The melody doesn’t have to be final. You don’t even need words. But before you save and shut down, commit to your initial idea and map out the full song. Verse, pre-chorus, chorus. Maybe a bridge. Maybe an interlude. The skeleton needs to exist before you walk away.

Paul McCartney has talked about this exact approach. In his words:

So the key here is to try to map out the song from a broad perspective before you obsess over specific words or melodies. If you obsess over the details before you even have a structure, you start to lose context. Having the structure down reminds you of the song’s journey, making it easier to fine-tune the details later.

We’ve all been there. You open a project from two weeks ago, hear four bars of something that once felt electric, and now you can’t remember where it was going. The energy is gone. The intention behind it has faded. And instead of building on momentum, you’re trying to reconstruct a feeling, which is one of the hardest things to do in music.

Why Structure First, Polish Later

When you map out the full structure early, even in its roughest form, you give yourself something real to return to. You've got the arc. You know where the song breathes, where it builds, where it lands.

Once I have a verse, pre-chorus, and chorus, I immediately copy it as the next verse and chorus. If the song calls for it, I work on a bridge, then copy the chorus, and just like that, I already have a full song in front of me. There's something so satisfying about that moment because now you can see the entire song. And then comes the fun part: working on the production, adding elements for each section so nothing feels too repetitive, or sometimes even cutting a section in half.

McCartney describes his process as sitting down and starting to block stuff out with sounds, following a little phrase that’s starting to work, and chasing that trail wherever it leads. He also said something I love about the balance between freedom and structure:

“I think structure’s great. But I also like to start with chaos in order to get the freedom.”

That’s exactly what this is. You start with the chaos. You let yourself play. And before you close the session, you organize that chaos into a structure you can come back to. Because it’s always easier to take things out or tone things down.

It’s like building a house. You can’t put your favorite mid-century modern pieces in the living room or paint the bedroom your favorite color without having the bare bones of the structure standing first. The foundation comes before the finishes. Songs work the same way.

Once that full structure is down, then you can hone in on the stuff that actually matters. The emotional nuance. The lyrics. Reworking melodies that felt right in the moment but need more intention. Adjusting dynamics. Finding the production choices that serve the song. McCartney says he doesn’t overthink what he’s writing about because it spoils the magic. He follows ideas, chord to chord, and lets the song reveal itself. The perfecting comes later.

From Graveyard to Catalog

What do you do if you have multiple ideas floating around, and they aren’t necessarily connected to the same song?

When I create a full-length rough demo, I drop it into a folder in my notes app labeled “Demos.” Knowing that I have a folder of full-length song structures I can pick up at any time takes so much pressure off the creative process. And when I do open one of those files, it’s never daunting, because I already have the complete framework.

If you’re someone who’s constantly coming up with melodies, hooks, or little fragments throughout the day, keep recording those in your voice memos. But create a separate folder for those. I keep one called “Hooks” so that when I’m in a session and need a melody, I know exactly where to go. No scrolling through hundreds of untitled voice memos hoping something jumps out.

The Takeaway

McCartney’s biggest piece of advice to young songwriters is simple: write a lot. As he puts it, don’t just write three songs and say you’ve written three songs, because that’s not enough.

I’d add to that: finish them. Get the structure down. Give every idea a skeleton. Because the more full songs you have sitting in your demos folder, the more material you actually have to work with. And the less likely any single idea is to die in a voice memo or a half-built Pro Tools session.

Finishing a song’s structure in a single session removes the biggest barrier most of us face: coming back to a fragment of an idea and losing the thread or the inspiration. When the skeleton is there, every future session becomes about refinement and emotional depth. Also, when you play a full rough demo for someone, they can actually imagine what the finished version could sound like. They can hear the potential. A snippet of an idea doesn’t have the same power.

This is one of the simplest habits you can build into your creative workflow, and it will save more songs than you realize.

What does your current demo organization look like? Do you have a system for capturing and revisiting ideas, or are you working through the chaos? I’d love to hear what’s working for you.

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And then, at some point, you have to let go.

The artist wants to recut the entire song. The label wants changes. Your favorite part of the song gets cut. The mix goes to another engineer. The thing you gave everything to is no longer under your control.

This is where the art of detachment becomes crucial. Not just with the work itself, but with the pace and lifestyle that comes with it. Because if you can’t detach, you will break. I did.

I learned detachment out of pure necessity. In one year, I spent 270 out of 365 days in recording sessions. At the time, I was wearing multiple hats as a studio assistant, recording engineer, and session drummer. I was living away from home, sleeping on the studio couch, traveling overseas, and my personal life was virtually non-existent.

I quickly realized that this kind of intensity for weeks and months on end without an outlet was unsustainable. The lifestyle, the emotional ups and downs of each project, and the constant creative investment. Especially for someone who tends to be more introverted and absorbs people’s energy like a sponge. I had to be honest about my limits and find a way to keep going without losing the quality of my work. So I started journaling every day and seeing a therapist virtually once a week.

What I learned from this process was the importance of detachment. Developing a stoic mentality of letting go of what you can't control, like the outcome, while remaining fully engaged in what you can. You give everything you have to the process, and then you trust that the process was enough.

For production, the most important thing is that everyone on the team serves what's best for the song as a whole, which requires separating your ego from the outcome. It's a constant work in progress, but it's the foundation of sustainable creative work.

The tricky part is knowing when to switch gears. Because studio work demands that you are emotionally and physically connected to the music at all times. It’s the only way our output can carry momentum and fire. There’s nothing better than feeling goosebumps from something you created, because it means it truly resonates with you.

But that emotional connection can work against you if you can't release it when the moment calls for it. Whether it's a production decision that didn't go your way, an idea you loved getting scrapped, or the finished product being handed off to the world, you have to be able to detach from yourself and be objective. If you stay attached, your ego takes over. And ego doesn't make good decisions.

In production, I’ve learned to hold two things at once. When we’re recording, I am all in. Even if it’s an idea I don’t particularly like, I try my best to make it work. I will fight for a take or an arrangement, and stay late to get the sound right. The moment it’s done, I lower my expectations and practice letting it go. If the artist wants to change the direction, that’s their right. If the label wants another producer to get involved, that’s the reality.

Something I know is hard for a lot of producers and engineers to accept is that just because you spend hours creating an idea, it doesn't mean it deserves to live in the song. For me, being an engineer taught me something very valuable - that being emotionally invested in the music and being able to step back from a single idea are not mutually exclusive. Because I wasn't the one who lived inside that idea for weeks or months, I often had a clearer sense of whether it was making the song better or not. I realized that a lot of my suggestions were trusted because of that distance.

One of my favorite studio mantras is the “seven-minute rule,” and I believe it originated from producer CJ Vanston, who’s worked with Prince, Toto, and Joe Cocker. The idea is simple: any idea is worth seven minutes. You don’t argue about whether a bass feel should change or debate a vocal harmony for an hour. You just record it, because it’s faster to decide from actually hearing the idea back than to sit around debating it, especially when you have musicians in the room. Give it seven minutes. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, you move on with peace of mind because now you know.

