I DISAGREE WITH DAMIAN KEYES | Stop Selling Music???

[@DamianKeyes]

Hey Kevin, Firstly let me say thank you, I really appreciate you making this video and this is what it's all about... Different opinions so musicians can make up their own mind. I feel strongly about my opinions but I'm certainly not ignorant to think my way is the only way or that I'm always right. I also love discussing this stuff and debating it especially with musicians who are successfully proving me wrong and congratulations for that. What you have and are achieving with your music is very difficult and shows that your music and music marketing skills are Jedi like! Right let's discuss 😜 My preference is to give as much art as possible in order to bring value to the audience and then find the easiest way of monetising rather than fighting consumption. I would rather 1 million people know about my art enabling me to monetise in several ways including merch, ticket sales & touring, patreon/subscription model as you pointed out. However i have made videos in the past on alternatives and maybe something I should do again EG what to do if you have extenuating circumstances. For example what if you don't want to tour or even as someone (who called me a **** yesterday 😜) doesn't like social media or being on camera... then you need a way that suits your skill set. Your way of marketing which is about giving people tasters and then restricting product so you can sell it can work (as you have brilliantly proved) but becomes harder to scale and do what bands want to do which is not to say impossible but harder. I also think that it helps that you have a very niche product as there aren't many symphonic metal bands so you potentially valuable based on supply and demand. One thing you said in your video was what is easier to sell a T-shirt for $25 or music for $7 when they have had some for free... I would say this is subjective. I wouldn't buy music as Spotify is my go to music device (phone, Laptop and home system) and listening on iTunes is not something I do. I also listen on vinyl but not metal.. All my fav bands growing up like Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera or Dream Theatre aren't recorded the way I can appreciate on vinyl. Anyway I don't want to write an essay, what I want to say most importantly is your youtube channel is brilliant, your teaching is great and I really appreciate your time on this (although it might be worth changing your title to 'Damian' not 'Damien' for more visibility) and hopefully we stay in touch and work on ideas together. This new industry is changing rapidly each week and despite people in the comments calling me a washed up guitar teacher I have been in education for 20 years and I'm proud of it. Our jobs as teachers is to make people think and inspire them (potentially anger them) to want to improve and learn and better themselves to find a way. I hope that we can do that together. Keep on smashing it with your band and channel and hit me up for any ideas of thoughts. Death To False Metal! Damo🤘 PS - Subbed!

[@KevinGoetz]

Hey Damian, Thanks so much for taking the time to respond! I really appreciate the discussion and I can definitely respect your views on how this all works, and by no means do I think that my advice is universal for every band either. I do think that a funnel-driven approach with music as the front-end ROI generator works beyond just metal - I know of quite a few singer-songwriters, a couple blues guys and at least one americana artist using the same advertising and email funnel strategy I am and they're seeing similar results. That being said though, while this strategy seems to work great and is certainly very scalable for smaller acts who still need to build brand awareness, I think there's a tipping point where it becomes less effective. If someone hits that level of success where they become a household name, it's probably better that they fully embrace the streaming platforms. I stand by my example of Taylor Swift and Adele windowing their releases and holding them back from Spotify at least at first, because those industry sales records speak for themselves I think. But certainly if Adele were to remove ALL of her music from Spotify and try to force fans to purchase, I'm sure her overall revenue would plummet catastrophically. So it's not one-size-fits-all, but if most people don't know that a band exists, I certainly think that it's hard to top the level of brand-building (and profit) that this strategy can generate for that band. Sorry about misspelling your name, I realized that immediately after clicking publish and I've been weighing the pros and cons of editing it since that can screw up the algorithm lol. For what it's worth, I absolutely loved your "dare to stand for what you believe in" video - that's part of what inspired me to make this actually. And likewise, feel free to bounce ideas off me any time. Like I said in the video, I think there's more than enough room for both our approaches here, and it's always good to have multiple sets of eyes on the rapidly-changing industry. Thanks again man, I appreciate it :) Kevin

[@DamianKeyes]

@@KevinGoetz I appreciate it Kevin, the more of us in the space trying to figure stuff out and helping others the better 🙂🙂🙂

[@jammanmcguin]

🙏Much Respect and appreciation for you both. Thank you!!

[@KevinGoetz]

Not sure why the sound cuts out for a few seconds there! It wasn't like that before I uploaded this video to KZbin. I believe what I was saying was that when Joe Bonamassa made this same point about Spotify, Damian schooled him pretty good, however he does have a valid point where ROI (return on investment) is concerned.

