The Music Industry (From a Music Managers Perspective)

We viewed a Q&A with a Music Manager called Emma Stakes today. She has an agency, publishing company and looks after artists. She started off as an artist herself and was signed to Universal when she was quite young as well as participated in musical theatre. She said that she didn't become the star she wanted to be and went down a different route. 

She said she then shifted to becoming a songwriter for other people having written for Craig David, German acts, Asian markets, Little Mix (lots of diverse artists). She then shifted to finding artists herself and working with them rather than songwriting on demand (briefs and specific projects). This then evolved again as Emma was headhunted by Phsyco Entertainment (her old agency) who had been following up on what she was doing. She then ended up working for all the shows like X factor, Britain's Got Talent, and Americas Got Talent in the development and scouting team as well as a vocal coach. 

Emma has now partnered up with another manager and they are developing artists together. They work with artists such as Ellie Goulding and Ed Sheeran. She does not only look after artists but also producers and writers as well. 

She mentioned in the interview that it is quite common for people to switch roles in the industry through their career. She suggested in a way that labels are like banks and they invest in artists as projects. Because nowadays there are so many ways to produce and distribute music yourself artist often already come with a package and an image for themselves before being signed (if signed). She says that she takes on people that are less developed and some that have no social presence. However, there are other instances where people already have a platform. This shows that she is quite diverse in the artists she takes on and that the stage the artist is at is not what she is looking for. 

In terms of organically or artificially growing as an artist, Emma said that it's hard to tell which is which as social media is so relevant. The longevity of their artist career often tells you if they are organic or not as organic artists tend to last and want to keep their musical career. 

She discusses how an artist blew up and went viral over his cover of Girl Put Your Records on. It went viral on tiktok which then lead to it receiving millions of streams and helping to grow the artist. Just because of the luck that it went viral on tiktok it caused huge success for the artist and grew a fanbase. Here is the original song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjOhZZyn30k

Here is a link to Ritt Momney's cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyVfkr6nsrk

The way Ritt recreated the song helped people to rediscover their love for the original song with a modern twist. The artist added a newer beat while still keeping a similar vibe to the original. You can see this when contrasting the videos as they both take place in similar locations however Ritt's video is more colourful and new. His video received over 7 million watches on YouTube.