What I love about this is that it eliminates the part of the creative process that kills the most momentum. The talking phase and the overthinking - the ego battle over whose instinct is right. Seven minutes costs you almost nothing. It gives everyone in the room permission to throw something at the wall in a safe space, without fear or judgment, because the stakes are low enough that failure doesn’t sting.

The concept of detachment applies well beyond the studio. You can care deeply about an outcome while accepting that you don’t control it. You can invest your whole heart in a project, a relationship, a vision, without letting the outcome define you.

Of course, it’s easier said than done depending on the situation. I like to ask myself if I did the best I could, and if I gave it my all with honesty. And if the answer is yes, I can give myself permission to detach and accept that it’s now out of my hands.

Remember, detachment doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means you cared enough to do your part fully, and now you’re wise enough to let it live.

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There’s never been a better time to make a living from your music.

I know the overwhelm is real. Aside from making music, you're handling socials, running release campaigns, managing your digital presence, booking shows, distributing your music, and managing your royalties. The list goes on.

But we also live in an age of endless tools. Now with AI, there isn't much we can't do. Still, tools alone won’t sustain a career.

The hardest part of being an artist isn’t the logistics.

It’s the inner game.

Not losing your artistic identity in the endless hustle of running your own career. Staying committed when the numbers are quiet. Releasing the song when it doesn’t feel perfect. Being your own hype person while keeping your head clear when everyone around you seems to be moving faster.

I’ve spent my whole life as a musician, years as a recording engineer, and now I run my own creative studio, Sono Hikari, where I work with artists, bridging everything from recording and creative direction to release planning and go-to-market strategy.

I’ve seen the artist’s journey from every seat in the room, both major and indie.

I also grew up in a family of artists. My grandfather was a theater director, my grandmother a ballet dancer, and my father a musician.

The artist’s life is in my DNA.

Watching the extreme ups and downs was my norm. Now, that’s not to say I navigate the uncertainty with grace (I wish!). When my path feels unclear, I spiral into a full existential identity crisis. I've realized that starting my own business is a lot like being my own artist that requires constant retuning.

Because after all, what is the life of an artist?

For me, it’s choosing growth over comfort. It’s moving through life with curiosity, creating with purpose, doubling down on your passion, mapping out a destination that’s never been traveled before, and paving your own path toward a life you’re proud of. It’s channeling the deeper parts of yourself and the world around you, and creating something that could only come from you.

So I wanted to share some of the reminders I keep coming back to for staying grounded through the ebbs and flows of this unpredictable life. I’ve put them into perspective for independent artists, but really, they apply to anyone who is building and creating something of their own.

1. Committing to Yourself

Showing up for yourself every day is the best thing any of us can do.

If you chose to be an artist, you chose it because every time you try to pivot, you keep coming back to the need to create and express yourself. You’re not an artist for the money or fame.

You are an artist because something in you won’t let you be anything else.

The artist path requires a hell of a lot of resilience and consistency, and on top of that, it can be one of the loneliest feelings when you feel lost.

One of the best ways to re-commit to yourself is by coming back to why you became an artist in the first place.

What part of being an artist gives you the most spark?

It’s also important to have healthy expectations and some self-compassion to be ok with the fact that not everything you create will get the reception you hope for. If it doesn’t reach a certain metric you were hoping for, you simply carry on.

Why?

Because the universe gives us access to infinite ideas, we just have to be open enough to receive them and turn them into something.

Not every song will be someone’s favorite, and that’s actually the point. A catalog gives your audience room to discover what resonates with them. Many of the greats talk about how some of their best work is the work that gets overlooked. And overlooked doesn’t mean zero people connected with it. To those people, your song means something.

So if a release doesn’t land the way you hoped, just ask yourself:

“Am I proud of this song?”

Because that’s all that matters. It’s not a sign to stop. It’s one more song in a body of work that’s still growing.

You are committed to yourself because you are in it for the long game.

2. Letting Go of Perfectionism

Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way shuts down perfectionism in a way that wakes me up every time I read it.

“Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop, an obsessive, debilitating, closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.”

It took a long time for me to realize that:

Perfectionism ≠ High Standards.

High standards are rooted in growth. You care about the quality of the work, you care about the process, and you allow yourself to make mistakes because that’s how you learn.

Perfectionism is rooted in fear and the need to avoid mistakes. Fear of criticism, fear of shame, fear of putting something out that someone might judge negatively. It makes you procrastinate, second-guess, and wait for a version of “ready” that never arrives.

High standards create momentum. Perfectionism creates paralysis.

And the hardest part is that from the inside, they can feel exactly the same!

So next time you're feeling stuck, ask yourself:

“Am I still making this better, or am I just afraid to let it go?

3. Self-Doubt Is A Companion

Artists are people who have learned to live with doubt and do the work anyway.

Self-doubt is a companion on this path, and the goal was never to eliminate it. The goal is to keep moving through it.

The job of an artist is to do the work. To create.

The judging part is for the listener, and at that point, it’s out of your hands.

You can’t please or win everyone.

There are billions of people in the world, billions of users on platforms like TikTok alone. Not everyone will connect with you or your music. That’s not personal - it’s just math.

When you’re stuck in self-doubt, ask yourself:

“What am I so worried about?”

For me, it’s almost always judgment, insecurity, or failure.

And the answer to combating that always takes me back to #2, the need to let go of perfectionism, *aka* ego.

4. Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday, Not With Who Someone Else Is Today

It’s easy to compare ourselves with the people we see online, simply because we can’t escape it. Social media is dominated by influencers who only highlight the best moments of their lives. “Content creator” is an actual job now. So naturally, if that’s not your full-time job, watching content creators can make you feel like you’re not producing enough.

Going back to my earlier point about staying committed to yourself: do whatever it takes to keep yourself in the healthiest mindset possible. You're in it for the long game, so it has to be sustainable.

If there are accounts you follow that started as aspirational but now give you a toxic or negative feeling about yourself or your trajectory, mute or unfollow them.

As an artist, keeping your creative space sacred and your mind clutter-free is crucial.

It takes discipline, so it’s never a one-and-done task. It takes constant awareness to keep your algorithm from learning your weaknesses.

We live in a noisy world, and every bit of noise cancellation helps these days.

Instead of looking at artists who’ve achieved more visible success, look at yourself and ask,

“What’s one thing I can do today that will make me 1% better than yesterday?”

If you’re overwhelmed or have no idea where to start, grab a blank piece of paper and write down your goals. Then break them down into tasks. The more granular the better, because each task feels doable on its own, and you’re not chasing one giant, fluffy milestone.

Being able to cross off even one task today makes you better than you were yesterday.

5. Enthusiasm Over Discipline

Don’t get me wrong, discipline is necessary. In fact, in my experience, what separates a successful artist from the rest is discipline. Not in some boring, Type A kind of way. Discipline is having specific goals, a relentless drive, and staying committed to them. Knowing that it's not always going to feel good, and doing the work anyway.

But you know those days when you’re just “not in the mood” to create?

Some might call that a lack of discipline, but I think it’s a lack of enthusiasm.

Art is not created on autopilot.

At least not the meaningful kind. No amount of willpower can help you create something great if you don’t really feel it.

