six weeks, in order to trigger the algorithm, in order to teach their machine learning.

Brian Funk (26:14.574)

That's what they want every four to six weeks to release them.

Alex (26:16.54)

Or to six, yeah. So, and imagine if you're putting out the song, like once a month, right? And you have an album, why don't you break this album? You have releases for every single month, this way you're gonna trigger the algorithm. And eventually by then, like let's say you have 13 or 14 songs on the album. At the end of the year, you can bundle the rest together and make it into one album, but.

If you put a single, you're going to be able to promote each individually. Imagine, imagine this case, right? You have, you put out this AP, right? Or you put out an album. Do you have no demand? We just decided to release an album. Are you going to be able to promote all 12 songs? Cause songs, you know, although songs don't die and they can resurface, but the songs also decay, right? So like if nobody's picking up on the record, like

how you're going to promote all the 12 together and how you're going to push every single song at the same time. And even then, even if you have like, let's say you have unlimited money to press the button, you just keep going with this, right? You're still going to run into the issue, like of crossing the audience and figure out how you're going to look at the pattern of 12 different records at the same time. It's really hard. And the expectation here is you put out a lot of music, one of them is going to hit.

But then you see none of them here and then what? Then you go back and to be like, oh, shoot, I wasted all this music. And I've heard it many times. Artists say this all the time. It's like, hey, I wasted I wasted my songs.

Brian Funk (27:30.402)

Yeah.

Alex (27:38.696)

And then what happens after you put out an album, nobody wanted your album. Nobody cared about the album. People wanted it. They just didn't know about it yet. Right. Cause they didn't, it wasn't promoted to them. They didn't know. So you put out an album and then you decide like, Oh, I wasted all this music. You take album down, you're releasing style. Oh, I'm going to start scratch from scratch. That's the reason. The reason why it didn't work is like, I need to rebrand. Okay. You remove all the music, you start over again. You do exactly the same mistake. Work exactly the same thing. It just happens over and over again. And.

Instead of like, you know, put out one song and listen to your audience, you know, it's good that you have an album You know your album is not going anywhere, right? Like if you put out within a year, you'll be fine But listen to the audience listen to what people paying attention to if it doesn't go then put out the next song You know you try to you spend a little bit of money see what's going on and then put another one and just continue To release it And you have four or five bundle it into ep pull put out two more seven songs ep great So then put out a few more singles and then release a whole album, you know

Brian Funk (28:37.166)

Hmm.

Alex (28:37.58)

That's what I would do.

Brian Funk (28:39.902)

So it's multiple chances to stir up your audience basically. You're getting, instead of one, you know, and I've been a part, I've done this myself and I've seen people do it. It's like this big buildup, oh, it's like a giant drum roll for your album to come out. And then it comes out, poof, and it's gone. Like that week. Whereas if the 10 songs are spread out across 10 months, at least you get to do 10 kind of bursts.

Alex (28:58.336)

Yeah. Yep.

Alex (29:07.424)

And also you can do, always those big advocate, you can throw a cover, you can throw remixing. Remix your music, allow people to reach out to DJs, get them to remix your music, why not? And if they're gonna start remixing your songs, you're gonna reach completely brand new audience with this. Let's say like, I'm not talking about Skrillex, not talking about T-E-S-T, not talking about those guys, but I'm talking about small DJs that just coming up. You go to them, you DM them and say, hey, you wanna remix my song? He has like 50,000 followers in IG for instance,

hundred, two hundred thousand monthly listeners on Spotify. Great! You're small, he's small. He'll do it for free, most likely, because he wants to get somewhere too, you know, he's trying to do exactly the same thing that you do. Why don't you unite with him and exchange fan bases and he's gonna hit your audience, you know, release rate, you're gonna hit his release rate. And just keep grinding with this and you have another piece of material to put out. You know, Ross, remember this rapper Ross, I always bring him up, right? So like, you know who I'm talking about, right?

Brian Funk (30:05.751)

You said Ross? No.

Alex (30:06.804)

Russ, R-U-S-S, Russ? No, he's pretty big, he's pretty big. He's a big rapper, he's a big artist. When he before, and the biggest song he did was the song with Ed Sheeran, that's, you know, they teamed up on the record. It was big, huge record. Yeah, they teamed up with Ed Sheeran, but it was Ed Sheeran, although he was big, they met. I got, I was blessed to promote this record, and Russ is independent, so I can talk about him, but him.

Brian Funk (30:20.562)

Okay. Team up again, like you said.

Alex (30:32.572)

You know, they came and it's like, hey, bring a song with that share and let's do it. So, you know, blew it up. It was fun. But when he was trying to break, right, he put out song every week. He did 52 songs in a year, which is insane, which is a crazy amount of music to put out, you know, and you like. Oh, my God, I'm so sorry.

Brian Funk (30:48.899)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (30:54.195)

That's okay.

Alex (30:58.324)

So yeah, so he put out a lot of music, music card. And he put out like every single, 52 songs in a year. So every week he put out songs.

