Unlocking the Secrets of Chartmetric: How Data Is Creating Music Superstars!
Step into the world of music analytics with Chartmetric’s Andreas Katsambas! Discover how Chartmetric became the gold standard for music data, revolutionizing artist discovery, A&R, and global music trends. We discuss how social media engagement, streaming metrics, and emerging markets like Brazil and India are shaping the modern music industry. Essential advice for artists and music business professionals looking to succeed in a data-driven landscape! 🚀📊 #MusicAnalytics #Chartmetric #MusicIndustry
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⚡️What you'll learn in this episode⚡️
👉 How to use analytics to boost your music career
👉 Why social media engagement is the key to growth
👉 The top rising international music markets
👉 and so much more...
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Produced by: Ritch Esra & Eric Knight
Editor: Eric Knight
Shownotes & Transcriptions: Jermaine Shepherd
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Andreas Katsambas from Chartmetric discusses how music analytics is transforming the industry on the 'MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast'. Learn about the power of data analytics in the music business and how it helps artists and labels succeed. He shares insights on streaming data, music industry trends, and artist charts in today's evolving landscape.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On today's podcast, we sit down with Andreas Katsambas from Chartmetric,
the platform that's become the gold standard for music analytics around the
world. We explore how Chartmetric transformed from a simple app designed
to track the rise of BTS into an essential tool for labels,
artists and managers navigating the modern music landscape.
Andreas shares the biggest industry, challenges the power of social media
(00:22):
engagement, and reveals the insider data behind artist discovery.
In a world where over 100,000 tracks are being released every
single day, want to know which global markets are on the rise? Curious how
data and the human touch come together to build legendary careers? We cover
it all. Plus his essential advice for artists ready to break through
Insiders, Are you ready? Welcome to
(00:45):
MUBUTV's Music Business Insider Podcast where our
mission is to educate, empower and engage artists and music
business professionals who are dedicated to having a successful career in
the new music industry. Here are your hosts, Ritch Esra
and Eric Knight. Welcome back, insiders, to another episode
of the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast, where
(01:07):
our mission is to educate, empower and engage your music
career. On today's episode, we're excited to welcome Andreas
Katsambas from Chartmetric, the industry's leading music
analytics platform that everyone's talking about. Andreas gives
us an inside look at how Chartmetric is helping artists, labels
and music professionals navigate the ever changing data
(01:28):
driven landscape of today's modern music industry. We deep
dive into how data and analytics are shaping artists discovery and
development, why social media engagement is now more important
than ever, and how emerging markets from Brazil to India
are influencing global trends. Andreas also shares
valuable advice for artists looking to build careers in today's
(01:49):
competitive industry, insights you definitely don't want
to miss. So if you want to learn how to leverage data to grow your
music career and discover what it really takes to stand out in the
modern music ecosystem, stay tuned. But first, a word from
our sponsor. Hey insiders. Are you an aspiring musician,
artist, band or future music business professional looking to take your
(02:12):
career to the next level? Well, look no further. At Mubu tv, we
offer personalized career counseling and coaching designed
specifically for folks like you. Imagine having both of us by your side,
guiding you through every step of your music journey. Our sessions are tailored to
meet your unique needs, focusing on critical aspects of your music
career, such as refining your songs, defining your art story,
(02:34):
identifying your target audience, and enhancing your social media
presence. Just to name a few. Whether you're just starting out or looking to
elevate your existing career, we've got you covered. Our comprehensive approach
ensures you get insights on everything from live shows
to branding and marketing strategies. We understand that every
artist is unique. That's why our coaching is personalized
(02:56):
just for you. And here's the best part. We offer flexible coaching
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(03:18):
the clarity and direction you'll gain after just one session.
The feedback on your songs, the strategies to grow your audience, and
the confidence to perform live. All tailored just for you.
So why wait? Don't let uncertainty hold you back. Join us for your free
15 minute discovery call at book.mubutv.com
for a transformative coaching experience that will elevate your music
(03:41):
career. That's book.mubutv.com
hi, this is music supervisor. Steven Gizicki and you're listening to the MUBUTV
Music Business Insider Podcast. Welcome back, Insiders. Today's featured
guest is Andreas Katsambas from Chartmetric. This was a
fascinating conversation and I'm so glad, you know, we haven't had someone
from this world on the show yet. This is a new
(04:04):
platform. This is an analytics platform and a very, very
sophistic, well respected one within the music industry. All the
labels and everybody uses this. I mean, for years, you know, people always talked about
how Billboard was the bible because of the charts. They. They use that
term. And now Chartmetric is kind of the bible of analytics for artists
and for. Exactly. Music companies. Yeah. And it's analyzing data
(04:27):
from many, many more points, which very interesting thing. One of the things that I
thought was the most fascinating about the conversation that we had with him among
many. Right. And why, you know, I think everybody's going to really find this an
interesting discussion is because he talks about the global market.
You know, we have spoken on this show many times, Eric, that, you know, the
globalization of music, that the greatest growth that the
(04:49):
music industry is going to see over the next three to five years is going
to come from. Outside the United States, the international markets. Absolutely.
And he spoke about, you know, places like Brazil, like India, how they are
really going to rise up to really having global impact and how
he is seeing that in terms of what Chartmetric is showing as
far as consumption, as far as interest, as far as, you know, streaming
(05:11):
patterns go for a multitude of artists. Yeah. What are the other
areas too? And you know, this is not to knock Chart Metric or anybody
that's in this space with analytics or anything, but I thought what was interesting was
that he talked about that music remains the core. No matter how many
analytic data points they're analyzing, music still
remains the core. No data set can replace the power and
(05:33):
emotional connection of great music. Using data to validate and enhance,
not dictate creative decisions, which I think it's almost like a road map
for you to kind of know, are you going in the right direction? But I
think at the end of the day, it will not replace, you know, not replace
music as a vehicle. Absolutely. As our great friend Don,
you just took. I was just thinking that said, you know, it all begins with
(05:54):
the songs, right? It all. And it's still, you know, if you don't have great
songs, none of this is. Means anything. Yeah, exactly.
And with that, insiders sit back, relax, and enjoy our
featured conversation From News Expo 2025 with Andreas
Katsambas. Andreas, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. Excited to be here. Thank you for coming.
(06:16):
Chartmetric provides a wealth of data from streaming
platforms, radio concerts, and much more. What
was the inspiration to form it? Great, great question. So the
founder and CEO, San Jo, he's actually here today
as well because he likes being at conferences, dealing directly with the
users. He was a big fan of BTS
(06:37):
back in 2015 and he
realized that the band was getting attention outside of Korea, which wasn't the
norm back then. K Pop wasn't a thing, you
know? Yes. It was called Pop in Korea, as you can imagine. And
he built a quick app to see what kind of playlists they were getting outside
of Korea. He showed it to some friends and they said, this is a viable
(07:00):
tool. You can definitely build this on a more business
scale. So he took that and just ran with it and he
quit his job in 2015, had the first version of Charmetric
2017, and the rest is history. Wow.
Okay, that's interesting. Andreas. Yeah. Thank you so much for
joining us on the show. I wanted to ask you, you sit at a great
(07:22):
vantage point in this with Chartmetric. What is the
current landscape telling you about where we're at in the music industry?
Amazing question. So this is my fourth year with the company.
