Anyone Up For Beyonce's Challenge?

Beyoncé fans were given a real surprise this Thursday December 12^th.  With no warning, no promotions of any kind, and no press, she released a 14-track album with a video for each song.  No one outside of her team knew about this album. Fans immediately went to social media to express their shock and excitement. Countless numbers of memes were made quickly and before you knew it, the album titled “Beyoncé” debuted at number one with sales over 430,000 in just a little over a day. It’s projected that she’ll quickly reach over 600,000 albums sold.

According to Singersroom, the “Beyoncé” album has exceeded the first week sales of her previous three albums, “Bday,” “I Am Sasha…Fierce,” and “4.” As of right now, the album is only available on iTunes with no mention of a release date to any other distributors besides iTunes. Billboard predicts that Beyoncé could easily take Taylor Swift’s spot as the biggest debuting album for a female artist.

The album features songs including “Drunk in Love” featuring husband Jay-Z, “Mine” featuring Drake, and “Blue.”

The Boston Globe calls this technique of releasing an album a “stroke of marketing genius.” The album became the news story of the day, therefore giving her free promotion and marketing. With all the recent changes of the music industry because of social media, the Internet, digital music, and smartphones, Beyoncé and her team saw that it would be a good idea to try something different and creative. This album release strategy certainly worked out well for Beyoncé. The fact that she created a video for each of the 14 songs was also affective and different. Not many artists could pull something like this off. There are artists who promote albums that are not as popular as this one. I wonder if other artists will try something like this in the future.

Brief Insight of a Music Manager

Earlier this year I decided to further my education and I enrolled in an Entertainment Business Master’s program. I just made it to my Product and Artist Management class, a topic I am very interested to learn more about this career path. I decided to research advice for those of us who are interested in becoming a Music Manager or just want to learn more about the field.

A Music Manager is the perfect career for those of us who are obsessed with music but have no musical talent. (Definitely me!) Before you decide to dedicate your career to music management you should weigh the pros and cons. Pros include meeting lots of industry people, traveling, and watching your hard work pay off when you reach the next level of success. Unfortunately there are cons too. Some of the downfalls include not making money unless your artist does, the job is a 24/7 commitment, and patiently waiting for your work to pay off in an uncertain industry that changes with each season.

Lauren Greene, a writer for Seventeen Magazine, talked with working managers to obtain some advice about music management. We all pretty much know the gist of what a Music Manager does. They oversee an artist’s career. An artist and manager who are both beginning their career together may be the only members of the team initially. This means the manager will be the artist’s accountant, agent, publicist, etc. Managers are responsible for marketing and promoting their artists, being innovative, deciding on song lists, and negotiating with labels. The article offered great advice for where you can start. “To find out about new bands, go to concerts, clubs, and festivals. South by Southwest is a huge music conference; try to take a trip there (it’s held in Austin, Texas, in March) to check out more than 1,400 artists and join a mentoring session with professional managers.” The 2014 conference takes place from March 7-16.

Gaining experience and building industry contacts are also very important. Networking is key. An internship at a record label, radio station, or a music management firm are great places to meet industry contacts. You can find a list of record labels to reach out to here. If you know someone who is pursuing the artist side of things, and you believe in their work, you can gain experience by managing them. Those of us who are in the Entertainment Business program have already took one step in the right direction by getting a relevant degree.

Finally, everyone usually has questions about the pay. Of course you make a percentage of what your artist(s) make. The standard is usually between 10 and 20 percent. The article estimates that at a big firm entry level would be about $20,000—$25,000, at a midlevel you would make about $30,000—$50,000, and upper level would be $55,000 and up.

I hope you were able to learn more about becoming a Music Manager!