by David Hirschfeld
Has anyone else noticed a skyrocket increase in the amount of people producing music on the internet? Ever since the pandemic began, I seem to see a new face on my feed making their own music more than once every day, and frankly, I’m not tired of it. Every day, artists release 60,000 new songs per day on Spotify alone. I follow a playlist, New Music Friday, where every Friday, artists release new music, and this playlist highlights the most popular releases along with albums associated with them. Whether it be alone in their apartment or with a few others in the studio, I thoroughly enjoy all fashions of people producing their own music and sharing it with whomever will listen over the internet. And that’s just general exposure, given it reaches its intended audience.
Recently, I was hired as a remote intern for a startup artist promotion company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Since being hired, I have noticed a few things: shameless self-promotion, intern communities, and fan bases. The Recording Industry Association of America references that 9/10 users of social media do some sort of music related social activity. Inside our app, I see many of the same artists posting their music, and now that I’m several weeks in, I know some of which I look forward to listening to and others who I review with the least bias possible (because some music is definitely not good). Of those I thought have potential, I’ll post them on some socials like Instagram and Snapchat Stories as a part of the internship program, but I would really like to discover if people really listen to songs I post on my social stories to support undiscovered artists.
Those involved in the program with me communicate on a weekly basis to discuss tactics of promotion to further expose artists we found to have potential to our peers and followers. After a final discussion with the artist on our plans, we set out to expand and complete our assigned tasks for a hopefully successful campaign, and as I work towards completing this internship program, I hope to hear from my peers more often because even a few would mean a successful promotion campaign to this startup company, who has put a lot of faith in us interns.
My name is David Hirschfeld. At Miami University, I discovered my passion for the music industry. Being surrounded by music my whole life, I was infatuated with different sounds of all genres and artists. At Miami, I am exploring these even further and enjoying every minute of it. As a student interested in the creative sector, I am determined to progress this industry.