Why Music Videos are Still an Essential Tool for Indie Artists

Video killed the radio star, but can it help build a fan base for an indie artist?

MTV might be filled with reruns of Catfish, and Ridiculousness, but according to a report released last year by MIDiA Research, YouTube leads all online platforms – topping streaming music services, and social media – when it comes to new music discovery, and the numbers are pretty remarkable. A whopping 52% of consumers listed it as the top way they discover new music.

So what does this mean for indie artists?

First of all, it means rethinking what Spotify means to them.

Spotify has greatly altered how artists release music. Back in the day, when physical music, radio, and MTV ruled the world, an artist would release a single, followed by the album, and then a steady stream of singles to promote the album.

Paula Abdul’s debut album was released in June of ’88, but the final single from it wasn’t released until November of ‘89

With Spotify, the method is to release a handful of singles, followed by the album, which winds up the culmination of the album cycle. This is because with Spotify you can submit singles for inclusion in playlists, but once the album is out you can only submit one more song for playlist consideration.

For those lucky enough to get placed on a major playlist the numbers can be impressive, but they’re also a bit deceiving. You can get tens of thousands of streams from being on the right playlist, but the other numbers, the numbers telling us where people are discovering new music, indicate that when you’re on a playlist you’re basically background music.

This is because there’s a big difference between passive listening, and active listening. Playlists lead to passive listening – the music is on, but no one’s really paying attention. On the flip side of that, when you make the decision to put an album on, you’re engaging in active listening, because your focus is on the music.

Now, I’m not saying it isn’t good to be on playlists, more streams is always a good thing, but if you’re looking to build a fan base, those tens of thousands of streams may not lead to many new faces at shows.

This is why it might help to view Spotify as the modern version of a record store. Your album is there, and your goal is to make people want to go there specifically to check it out.

Knowing that YouTube is the leader in new music discovery, wouldn’t it make sense to utilize it to drive people to where you want them to find your album? If you’re an indie artist, all you have to do is continue to release music videos after your album’s release.

Those singles wouldn’t get on a Spotify playlist, but they’d drive people to your music on Spotify, and that’s what you really want. You don’t want a listener, you want to create a fan.

So the release of your album doesn’t have to be the end of your album cycle, it can be the middle of it. You can go for Spotify playlists with singles before the album’s release, and keep pumping out music videos after the album’s release.

The formula is the same as it’s always been – go to where people will find you, and then lead them to where you want them to be.