I come from the music world and I work with
many, many artists. So the way to find the right
pivots for an artist, I just use data, sales, social,
(07:45):
engagement, analytics, playlisting. And yes, I was
a client and a user of Geometric before I joined. So
looking at data and when I joined the company I told
sang, there's no competition for data
except people not knowing how to use it, meaning
education is the number one element. So I spent
(08:07):
a lot of time educating industry professionals and
artists how to understand and read data. We actually work with
universities now. We have training sessions, we do collaborations with
publications. And I've seen the change in
people using the data. Data doesn't give you all the answers, it just helps. It's
a tool. You know, if you're releasing and developing an
(08:29):
artist on a global scale, you always work with limited
resources. Time being one, finances being another one.
You know where to push and promote. So you use data to see what's working,
what's connecting, and you build from there. So it helps you get more efficient and
more effective. The other thing we realized, music is Global.
We have 12 million artists in our system now, 130
(08:51):
million tracks, and according to Spotify, over
100,000 uploads on Spotify on a daily basis.
So how do you keep up? It's impossible to listen to everything. If you try
to listen to the music that's out there, it's going to take 400 years.
So how do you do it? Algorithms, playlists,
use of data, of course, on the back end, but on the forefront, you can
(09:13):
look some of the data points as well and pivot from there very quickly. So
it helps you deal with the globalization, the complexity, and
in some cases, the very, very high volume of what's out there right now.
Chartmetric has emphasized that data shouldn't be
the sole driver in decisions like signing an artist or
releasing new music. How do you strike that balance between using data
(09:36):
insights and maintaining the creative human element that
often defines successful careers? Yes, exactly. Well,
I do come from the music world, and the reason, according to music, I
love music. You know, it speaks to me in a way
that no other form out there does. And
it connects people, you know, in an amazing way.
(09:59):
Like, imagine going to a live show, watching an artist, how the whole
crowd and the artist just becomes one. Data doesn't replicate that,
you know, it gives, it validates, it helps you get some answers.
Music should be at the core. So what I usually suggest,
let's say you're an A and R and you're looking to find the next talent.
You come across an artist that you love 100%, go for it,
(10:22):
but use some of the data point to understand that art is better.
What's their audience? What's the top market? What's working for them? What's not working?
If it's a Brand new artist, kind of look at other similar artists, take their
success stories and build from there. Why? If there's
100,000 songs getting uploaded on a daily basis,
the problem is not getting the music out there, it's getting someone to listen to
(10:44):
it, you know, and then connect with them. Build an audience for the long term,
develop your career. If you do it in one country, how do you go to
the next one? If you do it in one platform, how do you go to
the next one? So all these key answers, hopefully data can help you with that.
But music, always at the core. Andreas, you know, Chartmetric is
recognized as the gold standard in music analytics.
(11:05):
What do you believe sets Chartmetric apart? And how does your
team maintain this edge as new technologies and competitors emerge?
That's so nice to hear. Actually, the gold standard, I'm going to start using that.
Very, very cool. I should get my gold medal at one point.
But, yeah, thanks for doing that. So Sang, he's a
software engineer at heart, so he built the product
(11:27):
amazing from day one. And he's a person that's going to go
out like he's at the conference today talking to a lot of our
users or just random people to say hi. He collects a feedback
and he just works to improve and make the product
better. I'm not a product person myself. I come from
music. But when I first saw Charmetric in 2017, I was blown away.
(11:49):
And that was the early days. Now, seven years later or eight years later,
it's such an amazing platform. So we collect
feedback, we keep improving, we do updates on a daily basis. I
mean, if you see the updates we do on a daily basis, it's insane trying
to bring more data, trying to make things more accurate, trying to make it
complete. But at the end of the day, it's bringing value to
(12:11):
the users, which is industry professionals and the artists. From my end,
being someone that comes from the music world, I look at the platform
and I take those learnings and I pass it on to
industry professionals. Why? In some ways, I speak the language, so
I understand data and I also understand music, so I kind of
bring that as well. And like I said, educating, education
(12:35):
is key. So when you see a spike, you explain that
to our clients, how to understand it, what to do from there, where to
go from there as well. So it gives a lot of validation, it gives a
lot of answers, a lot of insights, a lot of analytics. And the more you
use it, the easier it gets as well. So. And we, I mean,
yes, there's other companies that do what we do. But I
(12:57):
think not on the level we are at this point.
You know, you, you, you've touched on this. But but I'm curious to go
deeper with it is how have major industry players like labels and
managers responded to Chartmetrics analytics
platform and have they made requests for new
types of data and analytics since you launched? I'm going to answer
(13:19):
your second part first. We get requests all the time. All right.
Why? There's just so much out there. So it's amazing. When I go see one
of our users and I said, hey, last time I was here, you just wanted
to see more data from this platform. Guess what? We have it. They get
excited and then they say, great, but what about this platform now? You
know, so there's always a need and a demand
(13:40):
for just more and more data. Why just
so much out there? So people need answers. Or in some
cases, telemetric has millions of data. Sometimes they
come and say, can we integrate some of our data into what you have as
well to get more and deeper insights? So we see that
a lot, all the time. And we do take feedback from
(14:03):
our users to come up with new features on a daily basis. But it's
amazing. When I sit with one, anyone, a
client, a user or someone in the music, I always say, what's your challenge?
They tell me that. And sometimes I say, great, let me show you what we
have and hopefully we're going to figure it out for you. You know. So I
always ask the person sitting on the other end of the table
(14:25):
what they're dealing with and see if you can help them with that. So that's
always my go to with anyone. Yeah, I would imagine because people's needs
are different. Someone data on streaming. Some
want data on other kinds of analytics besides the people. Some are
also at different levels of their career. And that may require different
requests from you than a new beginning artist. 100%. I do
(14:47):
have some unique use cases. I got a call from an immigration
attorney. He says, I submitted my artist for a
visa to perform a South by Southwest. I got denied. I was told there's no
audience for them in the U.S. they've never been in the U.S. before. I
said, let's check the profile intermetric. I opened it,
picked up everything that had the U.S. audience. We took screenshots he
(15:08):
submitted in his follow application and they got the visa to come to
the US I never expected. What a crazy use case for it.
Exactly. That's it. Yeah, exactly. So you never know. So we present
the data in Some cases in high level
but also granular way and allow the user to
utilize it for their own needs. And exactly like you said,
(15:31):
Andreas. Speaking of data, Chartmetrics
aggregates social media data alongside streaming
platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. How does social
media engagement influence your algorithms for identifying
potential hit songs or artists? And do you think social media
metrics are becoming more and more important? Social media is a key
(15:53):
nowadays for artist development. More so than,
I believe, any other way of promotion. I mean, back in the
day, and you can see how old I am, you know, there was radio, mtv,
go on tour, that was it. You release a few singles, you know, do a
bunch of dates and then two years later you kind of, you know,
repeat the cycle with a new album. Now you can release a single,
(16:16):
especially if you're Bruno Mars and within 90 days you have a billion streams.
Why? Building base audience social
media. You know, if you have like Selena Gomez 500
million followers on your Instagram and you make a post
instantly, you're gonna get crazy reaction on a new
single. No, regardless, if it's Spotify, YouTube,
(16:38):
Apple Music, Amazon, it doesn't matter because the base is there. Same with
a lot of the K pop bands. So building up your
audience now via social media, it's the way for an artist
to develop a long term successful campaign.
There's no other way to do that because you have a one to one interaction
with your base. You can send a message directly to them and they get it
(17:01):
instantly. When did that happen? In the past when it comes to music, never. You
know, you relied on other ways to promote it, but now
it allows you to build that. Engagement is very key, meaning if you do a
post, you need to see people reacting and that's engagement.
Knowing that if you ask them to check out their new song, when it
comes out, they are going to, you know, follow suit with that. So engagement
(17:23):
is very key all around. And it's the same with Spotify.