Enthusiasm is an ongoing energy supply tapped into the flow of life. It’s grounded in play, not obligation. It’s reconnecting with our inner child, getting back in touch with that spark you experienced as a kid. The first time you ever felt excited by something.

As we grow older, that spark dims under the weight of having real-life responsibilities. On top of that, maybe you’re surrounded by people who don’t bring it out in you, or even suppress it. Whatever the case, you never lose it. You just need to find a way to access it again.

When you catch yourself “not in the mood”, ask yourself,

“What will make me excited to ______ right now?”

The 'I should be doing this, I should be doing that' spiral is just self-punishment. It's unproductive because deep down, you already know what needs to be done, and after all that guilt, you're probably not going to do it anyway.

Another way to reignite enthusiasm is by practicing gratitude.

We naturally feel grateful when an opportunity comes our way. So what if we reframe what feels like an obligation into an opportunity?

The most common struggle I've seen with many artists I've worked with is making TikTok content for their music. It can be genuinely soul-draining. But it's become non-negotiable. I've had artists tell me they face being dropped by their label if they don't post. The anxiety around it is completely legitimate.

The bad news for artists who struggle with content is that you really can’t control the fact that it’s no longer optional.

The good news is, you CAN control your mindset and make it work in your favor.

What if instead of saying,

“I HAVE to post a TikTok video today to promote my new music,”

you say,

“I GET to promote my new music today to a brand new audience.”

Because if you really think about it, before platforms like TikTok, reaching new listeners was way harder. Now you can put your music in front of strangers on a bigger scale for free.

The problem with TikTok, however, is that it desensitizes us to engagement numbers. If we don’t have thousands or millions of views, we think it’s a failed post.

If you've ever played a show where your only audience was the bartender who couldn't give a flying f*** about your set, then you know how significant it feels when you have an actual audience. We lose that perspective online. But the point is, those view counts are not nothing. And you didn't start making music for the numbers in the first place.

Today, our perspective gets messed up so quickly and so often that we have to constantly retune back to ourselves.

Social media has a toxic effect on me. Sometimes I swear I can feel and see dark energy radiating off my phone screen! So when I get consumed by feeling lost or behind, I remind myself that I’m grateful that:

I get to wake up every morning with a fresh start.

It is a privilege to be creating art and pursuing my passion.

I am so lucky to have a partner who supports my dream and wants to see me thrive.

I have family and friends who believe in me.

I have all the tools and support I could ask for.

The unknown is an opportunity for growth.

These reminders never fail to bring me back up from the rut. They remind me that I'm the only one getting in the way of my own path, and that showing up for myself every day is the only way to move forward and find clarity. And if the right path doesn't exist yet, I have to pave my own.

What’s a reminder that resonated with you most? What are some reminders you like to keep going back to? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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Olivia Dean just won Best New Artist at the 2026 Grammys. And if you watched her acceptance speech, you saw something refreshing: an artist who looked genuinely stunned. She took the stage in tears, hugged Chappell Roan, and said, “I never really imagined that I would be up here.”

She thanked her “best friend and manager” Emily, the same manager who discovered her at a school showcase ten years ago. “An artist is really nothing without their team,” she said.

And then she addressed the room. “I’m up here as a granddaughter of an immigrant. I’m a product of bravery, and I think those people deserve to be celebrated. We’re nothing without each other.” Very much in line with her hit album, The Art of Loving. A quiet, powerful statement at a time when the world needed to hear it.

If you're a self-label artist who needs a reminder that patience and artistic integrity actually lead somewhere, this one is for you.

Her rise is one of the strongest cases I've seen for why artistic integrity still wins - even in an industry obsessed with trends.

Yes, She’s Signed. That’s Not the Point.

Olivia Dean is signed to Capitol Records UK, in partnership with Island Records in the US. She has a label and a team. She has infrastructure that most of us are still building.

But the things that drove her success are tools that self-label artists have access to right now.

Patience. Authenticity. Artistic clarity.

Refusing to chase trends that don’t feel aligned. Building a body of work that means something before expecting it to perform.

Those are all choices.

And the people around her campaign keep saying the same thing. Her label’s managing director, Tom Paul, told Billboard that her biggest moments on social media “have always come from fans, not marketing.” EMI’s Rebecca Allen said they never forced her to work with anyone, and that Dean herself would push back on anything that didn’t feel authentic.

That kind of alignment happens when an artist knows who they are.

Seven Years of Becoming

Dean self-released her debut single, “Reason to Stay,” in 2018. She’d taught herself guitar and piano as a teenager, busked on London’s South Bank, and eventually caught her manager Emily Braham’s eye during a performance at the BRIT School where she was a student.

Her first EP was recorded in a converted pub in East London.

Between 2019 and 2023, she released multiple EPs and a debut album, Messy, which peaked at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. But it didn’t break her globally. Not yet.

During the pandemic, when most artists were scrambling to figure out TikTok, Dean travelled the UK in a bright yellow truck sponsored by Clarks, performing mini-gigs in seaside towns. The crowds were often sparse. Some shows were held in a prawn restaurant.

Yes, a prawn restaurant.

She showed up in person, connected through performance, and kept building even when the numbers didn’t justify it.

Then came The Art of Loving in September 2025. It debuted at No. 1 in the UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. “Man I Need” hit No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. She became the first British female solo artist to simultaneously have four Top 10 singles on the UK chart.

Seven years. From a pub EP to a Grammy.

The Anti-Trend Strategy

Dean told Music Week in 2023:

“I’m a pretty old soul. I like live gigs, I like doing stuff with bands and I don’t like TikTok. I would never post a video of me talking into my phone because it creeps me the hell out.”

While the industry was telling artists to test hooks on TikTok before finishing songs, to let engagement metrics guide creative decisions, to optimize for the algorithm, Dean was doing the opposite. But it wasn’t a smooth process.

On the And the Writer Is.. podcast, she described a stretch during the making of The Art of Loving where nothing was working. She’d written a few songs she liked early on, but then hit a wall. “There was a whole middle chunk where I was like, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” she said. The material wasn’t landing. She had no desire to release it or keep working on it.

Then she visited an art exhibition in LA called All About Love, inspired by bell hooks’ book of the same name. Something clicked. She said,

“It would be interesting for me to make an album in response to the book and the exhibition, and do like a case study almost on love.”

That became the creative anchor for everything that followed. From there, she recorded in a house in East London converted into a live-work studio for eight weeks, making complete songs meant to be listened to as a body of work.

Dean released only one track in an entire year and still sold out multiple London venues. “She was building this audience by putting out very little,” Allen said, “but it was quality content.”

Quality over quantity. That's not about perfectionism or waiting years between releases. It's about taste. Knowing the difference between 'this needs more time' and 'I'm stalling.' Dean knew and that's why it worked.

What the Fans See Is Everything

“She looks like her music.”

“Her music is like waking up on a Saturday morning to sunshine, putting on an old record and making pancakes.”

“You can HEAR her smile.”

“The way she is in love with her own music and performing bleeds through to the fans and her musicians.”

Every comment is about how she makes them feel.

When an artist actually means what they’re making, people can tell. That’s what makes someone hit replay. That’s what makes someone buy a ticket.

That only comes from meaning it.

