Helping Creators Promote Their Music & Manage Careers
Episode Notes
“If you really, really love an artist, reach out and buy their record, buy their T-shirt, send them money, and appreciate how much blood sweat and tears go into that song that you listen to every day.”
Our guest on today’s episode is Andee Connors, Pandora’s Senior Manager of Catalog & Creator Services. Pandora is only accessible in the USA, but it has over 60 million subscribers. The streaming service has a great history of human-led curation. Andee’s background is steeped in the DIY music ethos. His band bought a van, toured pre-cell phone and circled the USA, with stops in Europe, many times even before a record deal was on the table. He is an anomaly, both old school and very much a part of the modern music ecosystem. He brings to this conversation a great many insights, perhaps the most important being, to make sure you know what success means to you and then go after it.
Andee discusses how a Black Metal drummer with DIY coursing through his veins ended up working with Pandora at a job that no one wanted. He also explains what makes Pandora different from other streaming services, one thing is AMP, which stands for Artist Marketing Platform. This discussion also goes in the direction of modern-day music discovery. Is it better today? How have things changed, and how can people take advantage of those changes? When should you send your music to Pandora to get playlisted? Pandora has 60 million subscribers!! What about Radio VS streaming services, what role do they each play today? Why is Bandcamp awesome, because streaming your favourite artists is really not enough to support an them if you really love the music and they make you happy, you need to buy merch too, so says Andee.
Show Notes:
#HowWeListen Live: In Conversation
Pandora
SiriusXM
00:10 – Byta.com
05:09 – Running Aquarius Records
07:15 – I also had a label: tUMULt Records
08:13 – What is Pandora AMP
09:52 – Listing to thousands of demos
11:35 – The early days at Pandora
13:10 – The effect of things going digital
15:50 – Touring & recording back in the day
17:20 – How Pandora got its start
22:00 – Pandora is only in the USA but you can still use it to find fans
23:00 – Mike Warner – Book: Work Hard Playlist Harder
25:00 – Send your art to those that inspired you
29:00 – Community was your only connection before the internet
32:00 – What are your expectations, your barometer of success?
38:00 – Being a musician in 2023 is a lot of work
40:00 – Houston Pandora has a problem with submissions
45:00 – Timelines to get your music to Pandora
48:00 – Metadata
50:00 – AMP (stands for Artist Marketing Platform)
52:30 – Radio VS streaming
57:40 – How to better support the artists you love
59:30 – Are there too many platforms?
102:00 – Byta.com
Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu
Show Contributors
Marc Brown
Jamie Ford
Jen Pomphrey
Andee Connors
Colin MacKenzie
Fin Productions
Oliver Lyu