You may get on one of the biggest playlists on Spotify New Music Friday,
you know, pop hits or Viva Latino or any of those. But
if people don't come and follow you on your profile
and you don't get the listeners, that's going to be a short term success.
The playlist is going to give you a quick impact, but you need to be
(17:47):
able to convert a lot of those people that listen to it, you know, to
come and become fans of the band. So engagement, engagement, engagement. That's the
way. Hey insiders, we hope that you've been enjoying our
Featured conversation. Stay tuned because we've got so much value
coming your way. But before we dive back in, a word from our
sponsor. Hey, Eric, as an artist, what do you find are the most challenging
(18:08):
aspects to a music career, especially when you're starting out?
Well, I think one of the first things is just trying to get the direction
of who you are as an artist, where you want to go, where you want
to be. And, you know, we've talked about it on the show a lot. Who
is your target audience, who you are, who, what do you stand for?
What do you believe in? What do you think would resonate with an audience? And
(18:28):
so those are some of the things that I would feel being a new artist.
Obviously, what I know now is different because I know these things, but for people
that are out there, like our audience, that don't have necessarily any direction
to go, would be the first things that I would start off with. And having
the songs incorporate those elements that you're speaking
of into it, that's so important today. Yeah. And I think that's one of the
(18:48):
reasons why we started MUBUTV and why we started this new consulting service that
we're offering to all of our insiders out there. Because that is another one of
the big things. I mean, that is the big thing, is like having the great
songs. That's what it really starts off. Our friend Don Grierson always said
it always starts with a great song. So that's probably. Besides putting
together what your audience and what your target audience is, is the single
(19:10):
most important thing. Where are your songs at currently, today? Are you
collaborating with people? Are you trying to go out to networking events where you
can connect with other songwriters and stuff like that? So, yeah. And what are your
strengths exactly? You know, are you a strong lyric
writer? Are you a strong melody writer? Are you a strong musician? A
player. Right. You know, and it's really important to get really
(19:31):
strong clarity on those issues before proceeding. I totally
agree, Rich. And, you know, with our consulting services, we offer a mir.
Myriad of different packages that we've made it super affordable for everybody. So, you
know, if you guys are interested out there and connecting with us on a coaching
call, you can visit book.mubotv.com and start
off with a free 15 minute discovery call. Well, yeah, absolutely.
(19:54):
That. We start with an initial 15 minute call where we can get a sense
of who you are, what are the issues that you specifically have and
want to work on. Exactly. And we can go from there. Absolutely.
Yeah. And we tailor everything to your Needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing.
We kind of really want to get to know who you are as an artist.
Where you at today? What's the snapshot of you as an artist today?
(20:15):
And then start trying to craft something that's tailor made for you. So again,
if you're interested, Visit us at
book.moobootv.com for your 15 minute discovery
call. Hi, this is Mike Jones, manager of Creative Sync at
Extreme Music. Are you an insider? I am.
Subscribe now. Yeah. Otherwise it just becomes an event
rather than the follow through of the engagement. Engagement is far
(20:38):
different than an event. Correct. Like a spike, you know, I wanted to
ask you about what Chartmetric is seeing around the world.
What markets are starting to emerge that we should be paying attention to?
Oh, yes. So I
mean, Latin music is blowing up, but there was a lot of
reggaeton. Puerto Rico somehow, even though it's a tiny, tiny
(21:01):
place on the map, had some amazing success on a global scale
with Pat Bunny, you know, many other artists. I was in Mexico last month.
I was blown away. How many new artists are developing on many different
subgenres. Brazil is blowing up. If you take
YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. Besides
the US, Brazil is the number one market for audience. Yes, it's kind of a
(21:23):
secular market, but I think we're going to start seeing some exports from there too.
India's blowing up. That's going to be a big next thing. And
Japan, I think is following pseudo Korea and K Pop. So you're going to see
a lot of J Pop coming out next as well. We're probably going
to have success stories from many other places, but this is what I
kind of saw as kind of popping out in the near future when it comes
(21:46):
to successes. Andreas, throughout your life, are there any books,
films or documentaries that you found to be particularly inspirational to you,
professionally speaking, that you could recommend to our listeners? Did you say music?
Music is my passion. I. I do watch movies, I read
books a lot. I have a business marketing background,
(22:07):
so I try to lead a lot of business. Books, biographies,
and some of them speak to me depending on what I'm facing. So
it depends on where I come from. But I have to be honest, music is
what really gets me. I go in and if you want to know anything
specifics, I have an older cousin that got me to music and he
taught me bands from Pink Floyd, acdc,
(22:29):
Led Zeppelin, you know, the classics, the Doors. And
if I really want to get in the right zone, I'm going to go
back to those Myself. So hopefully this gives you the answer you wanted.
But yeah, it's all about music for me. So, yeah. Andreas, what advice do you
have for artists who are committed to building a
professional career in music today? Yes, great question.
(22:52):
Maybe one of the key questions of the day. And it's the same for record
labels, not just artists, managers, agents as well. How do
you develop and break new talent nowadays? The one thing you have
to realize, back in the day, the barriers were a
lot higher. You had to sign to a label to get an advance, have to
be able to afford going to the studio, had to be able to manufacture
(23:13):
CDs or vinyl, get it into the record stores,
be able to afford going on tour, get to, you know, radio,
mtv, make a very expensive video. Now that's not the case. If you have a
laptop, you can make music and you can distribute it yourself.
So that part, it's gotten a lot easier. It's getting people
to listen to you that's getting attention, getting attention.
(23:34):
And once you get attention, how do you make them fans
to stay with you and develop and be fans for your career.
So that's always the key element. So it's going to go back
to social media, build your own one to one audience.
Instagram, TikTok, whatever works, doesn't matter. It can be YouTube
shorts, you know, find what works for you, find who your audience is and just
(23:57):
keep building with that. Once you build an audience, then it's going to get
easier to release music and get support behind it. You know,
some people just release singles and then say, oh, people are going to come and
check it out. I'm going to build an audience. Usually building up the audience
allows you to get a lot more traction after that. The other thing we
found out, the first step is the most difficult.
(24:20):
Once you get traction, once you get some audience, it gets a lot easier to
build on that. Plus, as your music grows, you get part of
algorithms, you get into more playlists and things starting to get
easier. So the first step is the most difficult. But I
do suggest, in addition to try and create the best
music, you can also try and build up your audience.
(24:42):
Make a big effort to find the fans that I like and appreciate
and respect you and get behind you and support you all the way, you know.
As you were speaking, it reminded me of a question that
I think coming from you and your background
would have a lot of very important, important validity.
How many songs in your experience with Chartmetric, how
(25:05):
many songs does it take for a new artist to gain
any kind of visibility or traction in terms of building
an audience because it doesn't happen with one or two songs,
rarely. So what, what is the number? It's a, it's a great
question. We did a study for how quickly
do songs grow and we found out some songs got to
(25:27):
a billion in a couple months, three months, four months. One artist I never
heard before, brand new artist got to a billion out of the UK
and I was blown away. How do you get there? Insane traction.
In Mexico last, last month when I was there, there's an artist called
Macario Martinez, he was street cleaner and he just
released a song on Tick Tock. He told his story, influencers picked it up,
(25:50):
it just blew up. He went from, from 400 followers on TikTok
to 1.4 million in like span of one or two weeks.
