Showcases are popping up like mushrooms in the world. I think I wrote about the subject a year ago and said that each country now has its own showcase festival. I correct that most countries now have three or four showcase festivals. In the end, they are too many, like I said on a panel on one of them recently and people gasp.

There are definitely too many of them and with this many, you can as an artist start to pick the ones that are needed for your career.

I have stopped going to Swedish galas. Recently it was the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm. You have never heard of the Polar Music Prize? I’m not surprised. To make it simple the fifth member of ABBA, Stickan Anderson left a big chunk of money to make a Nobel Prize for music. You get a Polar Prize for your good work in the music industry. And there are many famous artists that have gotten the prize like Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Max Martin, and BB King to mention a few.

In the beginning members of the music industry were invited also to the Gala. The problem has always been that the only real famous people have been that one big artist that won. A Gala with just one big artist and then a whole concert room full of nobodies. It’s not like the Grammy Awards in L.A or even better the Oscars where you really have famous people. Over the years they have tried to fix this problem by removing people from the music industry and replacing them with more famous people. Famous in that way that the general public in Sweden know who they are, not the global audience.

If you think that your future will be to get signed to a record label, think again. I read in several places that artists today must invest so much more before they are in alignment to be picked up by professionals in the industry. You must start thinking as an artist that you are your first label, your first publicist, your first publisher, and your first manager.

The future of the music industry will be consulting. There is not enough money to go around to be able to invest in new artists. In the old days, you invested dollars into 100 artists, and only 10 of them would make money, but on the other hand, these ten would bring in so much money that it paid for the other 90.

Today there is no one with a proper ROI plan that would invest in that way. The different streams of income make it so unpredictable. With the new digital tools, you can also wait until everything is stable to start to invest.

For an artist is not good enough to just have a good song. It’s not good enough to have a look. Instead, we expect that you come with good songs, a good image and a fanbase, along with a hell of a live show and also be an active professional on social media. 

I have stopped going to Swedish Galas. The other day was the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm. You have never heard of the Polar Music Prize? I’m not surprised. To make it simple the fifth member of ABBA, Stickan Anderson left a big chunk of money to make a Nobel prize for music. You get a Polar Prize for your good work in the music industry. And there are many famous artists that have gotten the prize like Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Max Martin, and BB King to mention a few.

In the beginning members of the music industry were invited also to the Gala. The problem has always been that the only real famous people have been that one big artist that won. A Gala with just one big artist and then a whole concert room full of nobodies. It’s not like the Grammy Awards in L.A or even better the Oscars where you really have famous people. Over the years they have tried to fix this problem by taking out people from the music industry and replacing them with more famous people. Famous in that way that the general public in Sweden know who they are, not the global audience.

I'm currently involved in booking artists for several festivals this summer. Recently, I spent some time reviewing applications for one particular festival. It's a smaller family-oriented event, driven by the local community and typically draws around 3000 visitors. While it may not be the most financially robust festival. It has though a family feeling and it’s a good starting point for a newer artist.

If you've worked in live booking, you know that personal relationships play a significant role - perhaps even more than you'd expect. The prices you can secure when you have established connections with booking agencies can be vastly different from what you'd get if you were just another person seeking a live show from an artist on their roster. In some cases, I've witnessed discounts of up to 50% off the regular price. This is why price tags are usually not listed on the agency's official websites; you have to contact them for a price quote, as it can vary greatly depending on the circumstances.

I have come across this idea a few times lately from various blogs and articles: that as an artist, you must have the mindset that you are your own label, publisher, PR agent, and everything else. Being an artist today is like to starting a company, and you must build it up from the ground up.

This stands in stark contrast to the dream that the music industry has been peddling for decades, particularly during the 80s and 90s, which was that you could only "make it" if you signed with a big record label. According to that narrative, your job was just to get to the moment when you sign the papers, and then you could sit back and enjoy the ride.
However, that was never entirely true, and now it's even further from the truth. I've noticed that many young, intelligent people are abandoning major labels because they are frustrated that they can't get the needle to move in any direction for an artist. I see the same frustration in many people who work for new tech companies that try to fit every artist into their own box, believing that every artist is equal and should follow the same path to success.

Had a great lecture with a researcher and expert on the music industry the other day. He had deep-dived into the AI that now is coming through at an enormous speed. And yes, it’s pretty clear where we are heading and what part of thhe business that will take the blow.

My guess here is that the recorded music will take a heavy blow. Making music has never been easier. Today I needed a new jingle for my Tiktok channel. With ease, I have five different AI systems that can make a jingle from scratch, copyright free, without any cost. It took me approximately around five minutes to get it and implement it in my next Tiktok video.

