“I’d be going to every decent [artist] management company on the planet trying to build them an internal digital, performance and growth team, while I wait for the next medium.” — Below is a transcript of an interview with Garrison Snell (Founder and CEO of Nashville-based digital marketing agency Gyrosity Projects) for the Water & Music podcast. Hosted by me, Cherie Hu, the podcast unpacks the fine print behind big ideas at the intersection of music and tech, featuring a curated…

Come for the music, stay for the… music? Think again. — This is part two of a series of posts about what happens when we market musicians like tech products. You can read part one, “Breaking the Adoption Cycle,” by clicking here. “Come for the X, stay for the Y.” The above quote is a common maxim in tech marketing and…

“If artists were more in control of their own business … we would be in a really different industry.” — Below is a transcript of an interview with Kiran Gandhi (a.k.a. Madame Gandhi) for the Water & Music podcast. Hosted by me, Cherie Hu, the podcast unpacks the fine print behind big ideas at the intersection of music and tech, featuring a curated selection of leaders, artists, thinkers and innovators…

Artists’ revenue streams “look, sound and act really differently from a membership.” — Below is a transcript of an interview with Wyatt Jenkins, SVP of product at Patreon, for the Water & Music podcast. Hosted by me, Cherie Hu, the podcast unpacks the fine print behind big ideas at the intersection of music and tech, featuring a curated selection of leaders, artists, thinkers…

Rethinking creativity and accessibility for music in a world where “there will be ten million songs a day.” — Below is a transcript of an interview with Alex Mitchell, founder/CEO of Boomy, for the Water & Music podcast. Hosted by me, Cherie Hu, the podcast unpacks the fine print behind big ideas at the intersection of music and tech, featuring a curated selection of leaders, artists, thinkers and innovators…

It’s no longer appropriate to talk about the music business simply as a hard binary between the mainstream and the long tail. — [This article was originally published on June 13, 2019, through my biweekly Water & Music email newsletter.] Stem is growing up, and not everyone is happy. On May 31, 2019, the L.A.-based music distribution platform — known for working with the likes of Frank Ocean, Anna Wise and Childish Gambino…

In sidestepping media middlemen, artists are creating their own DIY music-media economy. — Over the past few decades, podcasting has bloomed from a primarily DIY medium at the bottom of the media food chain, to a corporate-approved cash cow at the top — and major music-streaming services have become among the sector’s most aggressive investors today. In the summer of 2017, Tidal launched…

As investors have predicted, Spotify is betting on becoming the Netflix of audio — for better or for worse. — On October 28, 2018, as I was on Spotify’s mobile app searching for a certain music playlist I had made for myself, I received the following, unsolicited push notification: The notification was for Crimetown, a serial podcast produced by Gimlet Media that dives into the history of organized crime in…

A timestamped play-by-play demonstrates why the intersection of music and esports is one of the biggest entertainment business trends of the year. — Last month, I published an article on Forbes diving into why the intersection of music and esports is one of 2018's fastest-moving business trends in entertainment. tl;dr — Esports leagues and game developers are blooming into full-fledged media brands, and are looking to the music business to solidify their cultural…