Huge, huge numbers. So it seems that the cycle has gotten
faster. So if you rise above the noise, you can get
attention. And when I mean noise, there's just so much out there,
you know, and it's not just music. I mean people's, you know,
(26:13):
attention can be many different ways. You can be music, it can be video
games, it can be, you know, sports. There's many, many, many
things that compete for someone's attention span nowadays. Music is just one of
them. But music is more immersive and it can be part of other
areas. You can be playing a video game and there's music in the background. So
let's say so there's more ways for music to get around. I
(26:35):
would say it's not about albums. I'm glad you said songs. So
it's about songs. Releases, I would say still a long term
process and it takes time to build your audience on social media platforms.
I don't know the magic number. But the more you keep
releasing quality music and it has to be on a consistent
basis, you cannot just like one single a year, that's not enough anymore. You have
(26:58):
to do it more frequent, maybe not daily, but more frequent as well. And
every time you build your audience and you put your efforts behind
it to hit that audience with a new release and you skip up your building
up, even if it's gradual, slightly organically,
you know, and it keeps growing, within a year or two you can have that
compounding effect and you're going to see a huge, massive impact. You
(27:20):
know, after, after all the hard work, I don't know, I would say a year
or two is probably going to take the right time. But you do need to
just keep working each time to just say, okay, now I need to go to
the next level and then to the next level and then, and then it just
staggers and it grows up. Andreas, what's the best way to contact
you? Is it through the website? What's the best way to get a hold of
you? Yeah, I mean, for the company, it's easy. Charmetric.com I always
(27:42):
post my email. Every time I do a conference and a presentation, it's
andreascharmetric.com very easy email. People can
reach out to me and I'm just going to either help respond to them or
I'm going to forward it to the right person, the right department to get back
to them right away. But please, I want to hear your stories, I want to
hear your challenges, I want to hear what you have. And also, if you come
(28:02):
across an amazing in artists, please send them to me. I'm always about discovering new
artists. Okay. Andreas, we want to thank you so much for coming
by and doing this. We really, really appreciate it. It's been an insightful
and informative conversation. I enjoyed it a lot as well. You
guys have some great, great questions. Very excited and all the best with everything.
Thank you so much, Eric. I am so glad that we
(28:25):
had a chance to have this conversation with Andreas. This was a
really interesting, informative and insightful look
into not only data, but the role that it plays in
artists careers today. Yeah, that's what the
interesting part was. So many interesting aspects were, were covered in this
conversation with Andreas. The way he talked about global markets, the way
(28:47):
he talked about, you know, I love that story about the usage of data and
how it got that artist from overseas a visa to go
to Southwest after South by Southwest had rejected him,
saying there's no market for him here. And they proved that there was.
Right, based on the data. But, you know, one of the things that I thought
was most interesting, because this goes directly to the heart of
(29:09):
our listeners, which is you, ladies and gentlemen,
our insiders, is when he spoke about the importance of
consistent releases, that it's. It's not so much
about making an album and putting it out, it's about. Putting
consistent cumulative effect of it. Exactly. Having. And
what that translates to is building a relationship
(29:31):
with your audience, the consistent element. And it doesn't mean
putting out a piece of music every two weeks, it means,
you know, every two months or three months or whatever it is that you establish.
But he spoke about the importance of that. And that's a
consciousness shift. Right. Much in the same way that, you know, we went
from a Copy model of, you know, we would put a song
(29:53):
out, it would be played on the radio. Right. And then we would go buy
the body of work based on that song. We would buy into an
access model where now you could just pick and choose what you want to listen
and. We don't need to buy anything. Exactly. So that's.
And it has changed the philosophy and it's changed the release
schedules and it's. It's no longer about this is my single, oh, that
(30:14):
failed. And now, you know, what am I going to do? No, you just put
the next song, exact song. And you're finding more and more labels are also doing
many more singles deals. I thought that was one of the more interesting aspects for
our audience that I picked up on in this conversation. Yeah. One of the other
areas Rich too, that I thought would, which is another big one that we talked
about, was social media's growing importance. And I quote what he said,
Andreas, that social media is a key nowadays for artist development,
(30:38):
more so than he believes any other time of promotion. Now you can
release a single, especially if you're Bruno Mars, and within 90 days you have a
billion streams. I mean, that's just unheard of. Why? You know, building your base,
your audience, social media, building up your audience now via social
media. It's the way for an artist to develop long term
successful campaign. And you know, he says there's no other way to do that because
(31:00):
you have a one to one, one interaction with your base, which is what you
and I, Rich, have talked of right now. You know, I always come to that
analogy that I bring that you're like running for president, you're running for office, you're.
You're shaking those people's hands, you're kissing those babies. It's a one on one
thing. It's a battle of attrition, that you're just winning one person over at a
time. But now with social media leveling that playing field, and I think we
(31:21):
talked about it in another recent interview that we did with one of our guests
at musexpo, where we talked about how the whole idea, I think it was Mark
Sutherland, where we talked about the whole idea about how
the publicist has become now less of a factor
because now with social media, you can be
instantaneously out there and reach your audience
immediately. I have a new single, I have a new idea. What do you guys
(31:44):
think you're getting? An immediate answer. And so I think that's become part
and parcel of what's going on now and why your social Media
strategy insiders is such an important thing. I could not agree with
you more. And what's so important about what you're saying, Eric, is you're
talking about out the whole element of why it is so important to
develop a relationship with an audience. And that doesn't mean using
(32:06):
social media. Of here's my new single. Right? Here's my
new single. It can't be pushing something. It's got to be. It's got to be
deeper than that. And every once in a while, then you hit them up. There's
a great book by this gentleman, Gary
Vaynerchuk, hook, hook, hook, punch, that if anybody out there is
listening can get that book, it talks about that whole idea that you should
(32:28):
be giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, and maybe on the 8th or 9th jab
or hook, then you're giving them what you want to give out to them
in terms of what you're promoting. But it's more about giving, giving, giving,
and then taking with a punch. So it's a very interesting
concept that I think people fail to realize when they're dealing with their social
media strategy. Absolutely. And the final thing I want to recognize too
(32:50):
is what you were saying before, which is so important. You used Bruno
Mars as the example. Right. Who's one of the biggest stars in the world.
What's most fascinating about what you're saying, he not only uses
that strategy successfully, but for anybody who's
paying attention, Bruno Mars himself has
not released a solo album in, I believe it's eight
(33:12):
years or longer. He did the Silk thing with Silk Sonic. With. Yeah, Silk
Sonic. And he's done the singles. Right. With Lady. Goddamn
Right, right. But a Bruno Mars out, because that's. The world that we're living in
now. It's a much more singles driven. It's back to like it was in the
50s and 60s where there were bands and artists. You know, everything is
secular. And I don't know if we come back to the album
(33:35):
as a piece of. I mean, I. I personally love the idea of the album,
but I see the value and releasing. And that's
why I told you with my strategy, with what I'm doing, with the single that
I released recently. It's. I want this to be like one piece of art. This
is the art that I'm. I'm taking out to the world and I want to
push it as much as I can and try to give it as much life
(33:55):
and love as possible. Then I'll go to the next one and then it's the
next thing again, it's like you almost have another chance at bat. Like when you're,
when you're playing baseball, you have another chance of hitting that.400, which remember
we talked about with Pete Gambard where he talked about that whole
concept of the baseball and, and how many at bats. And if you're batting
a.400, you're still wrong, you know, four or five, you know, percent of the
(34:17):
time or whatever his formula was right. Batting a.300, you're still,
you're still, you. Know, you know, you're still striking out, you know, five or six
times. So it's just a real interesting concept, but it just goes back to the
point of what you're saying of about how valuable your social media
strategy and really just not just saying about me, me, me, me, me. It's
got to be about the audience and developing that relationship and
(34:38):
they can. Hear and feel
that relationship in a very authentic way, far
more so today than ever before. They know
inauthenticity when it hits them. So you've got to be authentic
in your relationship with your audience. That is absolutely
crucial. Hey insiders, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode.