Brian Funk (31:03.026)

Yeah, well 52 is quite a lot.

Brian Funk (31:11.403)

He's showing up in people's feed and algorithm over and over again.

Alex (31:13.696)

Yeah, consistent. And it's just over and over and over again. And eventually he, you know, he blew up. He became pretty big. He built a fan base.

Brian Funk (31:23.582)

Right. And then if you say, let's cut that down to album sizes, that's five albums. So if he did five a year even, that's only five hits compared to 52 throughout the year, which is just much better numbers. Hmm. It makes a lot of sense. Now, what do you, how do you feel about the format, the art form of album or EP, like a collective work of songs?

Alex (31:35.084)

Yeah, of course.

Thanks for watching.

Brian Funk (31:53.782)

Do you think that that's... Well, I mean, certain albums are just digestible, classic albums like Sergeant Pepper's Dark Side of the Moon or those types of things that are these like cohesive units. Do you think artists should stray away from that? Do you think that's like a form that maybe only existed because that's what the medium allowed for?

Alex (31:55.616)

What do you mean by that?

Brian Funk (32:22.122)

Are we looking at a different form maybe in the future as we get deeper into streaming and things like that?

Alex (32:22.244)

Alright.

Alex (32:27.936)

Well, let's take a look at this, right? So Sergeant Pepper came out, right? It came out in 1969, right? 1969, 1966, when did it come out? 67, okay. It came out in 1967. Yeah, somewhere there. How many albums besides Sergeant Pepper came out in 1967?

Brian Funk (32:38.398)

I think 67, but...

We'll be in that timeframe, yeah.

Brian Funk (32:50.136)

Yeah, a few.

Alex (32:51.832)

Quite a few, right? And there's only one Sgt. Pepper, right? There's only one Dark Santa Monica. There's only one White album, right? So there are, out of all this album, I don't think like, I think people looking at it is like, oh, all these great albums are dead. It doesn't exist anymore.

Brian Funk (33:00.428)

Mm-hmm.

Alex (33:11.076)

And I don't think this is the case. I think we are witnessing same exact thing as people witnessed before. We just have more access to this, right? So I think back when Sgt. Pepper came out, probably like, I don't know, probably another like 20,000, 30,000 albums came out this year, probably. I would assume so, you know, because Music Institute was pretty big by then. You know, and how many of those albums stayed in the shadow?

people didn't like and didn't become legendary. I think now we still have albums that are actually really good. Really good albums, really good records that come out and have concept behind them, have a whole conceptual thing about it. It's just, I think it's the same. I think nothing really changed. I think artists should be always telling the story. They should always be telling the story with their music, no matter what. It always has to be story. It's all about storytelling.

and it's all about how you tell the story. People believe you, right? So that's the thing. To me, it's like I have a lot of singers who, and artists who I believe, right? Like I listen to Freddie Mercury, right? The guy sings and I believe him. I believe that he's telling me a story regardless, right? Doesn't matter what he's singing, I believe him.

I believe a lot of modern artists, you know, who sing into me and they're telling me a story. But there's a lot of artists who I don't like. But again, if I don't believe them, it doesn't mean other people want, you know, I mean, that's the magic. So, but they always have to tell the story.

Brian Funk (34:32.407)

Right.

Brian Funk (34:36.158)

I guess you could also think about it like almost like a chapter book in a way if you're going to release say your 10 songs over 10 months like a serial story, you know, a lot of novelists release their books and as chapters and magazines for a while. So it's another style. I suppose then you can finally take it all in as one when that final single drops.

Alex (34:46.081)

and hope.

Alex (34:51.852)

Yeah, of course.

Alex (34:58.376)

Yeah. And if you look at also if you look at rollouts, right, like a lot of people don't pay attention to it, which is so like I think this is so not.

Brian Funk (35:05.72)

Thank you.

Alex (35:09.416)

I think people missing a lot on those. Everybody believes like, oh, there used to be a booklet that you open and you look at and you hold it, right? But nobody pays attention what rollouts happening now. Like Harry Styles, like I don't know if you've seen his rollout. They did a brilliant rollout on his Harry's house, right? It was a website. It was a bunch of keys and you had to do like a whole scavenger hunt to find those keys. They would open the doors and they would lead you to the website code that you can open and unlock and on the day off, like it just shows up the whole thing there. That was fun, right?

And it's just like, they still coming out, labels still coming out with great strategies of the marketing. Just people who like, people just don't pay attention to that as much, you know, but there's still some incredible rollouts, right? Like Charlie Poole, they had like, I remember that was like when the voice notes came out, right? There were pianos. I believe there was, I think it was voice notes.

exactly which one, but it was like grand pianos hidden all over LA. And you find them all, you would win the prize and things like that. So it's just like, you know, there, there are things that happen all the time. Just nobody's watching. Right. And people looking at it, people who are not fans, you know, who are not really paying attention, they're just like, ah, another thing, you know, whatever it's just, no, nobody's like, Oh, the music, you know, the albums are done and nobody's paying attention to it. They don't have booklets and things like that.