[@inexternalrecords]

I believe both arguments are valid, in my case I make my music for free and maybe I'll gain the attention of someone who would want commission work from me. All in all, I care about growing too much to care if I sell or not. I just want to learn and be part of something that feels so fundamental to my life.

[@Otchengazoom]

Grear vid. Thank you.😊 Just note there's no sound ar 4:54-5:00

[@LYRICSNLOUD313]

well spoken bro! Im a new supporter own a rap label but still gain value from your vids! keep up the great work!

[@TuckOfIron]

Kevin, I love your channel and I want you to know that I too am rocking an anime tiddie mousepad at my recording desk.

[@Kashimir]

Kevin, I really appreciate your channel.

[@KevinGoetz]

Thanks! That means a lot :)

[@andywdrums]

Also, bands that are early in their lifespan, shouldn’t really care about trying to make money from their music. It’s about getting the music out there to as many people as possible... which means that music must be made available on the most commonly / widely used platforms. I get what you’re saying, but your model sounds a little romantic in that you’re trying to hold on to a culture that is fading fast (kind of like vinyl sales)

[@KevinGoetz]

Again, the problem with the fairly idealistic argument that streaming "gets the music out to as many people as possible," is that it's only true hypothetically. Typically the numbers play out where if an album is available on Spotify, your sales conversion rate in the kind of funnel I'm talking about aren't gonna get up above 2-4%. NOT having the album on Spotify kicks that rate up to anywhere between 10% and 20%, and in that instance my funnel is profitable. With a profitable funnel I can afford to spend hundreds of dollars a day on advertising. I challenge ANYONE to show me a way to get the kind of reach you can get from hundreds of dollars of ad spend any other way. Anything short of a viral KZbin video cannot possibly compete. So it's about finding the most efficient way to build an audience as quickly as possible, and a sales-dirven model does that.

[@andywdrums]

Well if it works for you, then that’s fine. I just know which model I’d rather use, because I’m not trying to make money from my music at this stage. We’re building an audience, not trying to make a living. Also, it’s not idealistic, it’s realistic. This is the world we live in now. Let me know in 10 years if you’re still making money 👍🏻

[@currentphonograph1734]

vinyl is growth segment, abiet from almost zero, so is cassette tape

[@currentphonograph1734]

I agree with you 100%. There is no point investing money into promotion without opportunity of return on investment into your music. Damian Keyes is offering negative sum game business opportunity, ethical issues within itself, as if merch is new replacement of music revenue, as far as i remember, it's always beanz revenue stream secondary 2 music itself Damian Keyes think music is valueless, it's great Kevin that you understand value of music, thus can sell Following Damain Keyes (KZbin music) you will create zero value business model

[@shanif7820]

I think that you and Damien presenting two different approaches to earn mony as a band/artist and I guess each technique can work for different kind of bands. I think that the method that you offers is great for small bands and his method is more for bigger bands with larger audience.

[@KevinGoetz]

You might be right, though I would think that my method would work just as well for big bands. Like I mentioned in the video, Taylor Swift and Adele both did something like this where they held back their new albums from Spotify for a few months to incentivize an actual purchase, and both of those albums set industry records as a result.

[@OwenAdamsMusic]

Yeah, this is one of those guys, dude! This joker's a washed up guitar teacher who plays in a stale Top 40 cover band, LOL. What a business genius! "Stop selling music" and you can be a superstar pushing 50 just like Damian Keyes.

[@DamianKeyes]

I'm outraged! I'm only 42! 😜

[@andywdrums]

If your music isn’t on free sites like Spotify, then I don’t know how I’d be able to listen to you. I listen to all my music on subscription services, so if you’re not there, I won’t hear you. Also, $25 for a tshirt and $7 for an album??

[@cdsivi]

hello Andy. As I understand it from Kevin in his video, if you can catch people's attention with 3 songs they got to listen to for free (be it via a facebook video or youtube or both) or they only listened to one and then they signed up by email to listen to a couple more AND if some of those people want to go further and might take a shot and buy the album (of which they only know 3 songs so far) THEN you make more $ than if the same album was available on streaming platforms (e.g. Spotify) who give a very little % to the artist. Currently Spotify pays $0.00437 per played song, I just read it online. Let's take 100 sold albums as an example vs 100 streaming plays of entire album of 12 songs: 7x100=$700 0.00437x12x100=$5,24

[@johnvalencia9927]

You make a full time living? 40,000 a year ?? I have a hard time believing you make a full time living with that Casio keyboard behind you

[@KevinGoetz]

Absolutely! I'm a guitarist. That keyboard's just used as a MIDI controller for basic ideas. I completely understand your skepticism, but I have numerous videos on this channel detailing exactly how I do it - and how others can as well.