(35:00):
We really appreciate it. To get show notes, links and everything that
was mentioned during this interview, head on over to our Official
website at
mubutv.com/podcast/shownotes if you're enjoying
the content and what we're doing here on the show, please subscribe to the podcast
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(35:23):
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MUBUTV. Don't forget to catch our flagship show, the
(35:44):
Mubu TV Music Business Insider video series airing
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youtube.com/@mubutv. This show was produced and created
by Ritch Esra and Eric Knight theme music by Disciples of
Babylon. And be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the
MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
On today's podcast, we sit down with Andreas Katsambas from Chartmetric,
the platform that's become the gold standard for music analytics around the
world. We explore how Chartmetric transformed from a simple app designed
to track the rise of BTS into an essential tool for labels,
artists and managers navigating the modern music landscape.
Andreas shares the biggest industry, challenges the power of social media
(00:22):
engagement, and reveals the insider data behind artist discovery.
In a world where over 100,000 tracks are being released every
single day, want to know which global markets are on the rise? Curious how
data and the human touch come together to build legendary careers? We cover
it all. Plus his essential advice for artists ready to break through
Insiders, Are you ready? Welcome to
(00:45):
MUBUTV's Music Business Insider Podcast where our
mission is to educate, empower and engage artists and music
business professionals who are dedicated to having a successful career in
the new music industry. Here are your hosts, Ritch Esra
and Eric Knight. Welcome back, insiders, to another episode
of the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast, where
(01:07):
our mission is to educate, empower and engage your music
career. On today's episode, we're excited to welcome Andreas
Katsambas from Chartmetric, the industry's leading music
analytics platform that everyone's talking about. Andreas gives
us an inside look at how Chartmetric is helping artists, labels
and music professionals navigate the ever changing data
(01:28):
driven landscape of today's modern music industry. We deep
dive into how data and analytics are shaping artists discovery and
development, why social media engagement is now more important
than ever, and how emerging markets from Brazil to India
are influencing global trends. Andreas also shares
valuable advice for artists looking to build careers in today's
(01:49):
competitive industry, insights you definitely don't want
to miss. So if you want to learn how to leverage data to grow your
music career and discover what it really takes to stand out in the
modern music ecosystem, stay tuned. But first, a word from
our sponsor. Hey insiders. Are you an aspiring musician,
artist, band or future music business professional looking to take your
(02:12):
career to the next level? Well, look no further. At Mubu tv, we
offer personalized career counseling and coaching designed
specifically for folks like you. Imagine having both of us by your side,
guiding you through every step of your music journey. Our sessions are tailored to
meet your unique needs, focusing on critical aspects of your music
career, such as refining your songs, defining your art story,
(02:34):
identifying your target audience, and enhancing your social media
presence. Just to name a few. Whether you're just starting out or looking to
elevate your existing career, we've got you covered. Our comprehensive approach
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for a transformative coaching experience that will elevate your music
(03:41):
career. That's book.mubutv.com
hi, this is music supervisor. Steven Gizicki and you're listening to the MUBUTV
Music Business Insider Podcast. Welcome back, Insiders. Today's featured
guest is Andreas Katsambas from Chartmetric. This was a
fascinating conversation and I'm so glad, you know, we haven't had someone
from this world on the show yet. This is a new
(04:04):
platform. This is an analytics platform and a very, very
sophistic, well respected one within the music industry. All the
labels and everybody uses this. I mean, for years, you know, people always talked about
how Billboard was the bible because of the charts. They. They use that
term. And now Chartmetric is kind of the bible of analytics for artists
and for. Exactly. Music companies. Yeah. And it's analyzing data
(04:27):
from many, many more points, which very interesting thing. One of the things that I
thought was the most fascinating about the conversation that we had with him among
many. Right. And why, you know, I think everybody's going to really find this an
interesting discussion is because he talks about the global market.
You know, we have spoken on this show many times, Eric, that, you know, the
globalization of music, that the greatest growth that the
(04:49):
music industry is going to see over the next three to five years is going
to come from. Outside the United States, the international markets. Absolutely.
And he spoke about, you know, places like Brazil, like India, how they are
really going to rise up to really having global impact and how
he is seeing that in terms of what Chartmetric is showing as
far as consumption, as far as interest, as far as, you know, streaming
(05:11):
patterns go for a multitude of artists. Yeah. What are the other
areas too? And you know, this is not to knock Chart Metric or anybody
that's in this space with analytics or anything, but I thought what was interesting was
that he talked about that music remains the core. No matter how many
analytic data points they're analyzing, music still
remains the core. No data set can replace the power and
(05:33):
emotional connection of great music. Using data to validate and enhance,
not dictate creative decisions, which I think it's almost like a road map
for you to kind of know, are you going in the right direction? But I
think at the end of the day, it will not replace, you know, not replace
music as a vehicle. Absolutely. As our great friend Don,
you just took. I was just thinking that said, you know, it all begins with
(05:54):
the songs, right? It all. And it's still, you know, if you don't have great
songs, none of this is. Means anything. Yeah, exactly.
And with that, insiders sit back, relax, and enjoy our
featured conversation From News Expo 2025 with Andreas
Katsambas. Andreas, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. Excited to be here. Thank you for coming.
(06:16):
Chartmetric provides a wealth of data from streaming
platforms, radio concerts, and much more. What
was the inspiration to form it? Great, great question. So the
founder and CEO, San Jo, he's actually here today
as well because he likes being at conferences, dealing directly with the
users. He was a big fan of BTS
(06:37):
back in 2015 and he
realized that the band was getting attention outside of Korea, which wasn't the
norm back then. K Pop wasn't a thing, you
know? Yes. It was called Pop in Korea, as you can imagine. And
he built a quick app to see what kind of playlists they were getting outside
of Korea. He showed it to some friends and they said, this is a viable
(07:00):
tool. You can definitely build this on a more business
scale. So he took that and just ran with it and he
quit his job in 2015, had the first version of Charmetric
2017, and the rest is history. Wow.
Okay, that's interesting. Andreas. Yeah. Thank you so much for
joining us on the show. I wanted to ask you, you sit at a great
(07:22):
vantage point in this with Chartmetric. What is the
current landscape telling you about where we're at in the music industry?
Amazing question. So this is my fourth year with the company.
I come from the music world and I work with
many, many artists. So the way to find the right
pivots for an artist, I just use data, sales, social,
(07:45):
engagement, analytics, playlisting. And yes, I was
a client and a user of Geometric before I joined. So
looking at data and when I joined the company I told
sang, there's no competition for data
except people not knowing how to use it, meaning
education is the number one element. So I spent
(08:07):
a lot of time educating industry professionals and
artists how to understand and read data. We actually work with
universities now. We have training sessions, we do collaborations with
publications. And I've seen the change in
people using the data. Data doesn't give you all the answers, it just helps. It's
a tool. You know, if you're releasing and developing an
(08:29):
artist on a global scale, you always work with limited
resources. Time being one, finances being another one.
You know where to push and promote. So you use data to see what's working,
what's connecting, and you build from there. So it helps you get more efficient and
more effective. The other thing we realized, music is Global.
We have 12 million artists in our system now, 130
(08:51):
million tracks, and according to Spotify, over
100,000 uploads on Spotify on a daily basis.
So how do you keep up? It's impossible to listen to everything. If you try
to listen to the music that's out there, it's going to take 400 years.