But I think if you're not a fan of the Beatles, and if you, I'm not a fan of the Rolling Stones, right? For instance, it was never my favorite band. I know nothing about them. I don't know what albums they're, I don't even know the names of the albums because I never paid attention, right? But I'm a fan of the Beatles. So I know a lot about the albums and a lot about the things and I look in deep into it. So same thing happens now, you know, it's just, if you're not a fan of the artists, that doesn't mean the artist is not doing a good thing. You know, it doesn't mean that they don't have a story. Yeah.

Brian Funk (36:41.73)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (36:55.275)

Those are cool ideas. Those are great ideas. And yeah, I guess, you know, that's what we had back in those days, right? We had booklets, we had records. So we were used to that, but maybe we're just need to pay attention to the new ways of, you know, distributing our art. Yeah.

Alex (37:12.136)

Yeah, instead of the album, it just went online. Instead of like doing the rollouts on the album, it just went, you know, on the covers, it went online. So you still can do scavengers, hunts and find things.

Brian Funk (37:25.302)

Maybe for my next release I'll hide a bunch of guitars and synthesizers around the neighborhood and release it that way.

Alex (37:31.576)

Try it, you know, as long as you have people who's gonna search for it, you know, like, that's, you know, you can play, you can play a lot of things, you can do, be really, really creative. And, you know, the label people, although like a lot of artists, they don't like record labels, they think that record labels are evil, but the people who are working at the record label, some of them are brilliant, like some of them have such creative ideas and they always like pushing it out. And it's just like, I think, I think labels just a lot, a lot of them just misunderstood because that's...

You know, if I'm because every artist is the same way and it's just, you know, I'm going to keep saying it over and over again because it's true. It's a reality. Every artist thinks if, if I became famous, I made it. If I didn't become famous, that label's fault. It's manager's fault. It's everybody's fault, but mine. It's it's

Brian Funk (38:17.51)

Yeah.

Alex (38:18.288)

It's everybody like that. There's no exceptions in this. Nobody looking at themselves and like, oh yeah, maybe I didn't post enough. Maybe I didn't tour enough. Maybe I refused to do such things. Maybe I didn't want to do it. Maybe I wasn't active enough. Nobody cares. No, no, it's their fault. They didn't make me famous. So, and unfortunately, that's the truth.

Brian Funk (38:33.514)

Yeah. Well, as soon as you take responsibility for that, though, you have the power, right? If you blame others, you're the victim and there's nothing you can do. It's a much stronger position to take, but that maybe I could have done this or I could do that.

Alex (38:44.6)

close.

For sure. And every label is, you know, label is like a business partner, an investor. They taking huge risk with money, you know? All this, everybody thinks it's like, oh, they make so much money, they give me like, you know, they give me advance and stuff like that, ask for them. That's not true. Like they taking risk on you. They come, they taking risk, they investing their money, hard earned money into your career, believing that you gonna do what you promised them to do.

They're not buying physical products from you, they're not buying a can of Coca-Cola or a cup from you. They're not producing nothing. If you feel like it, you will record music. You're going to be stuck in the country, but who's going to be able to hold you? So they take a humongous risk. It's a very risky business. They still do it and they give artists the big favor.

Brian Funk (39:38.594)

Hmm. It's a good way to look at it because it's true.

Alex (39:44.512)

That's how I see it. You know, you don't need to have a label. You don't have to have a label, but you also have no right to talk bad about them. And you also can't talk bad about that. You know, right? It's your choice. You don't have to go with a label. You just plenty of people who have successful careers without having a record label, but you have no right to talk smack about them. You know, even if you got dropped, even if you were signed and you got dropped, there's a reason why you got dropped. There is a reason why it didn't work out. There's a reason. And the reason is always you.

You know, it's not your team. Your team did fine. Your team does it every single day. They're professionals. Something has to do with something didn't connect and it's nobody's fault. Maybe not your fault. My music didn't react. The NRB lived in it. Song didn't connect. Oh well, it happens. You know, or, you know, but it's really rare chances that your team is, you know, especially if you sign to some big label that your team suck. They don't suck. No, no, they're really high-level pros. They don't get credited enough for what they do.

Brian Funk (40:43.662)

That's a great point. Listen, I know we're at our stopping time, so I don't want to keep you any longer than that. We can send people to sound.me if they want to check out some of the work you do.

Alex (40:53.528)

known.me that they can book their own campaigns and test out, try the influencer marketing campaigns with us. You know, we have a very simple system that they can choose who they want to target, how they want to do it and everything. They can also reach out to me, you know, on the email and, you know, on advertising.me there's my phone number. They can text me as well. So it's very easy.

Brian Funk (41:12.606)

Right. Well, I'll put that all in the show notes. And, uh, great. I thank you and I thank everyone for listening.

Alex (41:15.672)

Beautiful.

Alex (41:20.204)

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, Alex akimov