Music Industry

The manager is the most important person in your operation. Your manager is your teammate. Your partner. Your friend. Finding a manager is about timing, being in the right place at the right time and, really, making it seem like you don’t need a manager.

Shirley Halperin is an Executive Editor at Variety, where she spearheads music coverage for the print magazine and Variety.com.

The “music industry bible” by Ari Herstand has been widely adopted by music schools and universities across the world, inspiring tens of thousands of musicians to stop waiting around for that big break and take matters into their own hands.

This week on the New Music Business podcast, we are joined by Veteran booking agent Tom Windish. As Head of A&R and Business Development at Wasserman Music, Windish has developed the touring careers of some of the hottest names in music, including Billie Eilish, Lorde, alt-J and The xx. In this episode, Ari and Tom discuss the state of the live music industry, how booking agents operate, why tour buy-ins are unethical, the process of signing new artists, running a record label, and much more!

Our guest this week on the New Music Business is the multi-platinum songwriter and producer, Sam Hollander.

Our guest this week on the New Music Business is Dan Runcie, the founder of the podcast and research group Trapital.

Our guest this week is music supervisor and Vice President of the Guild of Music Supervisors, Madonna Wade-Reed. Her credits include TV shows such as All American, Batwoman, American Crime, Reign, Blue Mountain State, Smallville, One Tree Hill, plus films such as 8-Bit Christmas, Lovesick, A Thousand Words and the documentary Let It Fall. In this episode, Madonna breaks down her responsibilities within new projects, why it’s vital for artists to educate themselves on licensing, as well as a closer look into why the music supervisors’ movement toward unionizing.

Our guest this week is Anne McKinnon, the co-founder and CEO of the web3 experience platform Ristband. In this episode, Ari and Anne break down everything musicians need to know about the ever-evolving metaverse and how exactly it’ll add value to artists’ careers.

Did you know that there is a law on the books in California that states a company cannot bind someone to a personal services agreement for longer than 7 calendar years - unless they are a RECORDING ARTIST?! That’s right, in 1987 the slimy, slippery, soulless major record labels successfully lobbied the California legislature to add an amendment to exempt recording artists from this law meant to protect people from long-term, predatory contracts. But finally, California might have a chance to right these historic wrongs with the new Bill AB-2926 (Kalra) that has been introduced.

Spotify just released their new Loud and Clear report today which profiled a lot of really interesting figures. The three most surprising things that stuck out to me from this report are: How many DIY, self-released artists are earning...