Your Self-Label Playbook Inside Her Story

1. Know who you are before you ask the world to care.

Dean spent years figuring out her artistic identity. She experimented and released EPs that performed well on streaming but didn’t translate into widespread recognition. She didn’t rush to become something she wasn’t. And when the industry pushed her to fit a specific mold of artists her age, her manager championed Dean’s vision to develop her own Motown-infused soul sound instead.

That kind of alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when an artist knows what they’re building and the people around them respect it.

As a self-label artist, you have something Dean had to negotiate for: full creative control from day one.

2. Your live presence is your strongest asset.

Dean’s team figured out early that her live energy was where the magic was. The Jazz Cafe recordings. The yellow truck tour. Clips of her singing with just a guitar on a balcony in Brazil. Every one of these became organic social content that outperformed any marketing push.

You don’t need a label budget for this. You need a phone, a good room, and the willingness to perform even when the crowd is small. And always film it because that footage will always connect deeper than a video following a trend.

3. Let your creative starting point be something real.

Dean’s album The Art of Loving was inspired by Mickalene Thomas’ art exhibition and bell hooks’ writing about love.

If your starting point is “what will perform well,” you’re building on sand. The stuff that actually connects is specific, deeply personal and rooted in something you felt and experienced.

4. Patience is a strategy.

Billboard’s post-Grammy analysis called Dean’s rise “a lesson in letting potential unfold in its own time.” Her manager Emily Braham put it more directly:

“Instead of having one big break, it’s about building a really good business and catalogue of music.”

This is the part most self-label artists struggle with. You see peers pulling ahead and wonder if something is wrong with your approach. But consistently releasing quality work, building a catalog that means something, showing up with integrity over time... that compounds.

5. Commit to it.

FKA twigs, who also won a Grammy that night, said something that stuck with me:

“To any artist: Don’t give up, follow your vision, do you, because that’s what’s going to make the world fall in love with your art.”

Just because something isn't hitting doesn't mean it's not working. It might take years. Switching directions every time something underperforms doesn't just slow your momentum - it confuses the people trying to follow you. Commit to your identity. No one else is going to show up for you the way you can show up for yourself.

The Deeper Question

If Dean’s story proves anything, it’s that artistic integrity builds over time.

The label infrastructure helped scale her globally. But her voice, her emotional clarity, her refusal to be anything other than herself - all of that existed before the label got involved. That was hers.

As a self-label artist, you’re building the same thing. You’re building the art and the infrastructure at the same time. That takes longer and yes, it requires more patience and discipline. It means some seasons will feel unbearably slow.

I often compare the mindset this requires to an athlete’s. I grew up playing competitive tennis and I can tell you that when a player loses a match, they don’t quit the sport or overhaul their entire technique. They regroup, review what could be better and the next morning, they’re back on the court showing up for themselves and focusing on what they can control and improve. The career doesn’t reset after a loss -it continues. That’s the discipline self-label artists need too. Stay on the court and keep refining.

The foundation you’re building is yours. The catalog is yours. The relationship with your audience is yours. And when the moment comes, whether that’s a sync placement, a viral fan post, or something you can’t predict yet, you’ll be ready. Because you put in the hours becoming undeniably you.

What part of Olivia Dean’s approach resonates most with where you are right now? And what’s one thing you could commit to doing differently this month because of it?

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So I thought instead of a Monday Music Briefing, I’d end the year with something different: an inspirational outlook on how we can rethink discovery as we move into 2026.

Because if you’ve spent this year chasing virality, feeling stuck, or wondering why nothing’s breaking through, this might be the mindset shift that changes everything.

The Viral Lottery Is Closing

Since COVID and through early 2024, going viral on TikTok was a playbook to getting signed by major labels. Labels were signing artists left and right based on viral moments alone.

But the bar got higher. 2026 will be different.

Major labels started realizing that TikTok virality doesn’t guarantee sustainable careers. Artists who racked up millions of views on 15-second clips couldn’t sell out venues. Many had never performed live. Their songs worked as short-form content but fell flat as complete works. And if you can’t tour, labels aren’t interested.

The viral lottery still exists, but now labels are watching what happens after the viral moment. Can you sustain momentum? Can you tour? Can you turn viral attention into an actual fanbase?

Whether you want to be a major label artist or not, going viral can open the door to discovery, but you still have to prove you can build a career. And honestly? That’s better for artists who actually have something to say.

What’s replacing the “go viral and get signed” playbook is less dramatic but more reliable: stacking small, meaningful moments over time.

This is the ‘Kaizen’ approach to discovery. And as we head into 2026, it’s how self-label artists can build sustainable momentum without losing themselves in the process.

What Is Kaizen? And Why It Matters for 2026

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that translates to “continuous improvement.” It’s built on a simple idea: small, incremental changes compound into significant results over time.

Instead of chasing one massive win, you focus on small wins every single day. You build systems, you refine, and you show up consistently. And those small steps stack into momentum that lasts.

For self-label artists heading into 2026, this means: discovery isn’t one viral moment. It’s multiple small discovery moments that build familiarity, trust, and connection with listeners.

You’re not trying to explode overnight. You’re trying to stack enough signals that platforms, playlists, and real human fans start to notice and stick around.

This is the infrastructure ownership requires. And this is how you build a 2026 that’s more aligned with your artistic identity.

The Case Study: How Discovery Actually Happens

Here’s an example of what stacked discovery looks like.

An independent pop-rock artist releasing a new single treats the song as a multi-week discovery asset instead of a one-day launch.

Two weeks before release: short rehearsal clips and lyric previews focused on the emotional hook. Simple visuals. Strong comments.

Release day: stripped-down performance video. Active engagement with early reactions.

Within days, one clip stands out. Not because it has the most views, but because it’s getting saved, shared, and commented on at a higher rate.

Fans connect to a specific lyric about burnout. Instead of moving to the next song, the artist leans in:

• Posts an explanation of what the lyric means

• Shares a live performance clip with audience sing-along

• Features a fan-submitted video

The song may or may not go viral. But saves, playlist adds, and follower growth steadily increase. The same listeners keep showing up.

Discovery happens gradually. And it sticks.

The takeaway: discovery comes from stacking small, meaningful signals, not chasing one breakout moment.

This is the approach that will serve you in 2026.

What This Reveals About Discovery in 2026

Your release isn’t one moment. It’s multiple entry points. Every piece of content you create gives listeners another reason to discover your music. Not just on release day - all month long.

Saves matter more than views. If 500 people scroll past your video but 50 people save it to come back to later, that second group is your real discovery signal. Platforms know the difference between passive consumption and genuine interest.

People remember songs when they understand them.

Carly Pearl, an artist I manage, went viral for her song “Pronoia.” Instead of just posting the track, she explained what pronoia means and how fans could apply it to their lives.

The response was immediate. Two years later, people are still engaging with the song. Fans share tattoos of the lyrics, post about how it changed their perspective, or helped them through difficult times.

When you explain why a song matters to you, listeners connect to it differently. Context turns casual listeners into people who actually care.

This is what discovery infrastructure looks like in 2026: not one viral post via trends, but a system of small, consistent moments that stack into real connections, aligned with your artistic choices.

