November 2023 Status Report
Welcome back for the 2nd edition of the Birds of a Feather Newsletter. We have some exciting things to cover this month following a November to remember!
I noticed something interesting one week in the beginning of the month… whilst scrolling on TikTok throughout that week I noticed so so so many people making videos with one particular sound; a new song Jack Harlow was promoting. The lyrics were “I’m vanilla baby..”
I thought the beat was catchy and also had potential as a remix as something I could flip to include non vanilla listeners.
It had been awhile since I released a remix, which is truly where I began as a songwriter and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to sharpen my pen and jump on the train.
The song wasn’t even released yet so I decided the day Jack dropped it I would make it my goal to find an instrumental, record and release it as soon as possible.
Innocently practicing my craft as I have been for years now.
I had no idea that this would be the biggest song of my career!
I think the combination of this song being really successful on its own combined with my timing of the release (I got the remix recorded and on SoundCloud by 12pm, 12 hours after the official release) made this a recipe for success.
I slid on the verse for sure, but typically when I release music I will get around 50-100 plays on the first day of release regardless of the quality of the song…
I knew something was different with this release when I checked it before bed and my SoundCloud insights said it had been listened to over 500 times in just a few hours! That was just the beginning it seems, as the track is now at over 100 Thousand plays and counting… I am typing this completely humbled and speechless.
Numbers are infuriating. This numerical system we’ve invented as humans is flawed and creates an illusion of confinement. Our obsession with measurement has rendered us limited in our creativity and short sighted in our decision making, always chasing an ever changing algorithm in order to increase our reach on social media. Just because something does not turn a profit immediately doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. This is something I’ve had to remind myself often on this 15+ year journey of creating and sharing my art with the world.
There is value we cannot measure, and music is but one medium of that value.
We as musicians are able to bottle a moment in time and encapsulate the emotions of that time that somehow not only stands the test of time, but sometimes actually ripens over time into a beautiful 2-3 minute reminder of that one moment in our lives.
I’ve struggled in the past to release some music because for whatever reason it can really hurt one’s confidence to share art and have the value overshadowed by the inflated numbers of other artists with bigger streaming numbers (real or fake).
It has always been my personal preference to build my company from the ground and keep my numbers truly organic. That way I can accurately gauge my demographic and where those people are most actively listening to my songs at. This is essential data for building any business and artists are so focused on appearing like they have more streams than the next artist. They don’t understand they’re truly muddying the waters and making it harder for them to understand their own audience (or at least giving that data directly to a marketing agency/label instead of keeping it proprietary and accessible in-house).
I release music with the intention of giving a gift and I try my hardest to let go of the expectations I have for it. I have long since let go of the idea that one of my songs will magically blow up online without the “proper” marketing behind it.
It feels so cool to have an idea, execute on it and see it take form in the world and even grow beyond what I ever could have dreamed.
PXVBS Spotify Wrapped 2023
Here are some screenshots of the data for November:
SoundCloud Statistics November 2023
Apple Music Statistics November 2023
Spotify Statistics November 2023
YouTube Statstics November 2023
We literally got so many streams on SoundCloud that the analytics were messed up and inaccurate for awhile and they have since (sort of) updated. How cool is that??
Shoutout to the UK and to everyone who may have just stumbled across my music for the first time!
Looking Forward…
The big focus for our company is sync licensing (getting music into movies, tv shows, video games, etc). It’s something that I see as potentially the primary means of income for a songwriter like me. Royalties do not accumulate very well at PXVBS’ current level, and touring is something that must come later.
Sync money would allow me to earn a true marketing budget FROM my songs, FOR my songs.
It can be impossibly expensive to get a release together using only money from one’s paycheck to funnel into one’s business as capital. I have navigated this situation for quite some time, and came to the conclusion that Sync Licensing could be a solid way to bring money into my “music business”.
Outside of merchandise sales and streaming royalties, there are not traditionally many avenues for a musician to cash out on their work.
The key to Sync Licensing is ensuring the music you are offering is legally cleared for use by whatever project is purchasing a license from you.
This is tricky for me because of the process I have used to create my songs for so long. I essentially record demos over YouTube beats that I find by random producers, which can then be hard to clear as just purchasing a beat with a standard beat license does not make the song legally cleared for licensing in most cases, those types of licenses only allow me to put music on streaming platforms (which pay abysmally low royalties). I could always reach out to the producer of the song, however sometimes they are overseas and/or unreachable through social media or email.
In order to create unique music that is actually good enough to place in projects, I have been focusing on creating songs around producers that understand our objective and are ok letting me sit with this song we have created while I shop it around to agencies and libraries.
Essentially, instead of paying them money up front for these beats, we worked out a solution where I give them credits as a Songwriter on the song (in addition to their publishing points) so they claim the money with me once the song gets placed and we get paid equally for whatever opportunity.
I will keep you all up to date on the latest in that department, as we have already been accepted to a sync agency and are getting our paperwork squared away to finalize submissions.
This is a huge win for the company as a whole and could lead to quarterly paychecks for our songs!!!
Other projects on the horizon include beginning the process to self publish a children’s book I wrote, and beginning to film episodes of PXTV for content on our social media and YouTube.
I also haven’t begun my journey into live streaming my Classifieds Cypher Sessions, so That is something I am adamant to dabble in on X (Twitter) and also on Kick which I’ve been hearing more and more about.
Lastly, I’ve had a problem getting Stable Diffusion to work (the AI program I use to generate cover art). I was just getting the hang of it when it stopped working a few months back and I am close to finally resolving whatever coding issue I was having that prevented it from running properly, which will allow me to continue releasing music on streaming platforms again which you cannot do without cover art.
Lots to be excited about! Thank you so much for going on this journey with us…
Stay Tuned & Subscribe for Vibes!!