So how do you do it? Algorithms, playlists,
use of data, of course, on the back end, but on the forefront, you can
(09:13):
look some of the data points as well and pivot from there very quickly. So
it helps you deal with the globalization, the complexity, and
in some cases, the very, very high volume of what's out there right now.
Chartmetric has emphasized that data shouldn't be
the sole driver in decisions like signing an artist or
releasing new music. How do you strike that balance between using data
(09:36):
insights and maintaining the creative human element that
often defines successful careers? Yes, exactly. Well,
I do come from the music world, and the reason, according to music, I
love music. You know, it speaks to me in a way
that no other form out there does. And
it connects people, you know, in an amazing way.
(09:59):
Like, imagine going to a live show, watching an artist, how the whole
crowd and the artist just becomes one. Data doesn't replicate that,
you know, it gives, it validates, it helps you get some answers.
Music should be at the core. So what I usually suggest,
let's say you're an A and R and you're looking to find the next talent.
You come across an artist that you love 100%, go for it,
(10:22):
but use some of the data point to understand that art is better.
What's their audience? What's the top market? What's working for them? What's not working?
If it's a Brand new artist, kind of look at other similar artists, take their
success stories and build from there. Why? If there's
100,000 songs getting uploaded on a daily basis,
the problem is not getting the music out there, it's getting someone to listen to
(10:44):
it, you know, and then connect with them. Build an audience for the long term,
develop your career. If you do it in one country, how do you go to
the next one? If you do it in one platform, how do you go to
the next one? So all these key answers, hopefully data can help you with that.
But music, always at the core. Andreas, you know, Chartmetric is
recognized as the gold standard in music analytics.
(11:05):
What do you believe sets Chartmetric apart? And how does your
team maintain this edge as new technologies and competitors emerge?
That's so nice to hear. Actually, the gold standard, I'm going to start using that.
Very, very cool. I should get my gold medal at one point.
But, yeah, thanks for doing that. So Sang, he's a
software engineer at heart, so he built the product
(11:27):
amazing from day one. And he's a person that's going to go
out like he's at the conference today talking to a lot of our
users or just random people to say hi. He collects a feedback
and he just works to improve and make the product
better. I'm not a product person myself. I come from
music. But when I first saw Charmetric in 2017, I was blown away.
(11:49):
And that was the early days. Now, seven years later or eight years later,
it's such an amazing platform. So we collect
feedback, we keep improving, we do updates on a daily basis. I
mean, if you see the updates we do on a daily basis, it's insane trying
to bring more data, trying to make things more accurate, trying to make it
complete. But at the end of the day, it's bringing value to
(12:11):
the users, which is industry professionals and the artists. From my end,
being someone that comes from the music world, I look at the platform
and I take those learnings and I pass it on to
industry professionals. Why? In some ways, I speak the language, so
I understand data and I also understand music, so I kind of
bring that as well. And like I said, educating, education
(12:35):
is key. So when you see a spike, you explain that
to our clients, how to understand it, what to do from there, where to
go from there as well. So it gives a lot of validation, it gives a
lot of answers, a lot of insights, a lot of analytics. And the more you
use it, the easier it gets as well. So. And we, I mean,
yes, there's other companies that do what we do. But I
(12:57):
think not on the level we are at this point.
You know, you, you, you've touched on this. But but I'm curious to go
deeper with it is how have major industry players like labels and
managers responded to Chartmetrics analytics
platform and have they made requests for new
types of data and analytics since you launched? I'm going to answer
(13:19):
your second part first. We get requests all the time. All right.
Why? There's just so much out there. So it's amazing. When I go see one
of our users and I said, hey, last time I was here, you just wanted
to see more data from this platform. Guess what? We have it. They get
excited and then they say, great, but what about this platform now? You
know, so there's always a need and a demand
(13:40):
for just more and more data. Why just
so much out there? So people need answers. Or in some
cases, telemetric has millions of data. Sometimes they
come and say, can we integrate some of our data into what you have as
well to get more and deeper insights? So we see that
a lot, all the time. And we do take feedback from
(14:03):
our users to come up with new features on a daily basis. But it's
amazing. When I sit with one, anyone, a
client, a user or someone in the music, I always say, what's your challenge?
They tell me that. And sometimes I say, great, let me show you what we
have and hopefully we're going to figure it out for you. You know. So I
always ask the person sitting on the other end of the table
(14:25):
what they're dealing with and see if you can help them with that. So that's
always my go to with anyone. Yeah, I would imagine because people's needs
are different. Someone data on streaming. Some
want data on other kinds of analytics besides the people. Some are
also at different levels of their career. And that may require different
requests from you than a new beginning artist. 100%. I do
(14:47):
have some unique use cases. I got a call from an immigration
attorney. He says, I submitted my artist for a
visa to perform a South by Southwest. I got denied. I was told there's no
audience for them in the U.S. they've never been in the U.S. before. I
said, let's check the profile intermetric. I opened it,
picked up everything that had the U.S. audience. We took screenshots he
(15:08):
submitted in his follow application and they got the visa to come to
the US I never expected. What a crazy use case for it.
Exactly. That's it. Yeah, exactly. So you never know. So we present
the data in Some cases in high level
but also granular way and allow the user to
utilize it for their own needs. And exactly like you said,
(15:31):
Andreas. Speaking of data, Chartmetrics
aggregates social media data alongside streaming
platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. How does social
media engagement influence your algorithms for identifying
potential hit songs or artists? And do you think social media
metrics are becoming more and more important? Social media is a key
(15:53):
nowadays for artist development. More so than,
I believe, any other way of promotion. I mean, back in the
day, and you can see how old I am, you know, there was radio, mtv,
go on tour, that was it. You release a few singles, you know, do a
bunch of dates and then two years later you kind of, you know,
repeat the cycle with a new album. Now you can release a single,
(16:16):
especially if you're Bruno Mars and within 90 days you have a billion streams.
Why? Building base audience social
media. You know, if you have like Selena Gomez 500
million followers on your Instagram and you make a post
instantly, you're gonna get crazy reaction on a new
single. No, regardless, if it's Spotify, YouTube,
(16:38):
Apple Music, Amazon, it doesn't matter because the base is there. Same with
a lot of the K pop bands. So building up your
audience now via social media, it's the way for an artist
to develop a long term successful campaign.
There's no other way to do that because you have a one to one interaction
with your base. You can send a message directly to them and they get it
(17:01):
instantly. When did that happen? In the past when it comes to music, never. You
know, you relied on other ways to promote it, but now
it allows you to build that. Engagement is very key, meaning if you do a
post, you need to see people reacting and that's engagement.
Knowing that if you ask them to check out their new song, when it
comes out, they are going to, you know, follow suit with that. So engagement
(17:23):
is very key all around. And it's the same with Spotify.
You may get on one of the biggest playlists on Spotify New Music Friday,
you know, pop hits or Viva Latino or any of those. But
if people don't come and follow you on your profile
and you don't get the listeners, that's going to be a short term success.
The playlist is going to give you a quick impact, but you need to be
(17:47):
able to convert a lot of those people that listen to it, you know, to
come and become fans of the band. So engagement, engagement, engagement. That's the
way. Hey insiders, we hope that you've been enjoying our
Featured conversation. Stay tuned because we've got so much value
coming your way. But before we dive back in, a word from our
sponsor. Hey, Eric, as an artist, what do you find are the most challenging
(18:08):
aspects to a music career, especially when you're starting out?
Well, I think one of the first things is just trying to get the direction
of who you are as an artist, where you want to go, where you want
to be. And, you know, we've talked about it on the show a lot. Who
is your target audience, who you are, who, what do you stand for?
What do you believe in? What do you think would resonate with an audience? And
(18:28):
so those are some of the things that I would feel being a new artist.