Small steps every day - that’s Kaizen.

Not All Platforms Work the Same

Here’s what most “algorithm advice” gets wrong: it treats every platform like they’re interchangeable. Post everywhere, hope something sticks.

It’s important to remember that people don’t use TikTok the way they use Spotify. They don’t scroll Instagram the way they scroll YouTube. Each platform has different user behavior, which means each platform rewards different content.

TikTok and Reels users are scrolling fast. You have three seconds. A strong hook, personality, and authenticity cut through faster than production value. Striving for perfectionism is a waste of time and energy (and it will make you mad!)

Spotify and Apple Music reward the save, not the play. When someone adds your song to their library or playlist, that signals real interest. When they replay it, even better. That’s what platforms prioritize.

Instagram and Facebook thrive on conversation. The posts that get shared to Stories, that spark comments, that make people tag their friends - those are the ones that get pushed. Ask questions. Invite responses. Make people want to engage, not just scroll.

The same song can work differently on each platform if you adapt how you present it. A TikTok clip about the lyric’s meaning. A Spotify Canvas that loops the hook. An Instagram post asking fans what the song means to them.

Meet people where they are. You don’t have to change your art. Just adapt how you present it.

This is how you build a 2026 that feels sustainable, not exhausting.

Your Fresh Start for 2026

When you operate as your own label, you don’t have a marketing team like major labels do - testing strategies and creating burner accounts to create hype for you. You have to be strategic from the start.

But strategic doesn’t mean inauthentic. It means understanding the infrastructure discovery requires and building it without compromising who you are.

Discovery in 2026 doesn’t have to feel like a constant hustle for attention. It can feel more aligned with who you are, more sustainable, more real. Find ways to make you want to show up for yourself every day.

Kaizen gives you permission to stop chasing virality and start building something real. Small steps. Daily refinement. Stacking moments that compound into sustainable momentum.

Stop chasing viral and start stacking small wins.

That’s how self-label artists build careers that last. And that’s how you make 2026 the year you finally build momentum that feels sustainable.

As you head into 2026: What’s one small discovery moment you could commit to creating consistently? Drop a comment.

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[^1]: Hypebot, “How Musicians Get Discovered in 2026: A Realistic Playbook That Actually Works,” December 2025.

I’m not proud of this. I’m being judgy, and I hate it. Because who am I to judge someone willing to promote their work? They’re throwing spaghetti at the wall. They’re executing for results, and I respect that.

The real question isn’t about them. It’s about me, and maybe you: What are we willing to do that makes us uncomfortable if we want to build a sustainable career?

The Gift and The Weight

Creatives carry something most people don’t - the ability to pull something out of nothing. And musicians create worlds, feelings, and truth from thin air and turn them into sound. It’s a gift. It’s pure. And when it works, when you finish a song that feels right, there’s nothing quite like it.

But with that gift comes weight. And sometimes, if we’re honest, that weight is ego.

Not ego in the sense of arrogance. I mean the ego that limits us:

• The part that gets snarky when someone suggests using TikTok to promote your music.

• The part that irks you when you have to post promotional content that feels manufactured.

• The part that whispers: If I have to do this to get heard, maybe it’s not worth it.

And the truth is, you don’t have to do any of those things. You have every right to just create and put it out because it brings you joy. But this is for artists who want to make a career, an actual income from what they create. And my god, we all know that’s HARD. But it’s absolutely possible, with the right mindset.

I say this as someone who’s been a musician (drummer) all my life. Still am. I’ve had my share of touring from shitty empty venues to an arena of ten thousand people. I’ve spent years as a recording engineer, enduring humble beginnings: cleaning toilets and picking up champagne for artists. I’ve experienced the highs and lows and almost every angle of being on the music creation and performance side.

The creating and performing part? That’s where the magic lives. That’s the part that feels pure and fun. And honestly, with the right team, that’s the easy part.

It’s everything else that tests you. The business part carries risk, but the gain can be tremendous.

Today, as a manager, every decision made with the artists I work with starts with being honest with ourselves and our goals. My job is to make sure our strategy aligns with the artist’s identity, but also being real with each other because at the end of the day, it’s a collaborative partnership. We’re not afraid to admit, “we really need to make more revenue than last year. This is our career, not a hobby, and we need to do it in a way that’s sustainable so we never have to stop doing what we love.”

So I often ask an uncomfortable question during our strategy sessions: “How much are we willing to stop romanticizing and be honest with reality?”

What’s the Reality?

AI music exists. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube? They’re not optional anymore if you want visibility. We thought consistency was the key to being rewarded by the algorithm, but now we have to be more strategic to get out of TikTok jail. And the artists building sustainable careers are the ones who’ve accepted this and are figuring out how to work within it without losing themselves.

If you hate TikTok, you don’t have to be on TikTok. But if it’s not TikTok, what is it? Vlogs? Aesthetic videos on Instagram? Long-form content on YouTube? The question isn’t “Do I have to do social media?” It’s: “What form of visibility am I willing to build consistently?”

The reality is, we have no excuse not to learn the tools. You don’t need a social media manager to create a content calendar. You don’t need an expensive camera for quality content. You don’t need an expensive studio to make great music.

We have all the tools we could possibly need.

What we often don’t have is constant reassurance, self-compassion, and self-discipline. And that’s what actually separates the artists who make it from the ones who don’t. Talent, connections, and luck can only get you so far.

You do your best work when you have someone excited for you. When you’re not heckling yourself. When you stop making excuses and prioritize your goals.

Let’s Be Clear About What Path You’re On

Not everyone making music has the same goal. And pretending we all do creates a false binary where you’re either “pure” or a sellout.

If music is your outlet, your therapy, if you don’t need it to pay rent, you can ignore all of this. Make what you want. Release how you want. Never think about strategy. That’s a gift. Protect it.

But if you want this to be your full-time career, you’re operating in a different reality. And in that reality, artist Jon Bellion said it plainly recently: “If you want to be, you have to be seen.”

That doesn’t mean compromising your art. It means accepting that art without an audience is just sound in a vacuum.

Humanity and Vanity Together

Jon Bellion, the artist, songwriter, and producer behind massive pop hits, talked about this “muddy greyness” in a recent interview. Perhaps it’s the place where artistry meets commerce. Where your vision meets the algorithm. Where what you want to make meets what actually allows you to keep making it.

It’s not easy for purists to live there. It’s easier not to step into the noise. We want to believe that if the art is good enough, it’ll find its people. And while that may be true for some artists in their initial discovery, behind every visible artist is someone who’s helping them bring their music to market.

The Cringe Is the Point

I was listening to a Mel Robbins podcast recently while working, and I stopped when she called out BS on the younger generation for dismissing something so quickly because it’s cringe. She says,

“Cringe is actually doing it right. Because if you’re going to do something where you step out of your comfort zone for the first time, you will feel cringy. That’s what it feels like to do something for the first time.

So maybe the cringe isn’t a sign that you’re selling out.

Maybe it’s a sign that you’re doing something new and vulnerable.

Something that your ego is fighting because it wants to keep you safe in the identity you’ve already built.