This song in the eighties cost me dearly. First, I would have needed musicians to make the song, then go into an expensive studio to record it. Just that alone we are talking over $1000.00. On top of that it wouldn’t be my song since another person wrote it, so I would need to get the rights. Then also mixing and mastering on top of that. And aren't even addressing the fact that it would talk probably two months to just create it.

It never ceases to amaze me how people think. When I plan my festivals, we research other music dates globally and check what we are up against even if it is on the other side of the world if it’s big enough. At the same time,  we check what happens in closer proximity or any other events that might attract people to get hotel rooms or not attend our event for some other reason. It’s part of being professional and thorough in our position.

Organize a local showcase for local bands and put it on the same day as when the biggest showcase in the world is happening just a couple of hours from your city. Top of that, the week before your event the biggest city in the area holds one of the biggest showcases in the country. I don’t know if you are bold or just plain stupid? Then to add to the stupidity you hold the event online? There is no way you can get a professional to be on since they are already busy. Maybe some local music industry people, but what is the point that two locals should meet online? Then you overcharge for your service and think that the industry delegates should participate for free?

I just got a request from a music company to find new artists for them to develop. This is a really good opportunity for an artist. The style was not a big issue, they want music that works in most places, so not too nice genres like extreme metal, underground hip hop, or experimental music.

Since they want to invest for an extended period of time, they see that the artist is not over twenty-five years old. Not a must, but I can understand their wishes here. In fact, today age doesn’t really matter in the music industry since you can break through in the strangest ways and age doesn’t matter in those cases. Here they want to work with the artist in a certain way and need time that an older artist really might have available.

They had a special request that the artist should be able to write good songs themselves. Of course, they could buy them from writing camps, but they felt that they want a uniqueness for the artists so they would love to have an artist that could write their own material. But not a total must.

When I studied to be a sound engineer inside the console was a small plaque with the message “You can’t make gold out of cowshit”. You could only see this if you were working to clean the channels, so it was a message between professionals and people that were on their way.

Of course, the meaning of the message is that how good a production you ever do on a song doesn’t matter if the song from the beginning is bad. The sound itself doesn’t make a great song. You can save the singer that is not too good with auto-tune but if the lyric is cheesy and bad it doesn’t matter.

A week ago, we just saw that Live Nation in Sweden just put down one of their flagships “Summerburst”. It’s very interesting since just a couple of days before that they actually released a new headliner. The reason for Live Nation was that they were to focus on other festivals so they choose to put “Summerburst” down.

You can easily read here that the ticket sales couldn’t have been any good. They tried with a last name and when that didn’t make the needle move they just put it down. Fair to say “Summerburst” was an EDM festival that went really well when it started in 2011 and at its top peeking was 2015 with 50 000 visitors. I guess for me 2015 was the year when EDM died. When Avicii left the whole scene was more or less over. Like Punk is not dead but it should be, this is the same story with EDM, it just kept on as well but should have been put to rest.

This year they cut out having the festival in two cities and just focused on one, and even that didn’t work out. I really would love to see those numbers, which would be shining proof of how 'out' EDM is right now.

Several people in my social media circle from the music industry reacted to a report that was released by Luminate and reported by Music Business World Wide. The numbers from Luminate, a company that monitors several streaming sites were that of the 158 million songs they were monitoring 24% had no streams whatsoever during the year 2022. 24% is close to 38 million songs that were never been heard during 2022.

That is like every person in Canada has released a song and no one heard it. At the same time just look at the number they monitor, a staggering 158 million songs. Are they any good?

This is my problem today with all art. We have all channels to reach out to people. There will be great art that will be discovered. At the same time, how much great art is just buried in the brown wave of art that really has no meaning at all?

I was just looking at the new trend in Sweden “EPA-dunk” which you can say is like you mix punk music with bad disco stuff from the 90s. More or less find yourself a pretty bad loop and just go for it. Fill it up with a lot of lyrics about drugs, parties, and sex and you have done your first EPA dunk song. It’s really nothing new it was the same when I was young, bad homemade stuff that we shared on cassette tapes back then like Eddie Meduza or Nerf Herder. And the same topics as well, nothing really new under the sun and to be upset about..

The phenomenon though has another side that is interesting. The leading artist in this genre has been doing it since 2017, but the first hit came in 2022 that really spread like a wildfire on TiktTok. The interesting part is that he releases a song every week or even two and has been doing so for the past years.

All cultures are equal, but some cultures seem more equal than others. Right now, this hasn’t been truer than ever. Here in Sweden, we have an Opera House that is over a hundred years old. Of course, the house is totally nonfunctional by today's standards. Also, it hasn’t been looked after, the pipes are leaking and the whole house is like a nonstop building site.

