Virality and Vulnerability: Navigating Sudden Success in Music
You went viral - now what?
A young, unknown university student uploads a cover of one of her favourite songs recorded in her bedroom onto TikTok and it goes viral overnight. She has no music industry experience prior to this moment. 150 million Spotify streams and remixes later, she is still a young university student who is relatively anonymous. Her DM’s are out of control from industry people contacting her and she has no trusted ally in the music industry who she can navigate this scenario with. Who can she trust? Who will have her back and guide her to make the right decision?
Another emerging artist drops a stylised skateboarding video with her latest track playing over it. Within two months, it racks up 5 million views. Like the first, she’s flooded with offers - but without a solid team behind her, she’s unsure who to trust or what steps to take next.
Going viral means a piece of content - often a video - spreads rapidly across social media, reaching a massive audience in a short time. In the music industry, something that goes viral usually means you’re immediately on the radar of big labels, producers, managers and wider industry and it can often send off a bidding war to be signed.
For many this is such an exciting moment - to have the luxury to pick and choose who to work with and have large monetary offers on the table that could change your life and career trajectory.
However, when artists - like the two scenarios from earlier - don’t have infrastructure around them, like an experienced manager or trusted ally in their corner, it can lead to overwhelm, paranoia and confusion about what the best decision might be for their career.
So here’s a few ways an artist could navigate this situation.
Hire a music industry lawyer (on a fixed fee, not a percentage). It often surprises artists when I tell them that their lawyer is their most trusted ally in the industry, even more so than their manager, and here’s why. A manager’s motive is usually to sign a big monetary deal that they get 20% of, likely from a recording advance, publishing, brand or sync deal. A lawyer’s motive is to charge for your time, e.g. £300 an hour and hit a monthly target of billing required to their firm. A manager might sway you to take a bigger deal even if it’s not aligned with your brand, whereas a lawyer’s role is to be objective and lay out the facts so you can make the right decision. A lawyer is also extremely well connected so can help you connect with managers that they trust.
Reach out to an established manager of a very different genre to see if you can pay them for their time and expertise to help you weigh up your options. An experienced manager will be used to different types of offers and deals and can give you advice on how to navigate to next steps. Why a different genre? They won’t be motivated to sign you to their roster if their experience lies within a particular genre. e.g. rock or classical music.
Pay another music industry exec for their time, knowledge and advice. Transactions make intentions clear. Paying for time and guidance ensures the advice is honest and not driven by hidden agendas. If a relationship grows from there, it’s on your terms.
Of the two artists I mentioned earlier - I will be meeting with both of them as a trusted music industry advisor to help them navigate this complex (but exciting) time. We’ll sit down and have a strategy session to map out their next 12 months, entirely on their terms. The goal is to empower these artists to walk into any music industry meeting with a plan that was theirs from the start.
Going viral might open the door, but what happens next defines your journey. My hope is that more young artists feel empowered to take control, ask the right questions, and build the kind of team that sees them, not just their stats. If you’re one of those artists, know this: you don’t have to figure it all out alone.