The Uncomfortable Choice

So here’s the real question I think it’s important to ask ourselves:

Are you going to suffer to protect your ego? Or can you let it go?

Because suffering looks like this: Making music you’re proud of that no one hears. Refusing to engage with platforms because they feel beneath you. Watching peers who are “less talented” succeed because they were willing to do the uncomfortable work you weren’t. Feeling bitter. Feeling stuck. Feeling like the world just doesn’t get it.

But letting go might look like this: Posting that cringe content. Testing your music on TikTok to see what resonates, not to change your art, but to understand how to present it. Learning the business side. Building systems. Asking for help. Accepting that technology and business have changed, and finding a way to make it work in YOUR favor.

Jon Bellion walked away from his career for six years. He started his own label and came back on his own terms, where he released his album Father Figure, and then played two sold-out nights at Forest Hills Stadium. He made more in those two nights than he had in entire previous tours combined.

How? Because he understood the business. Because he waited until he had leverage. Because he was willing to do the unglamorous work of figuring out how the system actually functions. He says,

He’s not saying boxed wine is better than small-batch natural wine. He’s saying they both exist. And if your goal is to serve, if you want your music to reach millions of people and sustain you, you can’t always get your way 100% of the time.

There is no right or wrong here. It’s all about being honest with your goals and coming to terms with what the necessary steps are to make that a reality.

What If the Enemy Isn’t the Enemy?

What if the tools we think are ruining art (TikTok, algorithms, promotional content) aren’t the enemy? What if resisting them is just our ego protecting itself from having to grow?

What if, by letting go of the romanticized version of how this should work, we actually open ourselves up to something bigger than we imagined? What if the artist who’s willing to post the cringe Reel, learn the business, test their music, and adapt... what if they’re not selling out, but setting themselves free?

Bellion also said: “As you get more experience, your certainty decreases. The only things I’m certain of are the things that I can’t pin down.”

My takeaway: you have to learn the rules before you can break them. Get in the room. Learn the business. Try the tools. The more you understand how it all works, the clearer it becomes what fits you and what doesn’t. That’s when intuition becomes reliable, when it’s informed by experience, not just protecting your ego.

Because the self-label path is about understanding the game well enough that you can play it on your own terms, with both your humanity and your vanity intact.

It’s messy. It’s muddy. It’s uncomfortable.

But as Julia Cameron wrote in The Artist’s Way:

So what’s the one thing that makes you feel uncomfortable but deep down you know you need to try? Where do you feel your ego fighting against what might actually help you?

I’m sitting with these questions too. Drop a comment and let’s think through this together.

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It explains why our culture is experiencing an overload of noise. We rely so heavily on distraction to quiet the anxieties underneath, losing the muscle to pause and ask what we truly want. Instead, we flock to whatever’s next simply because others are flocking there too.

Right now, the pop charts and TikTok’s trending sounds have merged into one feedback loop. Trending sounds often become charting songs. Charting songs then become what artists copy. Throw AI music into the mix, and originality becomes harder to protect.

I’ve felt this pull too. When I shifted from musician/recording engineer to running my own artist service company, I caught myself chasing other companies’ vanity metrics: follower counts, engagement rates. My actual purpose is to help artists create something truly theirs. The number of clients doesn’t matter. The work does.

Here’s the thing: the charts were never designed to measure artistic truth.

So let’s go deeper than trends. Let’s talk about the human psychology behind why we create, chase, compare, and aspire. A philosophical angle, but one that directly shapes how artists move through the modern industry.

Who Was René Girard?

René Girard was a French philosopher and cultural theorist known for developing mimetic theory: the idea that human desire is shaped by imitation rather arising independently

His central question was simple yet profound: Why do we want the things we want?

Girard argued that we rarely desire things on our own. We learn what to desire by watching what others desire, creating a triangular dynamic between the person desiring (you), the person you’re imitating (model), and the thing being desired (object).

Mimetic Desire in Music

So, how does this theory relate to the music industry?

“In music, these “models” often show up as artists who go viral, artists who chart, the people our peers admire, or the ones the industry puts on a pedestal. The “objects”, the things you start chasing because they’re chasing them are things like virality, stream count, big playlist placements, festival slots, etc. on.

So you might find yourself starting to imitate their moves: adopting their sound, copying their aesthetic, following their release strategy, even pursuing the same collaborations or producers they worked with. Which is not necessarily a bad hting, you just have to step back and ask yourself if it’s right for you. Make sure that you’re not just fitting into a mold, hoping that if you do what they did, you’ll get what they got.

David Bowie warned against exactly this:

The Danger of Proximity

Girard made a crucial distinction between types of imitation. When you admire someone distant and unattainable (a Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, a legacy artist), there’s a certain safety in that. Their success feels like a north star, not a measuring stick.

But when the model is close to you (an artist at your same level, someone you came up with, a peer who just landed a sync or got playlisted), the dynamic changes. Suddenly, their success feels like it could have been yours. It should have been yours. The proximity makes the comparison feel achievable, and therefore more destabilizing.

This is where mimetic desire becomes most psychologically dangerous for artists. It’s rarely the superstars who shake your sense of self. It’s the peer who seems to be pulling ahead.

Noticing Rivalry Before It Takes Root

This part is uncomfortable but deeply human: when you find yourself imitating someone close to your own level, you can start to resent the very person you’re modeling yourself after.

The music community is, for the most part, deeply collaborative. But that doesn’t mean these feelings don’t arise. If you notice a flash of bitterness when a peer announces good news, or a subtle urge to diminish their win, that’s worth paying attention to. Not to judge yourself, but to recognize it for what it is: a signal that you’ve started measuring your path against someone else’s.

Awareness is the antidote. The moment you see the pattern, you can choose differently: acknowledge the envy as inspiration and fuel, then ask yourself a clarifying question.

If I knew everything this person sacrificed or endured to get here, would I actually choose that path?

Sometimes the answer is no, which reveals the envy was never about your path. Other times, the answer is yes, and the envy becomes fuel, showing you where you could push harder. Either way, the clarity is humbling. And it lets you celebrate their success without letting it destabilize your own sense of direction.

Pop Music Through a Mimetic Lens

Pop music runs on reinforcement loops: charts reflect momentum more than meaning, TikTok pushes what feels familiar instead of what’s visionary, and labels invest heavily in whatever has already proven profitable. It creates an environment where imitation is rewarded before innovation gets a chance.

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke put it bluntly:

In that world, it becomes easy to let metrics define your value: “My videos aren’t getting enough views, so maybe my music isn’t working.”

This isn’t a personal flaw. It’s just a predictable psychological pattern, amplified by platforms designed to keep us posting, comparing, and adjusting ourselves to what already performs well.

Even Adele had to resist this pull:

Even a huge star like Adele had to resist the pull to tailor her music to trendy platforms or teenage demographics. That resistance is itself a rejection of mimetic desire: choosing emotional depth over virality, authenticity over algorithmic approval.

This system can quietly pull you away from the voice that makes you unique. Social media rewards quantity over quality because quantity keeps platforms profitable, not because it makes your art better.

A true artistic ethos values depth, not constant output.

