Thaddeus Rudd of Mom+Pop records discusses why his label has had to learn to act both globally AND locally over the past nine years, developing artist careers both locally here in North America, as well as abroad internationally.
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Guest post by Thaddeus Rudd of Midem
Over the past 9 years at Mom+Pop, we’ve taken pride in keeping things simple and doing things the right way. We’ve acted locally, in the sense that we’ve prioritised our A&R in building a high quality artist roster (which includes Flume, pictured above), developing creative, innovative marketing plans and providing local expertise in the North American market. We’ve always thought globally, but we’ve essentially acted more or less locally.
While little has changed in our A&R and development approach, we’ve now had to think and act locally AND globally. As we’ve embraced the realities and opportunities of the new marketplace, we’ve reconsidered what’s possible in developing careers in our home territory and beyond.
It feels like the world got a lot smaller over the past year because of the growth of the DSPs. There’s a near-instant global reach for top tier of artist tracks, and these artists and songs dominate the streaming charts in most territories.
In our world, at Mom+Pop, our artists are getting offers for shows emerging markets, like Indonesia, China, India and all over Central and South America. Mexico has become a bigger streaming market for us than Canada. Press and radio opportunities to lead a record in the UK market are less available with the NME not a driver and radio’s patience in eating for songs to grow beyond the DPS timeline. Crazy times.
It’s given us pause to consider where we put our international efforts and marketing budgets. It’s even made us reconsider what the role of an international release partner should be, going forward. In the past, we’ve anchored our team and our energy in the UK, as a launchpad for breaking artists in Europe. We’ve in the process packaged global master rights into what was essentially a UK and European plan.
Already we’ve hired promo teams to go after opportunities in Mexico and South America. I suspect we’ll see more of that into next year. Beyond the huge growth of South America, we’re seeing strong streaming activity in Asia. We look forward to sourcing out plans for these territories, and working them with live dates, hopefully alongside Australian touring.
What’s game changing is not just that there are new markets streaming our songs, but that the streaming isn’t premised on live shows, or local press or radio campaigns. The streaming is leading us to the local campaigns, not vice versa.
Our ability to follow the streaming activity, put immediate resources into a region, and then connect the artist and manager means our artists will be able to think about their global touring and fan development in different light- smart, targeted campaigns; being open to non-linear album and touring cycles, embracing smaller markets, growing our footprint in new markets years before the market for western music fully develops. I’m keeping my passport in my top desk drawer, that’s for sure.
This is the latest in a series of posts from key industry influencers from the world over, whom you’ll be able to meet at Midem 2017. More soon!
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