To rebuild the house would probably be one of the most expensive costs that have ever been done for an Opera House. In light of the fact that several other cities like Gothenburg have brand new Opera Houses, with the latest fashion, they are also talking about building a new opera house, central in Stockholm of course. Then that will cost a lot of money, almost the same as renovating the old one. But probably with a better result.

My latest achievement is I am on now on the cover of Cashbox Canada!

During my festival Future Echoes. I was awarded The Cashbox Canada Magazine Legacy Award. I have got prizes and accolades before, there has been gold, and platinum records, Grammy awards, and MTV awards, and that has been great, but this is personal. The others are awards chosen from a list of people. You are just a gear in the big machinery. You do not even get the award you just send up the artist and you hope that they will remember you while they send out thanks to dad and mom and the producer.

This prize is really special. This is for my achievements in the music industry. When I was told in advance of this award, I was questioning what I have done? Then we went through all the different projects that I have achieved over the years. Since we are going for AI right now, I asked Chat GPT who I really am. So, here is my career so far.

We created The Cashbox Canada Legacy Award to be given to music business icons who we feel deserve to be in some sort of Hall of Fame for the contributions they have given over the years.

The first was given to Bobby Curtola, a Canadian treasure and trailblazer, 5 more followed and now #7 was awarded to a person who his not actually Canadian, but over the years has supported and promoted Canadian artists as well as making his own mark as an entrepreneur in the music industry.

So what could be more fitting than to award this to Peter Astedt at a networking reception on the 15th of February, 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden at the Canadian Embassy, who hosted the event.

We would love to do this, but we need to get paid. You bump into this all the time. It’s true, but as an artist, you have to think when you use this.

First, is your value really that much? Sure, you might draw 200 people in your hometown. And there is a value to that. People might buy tickets and they will buy alcohol from the bar. If you then seek out a gig in the next city just an hour away there is nothing that says anyone will show up. You might have no audience here. Sure 20 people from that 200 audiences will come over just because they like you. But the value of these 20 is not as high as the 200.

Suddenly the promoter has to go much more miles than the organizer in your hometown to reach people that might be interested in your music. This is a risk for the organizer, so they want a door deal for the show. Here you have two choices. First, don’t go outside your comfort zone and just play in your hometown until you get a hit and are safe to go to the next city. The problem with that is that your shows will be so many that the audience has seen you so many times that they stop going. The second choice is to take a risk and go for that door deal.

AI is already being used in music production in various ways, such as for composing, arranging, and mixing music. However, it is unlikely that AI will completely take over the music production process. While AI can assist in certain tasks and make the process more efficient, human creativity and emotion are still essential in music production. Additionally, AI is not yet advanced enough to completely replace the creative input of human musicians and producers. It is more likely that AI will be used as a tool to assist and augment the work of human musicians and producers rather than replace them.

The problem might be that anyone can be an artist. Especially if the quality of songs might not have to be of that quality. But what is better quality. It is a matter of personal opinion whether music was better before. Some people may prefer the music of a certain era or genre, while others may prefer different types of music. Additionally, music is constantly evolving and changing, so what is considered "good" music can also change over time.

I was in a conversation with a person in the music industry, let's say the old music industry before COVID. They were complaining how everything now is just focused on social media and that was the only way to get out music to the masses. On top of that it was just “joke songs” as he portrayed the new songs that came out from TikTok for example.

Nothing really new, we always had “joke songs” but of course, with this new media, it will be easier to access them, at the same time the expectancy is not that long-lived. Who doesn’t remember “Gangnam Style” imagine if Tiktok had been around then? Or we can go back even more with the bird dance that was big in Europe in the 80’s. And my guess is each country has its fair share of really bad songs with a silly dance going with it. The difference here is that it’s easier to reach more people faster now.

How do we get more streams on Spotify? The question is always the first question the artist asks me when we talk PR. In my world, Spotify died around 2017. Spotify has never broken an artist neither did any record shop in the 80’s either. It’s just a platform where you can get what you want to listen to, but you have to know what you want to hear.

That clerk that did know you personally in the record shop probably could hint to you of a new record that you would like back in the day. But that was just you, not the whole world. The biggest source has always been word of mouth. Friends that have found a song and then play it over and over at that party you were at. Or just force you to listen to it in the car over and over again. Back in the day, it was hard to get all these people to listen to your record. Same today, of course, easier to reach people digitally, the problem today is that they are bombarded by songs so at the same time you will be drowned in the sound.