The Alternative: Self-Directed Desire

Girard believed that simply recognizing mimetic desire is the first step out of it, just like Eastern philosophies teach that awareness itself becomes the antidote. We can’t change the world around us, but we can control how we respond to it.

When you feel envy, take a moment to acknowledge it as a sign of inspiration and fuel.

For you as an artist, that choice looks like returning to:

• Your taste

• Your voice

• Your emotional world

• Your curiosity

• Your internal standards

• Your craft

This isn’t about rejecting pop or commercial success. It’s about rooting your direction in intention rather than imitation.

Art built from authenticity has a clarity to it, and that clarity is what lasts.

Closing Thought

The industry moves fast. Trends shift overnight.

In the middle of all that noise, ask yourself honestly:

Why am I making music in the first place?

There is no wrong answer, and it can be as simple as:

“Because it excites me.”

“Because it helps me heal.”

“Because it’s mine.”

Your music is something only you can create. At its core, it should always begin with you. Keep returning to that truth, and build from there.

Your strongest work will always come from the intention that made you an artist in the first place.

What are your thoughts? What’s one thing you’ve stopped doing (or started doing) because you realized it was driven by comparison rather than genuine desire?

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The whiplash is real. Just over a year ago, Universal, Warner, and Sony sued AI music companies like Udio and Suno for “mass infringement” on an “almost unimaginable scale,”1 accusing them of training on millions of copyrighted songs without permission.

Fast forward to late 2024: Universal settled with Udio and announced a joint AI music platform launching in 2026. Warner followed weeks later, partnering with Suno and acquiring concert platform Songkick. The new model? An even heightened emphasis on licensed training data, artist opt-in, and revenue sharing. Songs live in a “walled garden” where fans can remix and play with music, but can’t export tracks to compete on streaming services.2

From lawsuits to partnership in twelve months. It’s a fascinating 180 that reveals a truth that I think many of us have already known: the majors only move where the money goes. This was never about the majors actually caring about their artists or whether AI belongs in music (let’s face it - it’s inevitable). It’s about who controls it and who profits from it.

In the midst of all this noise, I want to share something hopeful. From talking to peers, artists, and industry people, I’ve noticed this conversation creates fear, isolation, and an almost cynical view of the future. Maybe you’re feeling it too. But here are two artists who have used AI as a genuine artistic choice, asking profound questions about identity, time, and what it means to create.

Imogen Heap: “Anyone Who Has Spent 10,000 Hours Perfecting Their Craft Will Always Have an Edge”

Imogen Heap has never been one to shy away from technology. The British singer-songwriter and producer has spent 25 years pushing creative boundaries - from her MI.MU gloves that turn hand gestures into music, to her work with blockchain for music rights. She’s always been challenging the industry, which I’m personally always inspired by.

This year, Heap released “I AM___,” a 13-minute odyssey that features her duetting with AI.Mogen, an AI model of her own voice that she trained herself. She sang every single part herself, then ran her vocals through her AI model so the model of her voice performed the words triggered, like playing samples on a MIDI keyboard. This new release deliberately blurs the line between human and artificial, forcing listeners to confront an uncomfortable question: if we can’t tell the difference, does it matter?

“I wanted to trick people,” Heap told Billboard. After a traumatic noise section in the song representing the annihilation of ego, the AI voice enters, and she wanted listeners to feel something from that voice, even knowing it wasn’t technically “her”. (Fair warning: I definitely had a mini panic attack at moments, but the release was truly beautiful, and it felt like being immersed in a film.)

The song title says it all: AI.Mogen is clearly labeled. Everything was ethically sourced using only her own voice with no generated AI music or AI prompts. It’s transparency meeting artistry to open up a conversation about how AI can exist in music without exploitation.

When asked about major labels signing AI artists, Heap’s response cuts through the hype with blunt honesty: “I feel a lot of major labels are signing music that sounds AI-generated to me anyway, it’s just like, ‘oh, that just sounds like that last thing and that last thing’ - nothing’s changed. So, it wouldn’t surprise me. Wherever there’s money, obviously, they’ll go if they think they can make money out of this artist.”

She has a point.

For me, the biggest takeaway from her recent interview with Billboard is about artistic craft and authenticity. As Heap puts it, anyone who has spent 10,000 hours perfecting their craft will always have an edge, that danger. If you just generate something off these services with prompts, you’ll sound like 99% of other people who did that too. And if that’s your thing, by all means, go for it.

But real artistry comes from having something genuine to say. Using AI as just one tool among many to express it shouldn’t diminish your artistic value.

Heap is also working on solutions beyond just her own music. Through her company Auracles and a recent partnership with SoundCloud, she’s developing a verified digital ID system for musicians to track music usage across the internet, grant permissions, and ensure artists maintain control in an age where their voices can be replicated with frightening ease.

Yumi Matsutoya: A Conversation Across Time

Now let me take you to my native country, Japan, where one of the country’s most iconic artists is asking even deeper questions about AI, identity, and time itself.

If you’re unfamiliar with Yumi Matsutoya (also known as “Yuming”), imagine a singer-songwriter with Carole King’s lyrical impact, Kate Bush’s unconventional voice, theatrical vision, and a drive to push boundaries with technology and production. She essentially defined what we now know of as “City Pop”, that dreamy, sophisticated sound of 1970s-80s Japanese urban romance.

At 71, Matsutoya just released her 40th studio album, “Wormhole,” and it’s a stunning meditation on memory, time, and self, explored by AI technology.

Several years ago, researchers from the University of Tokyo (Japan’s Harvard or MIT) approached her with a proposal: could they reconstruct her voice as it sounded in the early 1970s during her breakthrough years? And what if she could sing with her younger self? That younger and innocent voice, smoother, higher, full of the wonder that made her the queen of city pop.

Engineers used ‘Dreamtonics’ Synthesizer V software to create “Yumi AraI”, what they call a “third voice”. This ghostly vocal presence was used as an artist's choice to weave through her album, creating a conversation with her past self.

As Matsutoya explained in her recent interview with The Japan Times:

“It’s the me of now and the ‘me’ of the past communicating with one another. Every song contains memories or imagines another dimension. There’s a lot of ‘what if?’”

Matsutoya said facing AI head-on taught her a lot, making her ask fundamental questions: “Who am I? What is time?” She confronted philosophical ideas she hadn’t thought about before.

In an industry obsessed with youth and novelty, here’s a 71-year-old artist using AI not to sound younger, but to explore what it means for one, especially an artist to age. The album title “Wormhole” is intentional. For Matsutoya, wormholes are those moments when our consciousness travels through memories, images, and dreams. The album explores what she calls “wormhole phenomena,” connecting the her of now with the her of the past.

Two Sides of AI Ethics

Both Heap and Matsutoya demonstrate something crucial: AI ethics isn’t just about training data, though that matters enormously. It’s obviously wrong for companies to scrape artists’ voices for free, learning in seconds what took artists years of work and living through the ups and downs of life to develop. But ethics also depends on how AI gets used. As a shortcut to flood the market with content? Or as a tool for genuine artistic exploration?

The licensing deals address one side of the problem, and we absolutely need to keep fighting for fair compensation and artist consent. But here’s the reality: AI isn’t going away. It’s already here, and it’s only getting more sophisticated.

