The weight of creating content is crushing artists - we need a new approach

Keakie’s Head Of Curation, Tom Whiter, makes the case for taking the pressure off artists when it comes to content creation.

An Artist’s Frustration

In a parallel universe, on 2nd January, singer-songwriter Chelsea Cutler would have tweeted a picture she’d spent the day painting after an impromptu trip to a craft store. Her followers would have scrolled past her post on their timelines and perhaps wondered if this was the first look at artwork for her next EP, a few likes and replies thrown in for good measure.

Instead she spent the day enjoying the time away from her phone, only worrying later that she should’ve transformed a relaxing Sunday into an event for her socials. This nagging doubt grew to the point that she felt she had to say something, so, a day later, she published a handful of screenshots, her frustrations typed straight into her phone’s Notes app:

“It feels exhausting to constantly be thinking of how to turn my daily life into ‘content’ especially knowing that I feel best mentally when I spend less time on my phone. It also feels exhausting to be told by everyone in the industry that this is the only effective way to market music right now.”

“Scary to post this but would rather be honest as I imagine this is something a lot of people might feel lately.”

‘A lot’, it turns out, was an understatement and the ensuing success of her post was an irony not lost on her. In serving up some honest vulnerability, she tripled her usual likes on Instagram and had support in the comments from artists ranging from James Blake and Julia Michaels to Ryan Tedder and Niall Horan. It’s a level of engagement that would have had label execs asking why their artist couldn’t share such heartfelt introspection.

In tapping into this widespread dissatisfaction, Cutler found some catharsis: “It definitely totally made me feel like I’m less insane to see so many other people validating what I’ve been feeling,” she said, “there’s definitely no black or white solution for sure. I think the best thing that can come out of this right now is just starting dialogues and trying to have actual conversations about it, instead of being hesitant to speak up.”

It poses an obvious question. What if there was another way to let artists tell their story? One that didn’t leave them feeling drained and anxious, or restricted them to a character limit, or forced them to work out how to make it onto their fans’ For You pages?

Chelsea Cutler’s recent social media post has sparked a debate around the pressures of being an artist and content creator.

Keakie’s Solution

Not every artist can be as natural on camera as a Lewis Capaldi or Lizzo (being effortlessly funny and self-deprecating is a tough combination to pull off) but it’s safe to assume that they’re all music fans. If you can combine that enthusiasm with the right outlet, the results are often compelling - think Mark’s Ronson’s TED talk on sampling, Disclosure’s production tutorials on Twitch or Little Simz’s 101FM radio show.

That’s why, at Keakie, our approach is to provide a home for these passion projects. We give artists the chance to go in-depth on subjects they care about by offering them a platform where their work will be treasured; hosted alongside other quality shows and mixes, beautifully illustrated and presented in full as they were intended. Not lost in a sea of content, scrolled past and quickly forgotten.

It could be a niche interest in free jazz, an oral history of their favourite underground venue, or a mix of their latest album’s influences; if they’re into it, then so are we.

We present it to a curious audience keen to know more and, in return, help the artist build a following and know more about who is listening. We don’t require them to learn a second career in stand-up comedy, give up any semblance of a private life, or broadcast their innermost feelings on a daily basis.

Of course, there are plenty of artists for whom hosting a show would be just as draining as maintaining a social media profile. For those daunted by the prospect, there’s another solution. It starts with centring the people often under-appreciated when it comes to the music ecosystem - the selectors, curators and creatives panning for gold in the river of never-ending releases.

Curation Is An Art Form

It’s more than likely, as a new music fan, that you’re utilising the skills of just such a creative already. You might be listening to a playlist they’ve made on Spotify, following their Instagram account posting videos of DJs playing clubs around the world, dancing at the festival stage they’ve booked, or hearing their musical choices on the latest series of Love Island. But unless they’re a stellar name DJ or hosting a show on a national radio station, you probably won’t know who they are.

At Keakie, we feel that does them a disservice. These are people acting as a quality filter who you trust to do the hard work of finding the signal in the noise. With the barriers to making music disappearing over the last decade - namely the vast drop in the cost of production and promotion - listeners’ options have risen exponentially, deciding what to choose has become paralysing. It’s obvious to us, therefore, that these selectors are more important than ever.

So, we want to democratise this gatekeeper position. If you’ve got great taste and you can tell a story, then there’s room for your show at Keakie. Even better if you’re lifting up artists and representing communities that aren’t heard elsewhere - we won’t be happy until we have an encyclopaedia of niches from around the world. After all, the best way to discover something new and expand your horizons is being shown the way by someone who’s an expert in their scene.

We’d go even further; this curation should be seen as an art form in itself, and the people who make it, artists. It’s no longer considered controversial to think of turntables as a musical instrument when you can DJ for GCSE music, so we want DJs and show hosts to be recognised and appreciated in the same way as those making the music being played.

By valuing these people properly (at Keakie they can build a following and monetise their content just like artists) and giving them a platform to provide a window into their world, you build the connections between artists (and the scenes of which they’re a part) and an audience. Artists get heard, curators build reputations, listeners discover something new - everybody wins.

“If you’ve got great taste and you can tell a story, then there’s room for your show at Keakie.”

Our vision of the future

Universal Chairman and CEO, Lucian Grange, said in his New Year’s email to staff that he thinks the music industry is at the “very beginning of a new wave of growth”; as opportunities to monetise music begin to emerge in nascent sectors like fitness, gaming and the connected car, the pressure on artists is only going to grow, especially as social platforms saturate. Simply telling them to “do more content, and do it better” won’t work as a motivational speech.

That’s why (as good marketing and management teams do already) we need to offer artists bespoke solutions. A world in which musicians can be left to make music on their terms, while selectors, curators and DJs build a bridge between that work and an audience needs to be nurtured.

By using discerning curation, and putting those creatives front and centre, we’re building an audio library of different musical scenes and perspectives. One in which artists can tell their own story, or let a new class of artist celebrating their work bring the audience to them.