Obviously, what I know now is different because I know these things, but for people
that are out there, like our audience, that don't have necessarily any direction
to go, would be the first things that I would start off with. And having
the songs incorporate those elements that you're speaking
of into it, that's so important today. Yeah. And I think that's one of the
(18:48):
reasons why we started MUBUTV and why we started this new consulting service that
we're offering to all of our insiders out there. Because that is another one of
the big things. I mean, that is the big thing, is like having the great
songs. That's what it really starts off. Our friend Don Grierson always said
it always starts with a great song. So that's probably. Besides putting
together what your audience and what your target audience is, is the single
(19:10):
most important thing. Where are your songs at currently, today? Are you
collaborating with people? Are you trying to go out to networking events where you
can connect with other songwriters and stuff like that? So, yeah. And what are your
strengths exactly? You know, are you a strong lyric
writer? Are you a strong melody writer? Are you a strong musician? A
player. Right. You know, and it's really important to get really
(19:31):
strong clarity on those issues before proceeding. I totally
agree, Rich. And, you know, with our consulting services, we offer a mir.
Myriad of different packages that we've made it super affordable for everybody. So, you
know, if you guys are interested out there and connecting with us on a coaching
call, you can visit book.mubotv.com and start
off with a free 15 minute discovery call. Well, yeah, absolutely.
(19:54):
That. We start with an initial 15 minute call where we can get a sense
of who you are, what are the issues that you specifically have and
want to work on. Exactly. And we can go from there. Absolutely.
Yeah. And we tailor everything to your Needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing.
We kind of really want to get to know who you are as an artist.
Where you at today? What's the snapshot of you as an artist today?
(20:15):
And then start trying to craft something that's tailor made for you. So again,
if you're interested, Visit us at
book.moobootv.com for your 15 minute discovery
call. Hi, this is Mike Jones, manager of Creative Sync at
Extreme Music. Are you an insider? I am.
Subscribe now. Yeah. Otherwise it just becomes an event
rather than the follow through of the engagement. Engagement is far
(20:38):
different than an event. Correct. Like a spike, you know, I wanted to
ask you about what Chartmetric is seeing around the world.
What markets are starting to emerge that we should be paying attention to?
Oh, yes. So I
mean, Latin music is blowing up, but there was a lot of
reggaeton. Puerto Rico somehow, even though it's a tiny, tiny
(21:01):
place on the map, had some amazing success on a global scale
with Pat Bunny, you know, many other artists. I was in Mexico last month.
I was blown away. How many new artists are developing on many different
subgenres. Brazil is blowing up. If you take
YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. Besides
the US, Brazil is the number one market for audience. Yes, it's kind of a
(21:23):
secular market, but I think we're going to start seeing some exports from there too.
India's blowing up. That's going to be a big next thing. And
Japan, I think is following pseudo Korea and K Pop. So you're going to see
a lot of J Pop coming out next as well. We're probably going
to have success stories from many other places, but this is what I
kind of saw as kind of popping out in the near future when it comes
(21:46):
to successes. Andreas, throughout your life, are there any books,
films or documentaries that you found to be particularly inspirational to you,
professionally speaking, that you could recommend to our listeners? Did you say music?
Music is my passion. I. I do watch movies, I read
books a lot. I have a business marketing background,
(22:07):
so I try to lead a lot of business. Books, biographies,
and some of them speak to me depending on what I'm facing. So
it depends on where I come from. But I have to be honest, music is
what really gets me. I go in and if you want to know anything
specifics, I have an older cousin that got me to music and he
taught me bands from Pink Floyd, acdc,
(22:29):
Led Zeppelin, you know, the classics, the Doors. And
if I really want to get in the right zone, I'm going to go
back to those Myself. So hopefully this gives you the answer you wanted.
But yeah, it's all about music for me. So, yeah. Andreas, what advice do you
have for artists who are committed to building a
professional career in music today? Yes, great question.
(22:52):
Maybe one of the key questions of the day. And it's the same for record
labels, not just artists, managers, agents as well. How do
you develop and break new talent nowadays? The one thing you have
to realize, back in the day, the barriers were a
lot higher. You had to sign to a label to get an advance, have to
be able to afford going to the studio, had to be able to manufacture
(23:13):
CDs or vinyl, get it into the record stores,
be able to afford going on tour, get to, you know, radio,
mtv, make a very expensive video. Now that's not the case. If you have a
laptop, you can make music and you can distribute it yourself.
So that part, it's gotten a lot easier. It's getting people
to listen to you that's getting attention, getting attention.
(23:34):
And once you get attention, how do you make them fans
to stay with you and develop and be fans for your career.
So that's always the key element. So it's going to go back
to social media, build your own one to one audience.
Instagram, TikTok, whatever works, doesn't matter. It can be YouTube
shorts, you know, find what works for you, find who your audience is and just
(23:57):
keep building with that. Once you build an audience, then it's going to get
easier to release music and get support behind it. You know,
some people just release singles and then say, oh, people are going to come and
check it out. I'm going to build an audience. Usually building up the audience
allows you to get a lot more traction after that. The other thing we
found out, the first step is the most difficult.
(24:20):
Once you get traction, once you get some audience, it gets a lot easier to
build on that. Plus, as your music grows, you get part of
algorithms, you get into more playlists and things starting to get
easier. So the first step is the most difficult. But I
do suggest, in addition to try and create the best
music, you can also try and build up your audience.
(24:42):
Make a big effort to find the fans that I like and appreciate
and respect you and get behind you and support you all the way, you know.
As you were speaking, it reminded me of a question that
I think coming from you and your background
would have a lot of very important, important validity.
How many songs in your experience with Chartmetric, how
(25:05):
many songs does it take for a new artist to gain
any kind of visibility or traction in terms of building
an audience because it doesn't happen with one or two songs,
rarely. So what, what is the number? It's a, it's a great
question. We did a study for how quickly
do songs grow and we found out some songs got to
(25:27):
a billion in a couple months, three months, four months. One artist I never
heard before, brand new artist got to a billion out of the UK
and I was blown away. How do you get there? Insane traction.
In Mexico last, last month when I was there, there's an artist called
Macario Martinez, he was street cleaner and he just
released a song on Tick Tock. He told his story, influencers picked it up,
(25:50):
it just blew up. He went from, from 400 followers on TikTok
to 1.4 million in like span of one or two weeks.
Huge, huge numbers. So it seems that the cycle has gotten
faster. So if you rise above the noise, you can get
attention. And when I mean noise, there's just so much out there,
you know, and it's not just music. I mean people's, you know,
(26:13):
attention can be many different ways. You can be music, it can be video
games, it can be, you know, sports. There's many, many, many
things that compete for someone's attention span nowadays. Music is just one of
them. But music is more immersive and it can be part of other
areas. You can be playing a video game and there's music in the background. So
let's say so there's more ways for music to get around. I
(26:35):
would say it's not about albums. I'm glad you said songs. So
it's about songs. Releases, I would say still a long term
process and it takes time to build your audience on social media platforms.