The licensing deals can’t answer the question of artistic intention. Only we can. So while we fight those necessary battles over training data and compensation, maybe it’s productive for our own sake to simultaneously develop a healthier perspective about how AI tools, especially AI voices and AI music creation, can be used to express ourselves.

Matsutoya’s parting advice feels particularly crucial for this moment:

“Have a strong sense of self, both physically and mentally. If you know who you are, you can use technology efficiently to refine yourself. But you must have a strong core, especially in a future where a ‘copy’ of you might be possible. You have to know who you are.”

She continues:

Turning Threat Into Inspiration

What keeps me up at night as someone who straddles both worlds - the creative side as a producer and the business side as an artist manager/A&R: how all of this affects independent artists. Major labels just partnered with the companies they accused of theft, securing opt-in rights and compensation for their rosters. But what about everyone else?

There are a lot of unknowns at the moment, but I believe being an independent artist is more powerful now than ever. You don’t report to anyone, and you choose your own path. As long as you’re driven, stay curious, and have the right people in your corner making smart decisions with you, you can build a sustainable career. You don’t need a big team to reach your goals.

The support major label artists get can be powerful and limiting at the same time. So many are held hostage creatively, with labels refusing to release their music or put money behind it. And now with AI, if artists opt out, will labels treat them differently? Prioritize them less? No one’s worried about the Beyoncés and Taylor Swifts. It’s the emerging artists stuck in those contracts who I personally feel for.

If you’re an independent artist reading this, you should be proud. You have something major label artists don’t: complete control over how you engage with this technology for your craft.

The music industry has been here before. Recording technology, synthesizers, sampling, streaming - each time, we face the possibility of artistic doom. And each time, artists found a way to turn threat into inspiration.

The real artists, the ones with something genuine to say, will always stand out. The corporate deals matter, but artists like Heap and Matsutoya are already showing us what’s actually possible when you lead with intention instead of fear.

What do you think? How are you using AI technology for your art? What are your biggest concerns as an artist or manager? Drop your thoughts in the comments - I’d love to hear what you’re wrestling with on this.

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If you’re a self-managed artist, you probably know that spiral — that deep, uneasy feeling that you’re being swallowed by a music industry evolving faster than you can keep up.

Every day, there’s a new headline about AI music platforms or AI “artists” gaining traction. It’s hard enough to break through when more than 100,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify every day. The market’s oversaturated.

Now we’re watching AI artists sign million-dollar record deals while independent artists barely scrape together $5K for their next single. Major labels sue platforms like Suno and Udio for using copyrighted material, yet partner with them so they win either way.

Meanwhile, independent artists are left on their own to “figure it all out” — trying to release music, grow their careers, and somehow make a living.

I get it. I come from the creative side (musician, studio engineer, producer)— and now I run a creative studio built to help artists navigate this exact chaos. I hear the same anxieties every week from my artists. My job is to take some of that pressure off, to make strategy and execution feel like support, not survival, so they can stay focused on their art.

Losing the “Why”

It’s completely normal to feel like you’re losing your “why.” Especially when you spend most of your time creating content, so you don’t get punished by algorithms, all while chasing industry shifts. You start to forget why you make music in the first place.

There’s something about today’s AI headlines that goes beyond an artistic and business threat — it feels existential. For music creators, it can make the weeks you spent learning how to use a DAW or crafting a bridge feel… replaceable.

But the real problem isn’t the tool. It’s the mindset it’s being sold with.

The Speed Trap: When Innovation Forgets the Artist

The music industry today is being driven by music-tech startups — fast, venture-backed, and optimized for profit. They build under the assumption that this is what artists want: instant results, automation, and efficiency.

But in the creative world, any platform built on speed and convenience will eventually fall short on what really matters: authenticity, sonic quality, and uniqueness, or what we often call in the studio, the “danger” — that slightly unhinged edge that makes people lean in and really listen.

And sure, the speed-first model might work for creators who value quantity over quality — for those who want to release endless lo-fi tracks in an automated way (no shade, I love lo-fi music).

But if you consider yourself an artist — someone who lives inside their work — that’s why you’re here reading this. Because the truth is: the current generation of AI music platforms isn’t built for real artists. At least, not yet.

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The Disconnect

Suno’s CEO, Mikey Shulman, infamously said on a podcast:

“It’s not really enjoyable to make music now… it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice. The majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.”

But that statement shouldn’t mean much to working artists. It comes from a technical mindset — a background in physics rather than the daily grind of songwriting, recording, and creating.

Making music isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to move you, challenge you, and sometimes frustrate you. That tension — the highs, the lows, the rewrites — is the process. It’s a vulnerable journey.

Anyone who’s ever made a record knows what I mean.

You have days where creativity flows effortlessly and others where nothing works, and you spend hours chasing one sound you might mute later. But that’s the craft. That’s record-making.

In my experience working in the studio with both major and indie artists, no one ever complains about the grind. In fact, many of them love being in the studio more than touring, because that’s where their real storytelling comes to life.

The Artist’s Way to Staying in Control

Here are a few ways to protect your creative core while embracing AI as an ally, not a threat.

1. Reframe AI as an “Idea Accelerator”

Writer’s block — we’ve all been there.

AI can actually help you move through it. Stop thinking of it as a rival. Think of it as a starter spark. Use it to generate your raw, unrefined ideas — a chord progression, a rhythm, a texture, when you’re stuck.

Then take those sketches into your DAW and turn them into something you. Re-record, reshape, rewrite. Bring in players. Add your voice and storytelling.

AI shouldn’t finish the song for you — it should just get you unstuck so you can focus on what only you can do.

2. Double Down on the “Me-Only” Skills

The moments when you feel most connected to your “why” are usually when you create something that could only come from you. That’s your superpower — the “danger” that gives your work soul.

In the studio, 100% of the best decisions come from gut instinct, emotion, and the “goosebump” test. Someone says, “Can we try taking out everything except vocals, piano, and sub bass?” — and suddenly the song clicks. You get chills.

Obviously, AI doesn’t have gut instincts. It can only output what it’s learned from others, which isn’t necessarily what’s right for your music. Only you know what feels good. It can’t feel the tension of a key change or the emotional release of a bridge. It doesn’t have taste, intuition, or the life experiences that give your music meaning.

3. Protect Your Rights and Your Process

One of the biggest issues today is that AI models are trained on existing works, including yours — often without permission.

As an independent artist, ownership is survival.

As more music platforms like Spotify are changing how metadata is submitted, especially for AI-related content, get a head start by documenting your creative process.

Keep your session files, early versions, and raw stems that show how your song evolved. If you use AI at any stage, save your prompts and edits. This not only protects your copyright but also proves your human contribution.

If AI is learning from you to generate output, then there’s no reason you can’t do the same with it. The key is not to get too comfortable with the convenience of AI, to the point where your music starts sounding like it, instead of you.

Never forget the power of your imperfections, your timing, your choices — that’s your sacred territory. Protect it.

Make AI work for you. You call the shots.

Don’t lose your “danger”.

So, here’s a question for you:

What’s one creative task you currently spend too much time on — or struggle with — that you’d be willing to offload to an AI partner this week?

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