I don't know the magic number. But the more you keep
releasing quality music and it has to be on a consistent
basis, you cannot just like one single a year, that's not enough anymore. You have
(26:58):
to do it more frequent, maybe not daily, but more frequent as well. And
every time you build your audience and you put your efforts behind
it to hit that audience with a new release and you skip up your building
up, even if it's gradual, slightly organically,
you know, and it keeps growing, within a year or two you can have that
compounding effect and you're going to see a huge, massive impact. You
(27:20):
know, after, after all the hard work, I don't know, I would say a year
or two is probably going to take the right time. But you do need to
just keep working each time to just say, okay, now I need to go to
the next level and then to the next level and then, and then it just
staggers and it grows up. Andreas, what's the best way to contact
you? Is it through the website? What's the best way to get a hold of
you? Yeah, I mean, for the company, it's easy. Charmetric.com I always
(27:42):
post my email. Every time I do a conference and a presentation, it's
andreascharmetric.com very easy email. People can
reach out to me and I'm just going to either help respond to them or
I'm going to forward it to the right person, the right department to get back
to them right away. But please, I want to hear your stories, I want to
hear your challenges, I want to hear what you have. And also, if you come
(28:02):
across an amazing in artists, please send them to me. I'm always about discovering new
artists. Okay. Andreas, we want to thank you so much for coming
by and doing this. We really, really appreciate it. It's been an insightful
and informative conversation. I enjoyed it a lot as well. You
guys have some great, great questions. Very excited and all the best with everything.
Thank you so much, Eric. I am so glad that we
(28:25):
had a chance to have this conversation with Andreas. This was a
really interesting, informative and insightful look
into not only data, but the role that it plays in
artists careers today. Yeah, that's what the
interesting part was. So many interesting aspects were, were covered in this
conversation with Andreas. The way he talked about global markets, the way
(28:47):
he talked about, you know, I love that story about the usage of data and
how it got that artist from overseas a visa to go
to Southwest after South by Southwest had rejected him,
saying there's no market for him here. And they proved that there was.
Right, based on the data. But, you know, one of the things that I thought
was most interesting, because this goes directly to the heart of
(29:09):
our listeners, which is you, ladies and gentlemen,
our insiders, is when he spoke about the importance of
consistent releases, that it's. It's not so much
about making an album and putting it out, it's about. Putting
consistent cumulative effect of it. Exactly. Having. And
what that translates to is building a relationship
(29:31):
with your audience, the consistent element. And it doesn't mean
putting out a piece of music every two weeks, it means,
you know, every two months or three months or whatever it is that you establish.
But he spoke about the importance of that. And that's a
consciousness shift. Right. Much in the same way that, you know, we went
from a Copy model of, you know, we would put a song
(29:53):
out, it would be played on the radio. Right. And then we would go buy
the body of work based on that song. We would buy into an
access model where now you could just pick and choose what you want to listen
and. We don't need to buy anything. Exactly. So that's.
And it has changed the philosophy and it's changed the release
schedules and it's. It's no longer about this is my single, oh, that
(30:14):
failed. And now, you know, what am I going to do? No, you just put
the next song, exact song. And you're finding more and more labels are also doing
many more singles deals. I thought that was one of the more interesting aspects for
our audience that I picked up on in this conversation. Yeah. One of the other
areas Rich too, that I thought would, which is another big one that we talked
about, was social media's growing importance. And I quote what he said,
Andreas, that social media is a key nowadays for artist development,
(30:38):
more so than he believes any other time of promotion. Now you can
release a single, especially if you're Bruno Mars, and within 90 days you have a
billion streams. I mean, that's just unheard of. Why? You know, building your base,
your audience, social media, building up your audience now via social
media. It's the way for an artist to develop long term
successful campaign. And you know, he says there's no other way to do that because
(31:00):
you have a one to one, one interaction with your base, which is what you
and I, Rich, have talked of right now. You know, I always come to that
analogy that I bring that you're like running for president, you're running for office, you're.
You're shaking those people's hands, you're kissing those babies. It's a one on one
thing. It's a battle of attrition, that you're just winning one person over at a
time. But now with social media leveling that playing field, and I think we
(31:21):
talked about it in another recent interview that we did with one of our guests
at musexpo, where we talked about how the whole idea, I think it was Mark
Sutherland, where we talked about the whole idea about how
the publicist has become now less of a factor
because now with social media, you can be
instantaneously out there and reach your audience
immediately. I have a new single, I have a new idea. What do you guys
(31:44):
think you're getting? An immediate answer. And so I think that's become part
and parcel of what's going on now and why your social Media
strategy insiders is such an important thing. I could not agree with
you more. And what's so important about what you're saying, Eric, is you're
talking about out the whole element of why it is so important to
develop a relationship with an audience. And that doesn't mean using
(32:06):
social media. Of here's my new single. Right? Here's my
new single. It can't be pushing something. It's got to be. It's got to be
deeper than that. And every once in a while, then you hit them up. There's
a great book by this gentleman, Gary
Vaynerchuk, hook, hook, hook, punch, that if anybody out there is
listening can get that book, it talks about that whole idea that you should
(32:28):
be giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, and maybe on the 8th or 9th jab
or hook, then you're giving them what you want to give out to them
in terms of what you're promoting. But it's more about giving, giving, giving,
and then taking with a punch. So it's a very interesting
concept that I think people fail to realize when they're dealing with their social
media strategy. Absolutely. And the final thing I want to recognize too
(32:50):
is what you were saying before, which is so important. You used Bruno
Mars as the example. Right. Who's one of the biggest stars in the world.
What's most fascinating about what you're saying, he not only uses
that strategy successfully, but for anybody who's
paying attention, Bruno Mars himself has
not released a solo album in, I believe it's eight
(33:12):
years or longer. He did the Silk thing with Silk Sonic. With. Yeah, Silk
Sonic. And he's done the singles. Right. With Lady. Goddamn
Right, right. But a Bruno Mars out, because that's. The world that we're living in
now. It's a much more singles driven. It's back to like it was in the
50s and 60s where there were bands and artists. You know, everything is
secular. And I don't know if we come back to the album
(33:35):
as a piece of. I mean, I. I personally love the idea of the album,
but I see the value and releasing. And that's
why I told you with my strategy, with what I'm doing, with the single that
I released recently. It's. I want this to be like one piece of art. This
is the art that I'm. I'm taking out to the world and I want to
push it as much as I can and try to give it as much life
(33:55):
and love as possible. Then I'll go to the next one and then it's the
next thing again, it's like you almost have another chance at bat. Like when you're,
when you're playing baseball, you have another chance of hitting that.400, which remember
we talked about with Pete Gambard where he talked about that whole
concept of the baseball and, and how many at bats. And if you're batting
a.400, you're still wrong, you know, four or five, you know, percent of the
(34:17):
time or whatever his formula was right. Batting a.300, you're still,
you're still, you. Know, you know, you're still striking out, you know, five or six
times. So it's just a real interesting concept, but it just goes back to the
point of what you're saying of about how valuable your social media
strategy and really just not just saying about me, me, me, me, me. It's
got to be about the audience and developing that relationship and
(34:38):
they can. Hear and feel
that relationship in a very authentic way, far
more so today than ever before. They know
inauthenticity when it hits them. So you've got to be authentic
in your relationship with your audience. That is absolutely
crucial. Hey insiders, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode.
(35:00):
We really appreciate it. To get show notes, links and everything that
was mentioned during this interview, head on over to our Official
website at
mubutv.com/podcast/shownotes if you're enjoying
the content and what we're doing here on the show, please subscribe to the podcast
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to
podcasts from. And don't forget to rate and review our show at iTunes.
(35:23):
Five star reviews are always welcome and help to ensure that our
podcast stands out on the top rated and new and noteworthy charts
on itunes in our space. You can also find us at social media
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all ending with the handle MUBUTV, which is spelled
MUBUTV. Don't forget to catch our flagship show, the
(35:44):
Mubu TV Music Business Insider video series airing
every week week on YouTube at
youtube.com/@mubutv. This show was produced and created
by Ritch Esra and Eric Knight theme music by Disciples of
Babylon. And be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the
MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
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