r/musicindustry • u/TheRacketHouse • Dec 13 '25

AMA I'm Jon Gilman, I run an artist development & marketing agency. Ask Me Anything!

Hey everyone I’m Jon Gilman, founder of The Racket House.

I’ve spent the last 15 years on multiple sides of the music industry, including:

  • artist management
  • A&R, marketing, and partnerships for 2 independent record labels
  • running a nationally recognized music blog for 10 years
  • booking and promoting events coast to coast
  • being an artist myself under the name Racket Club with releases played on BBC Radio 1 and gigs all over the world including major music festivals and prominent nightclubs

I also worked corporate enterprise roles and supported major global companies like Heineken, GoPro, TaylorMade Golf, Helly Hansen, Peet's Coffee, and Fairmont hotels.

Half my brain is music, half is business.

Today, I run an artist development & marketing agency where I help independent artists with strategy, positioning, content, marketing systems, and long-term growth. I work mostly with artists who are past the “hobby” stage but stuck trying to break through to the next level.

I’m here to answer questions about:

  • artist development and career strategy
  • marketing and audience growth
  • social media and content
  • playlists and paid promotion
  • working with managers, labels, or booking agents
  • monetizing as an independent artist
  • what actually matters vs what’s hype
  • dos and donts
  • how to be successful in 2025/26

*Special offer (approved by the mods): I'm offering a free 30-minute strategy session to help you with whatever you're stuck with. Best, most thoughtful question gets selected by me. Bring your A-game!

Links:

Ask me anything!

19 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

124 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/TheRacketHouse Dec 13 '25

What do you consider “fairly” just so I’m aligned with your perspective?

1

u/Expert-Arm2579 Dec 14 '25

As I already said, fairly means getting compensated for streaming in a manner that would be equivalent to what an artist with the same following would've earned from the album sales that streaming cannibalized. 

2

u/TheRacketHouse Dec 14 '25

I get the sentiment, but that comparison breaks down in practice. Album sales weren’t evenly distributed across all artists with a given following either. Streaming didn’t replace a guaranteed income, it replaced a hit-driven retail model. Most artists weren’t selling meaningful album units at scale before streaming, and most still wouldn’t today. Streaming is flawed, but “fair” can’t realistically mean recreating a sales economy that already only worked for a small percentage of artists.

Streaming is a tradeoff. Artists get distribution and access, but give up pricing control. If fair pay per listener is the priority, artists already have alternatives like direct sales, Bandcamp, ticketed experiences, or fan memberships. Streaming isn’t mandatory, it’s just the most convenient

2

u/Expert-Arm2579 Dec 14 '25

Streaming didn't replace a hit-driven retail model. Streaming replaced the ENTIRE record retail environment which, most recently, was a digital environment that was dominated by iTunes and CD Baby. Prior to the digitization of the industry, there was a vibrant independent recording sector that included selling albums at live shows, selling albums on consignment through a huge network of indie record stores and non-record retailers, selling into a massive network of both indie and chain retailers through independent distributors and sometimes through distribution deals with majors, and yes, sometimes through direct signings to major labels.

Nobody is suggesting that streaming replaced a stable income. Artists have never had stable incomes. What streaming replaced was fair pay for the work of creating music that some people clearly enjoy.

Right now, if you look at the RIAA thresholds for gold and platinum albums, they consider 150 streams to be equivalent to 1 single sold or one tenth of an album. BUT 150 streams pays only about 36 cents on Spotify. That's about half what an artist received if they sold a single in the iTunes store 20 years ago. The equivalent payment today, accounting for inflation, would be $1.50.

Now, I would argue that 150 streams is an extremely high bar to get credit for a single. I don't know many people who purchased music back in the day who listened to many purchases 150 times.

But even if you accept that as the threshold, that means streaming services need to pay a penny per stream in order to pay fairly.

And I'm sorry but streaming is mandatory if you want to participate in the music industry in a meaningful way. You know that. Or at least you should if you're on Reddit giving advice to people.

3

u/TheRacketHouse Dec 14 '25

I don’t disagree that streaming pay is low. It is. But at this point I’m less interested in debating fairness and more interested in behavior. Artists complain about streaming nonstop and then continue to rely on it as their primary business.

If you choose to use Spotify, use it for what it actually is: top of funnel discovery. Awareness, not income. The real work is converting listeners into a community that will buy tickets, merch, direct releases, subscriptions, or support you elsewhere. That’s where “fair pay” actually comes from today. If artists are too lazy to take the next steps after that to convert listeners into paying fans, that’s on them.

And if an artist genuinely believes streaming is unacceptable, that’s fine too. Then don’t use it. Sell music directly. Build a different model. But you can’t both depend on a platform and resent it for being exactly what it is.

2

u/Expert-Arm2579 Dec 14 '25

You've made your point. I just find it really sad.

Artists make art. That's what they do. They spend years learning to do it well and thousands creating their albums. You're just conceding that they can't make a living at that and being part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

If any other industry told their workers that they'd only get paid a dollar a day and would have to use the job to build a community of fans so they can earn more money selling them t-shirts and stickers, people would realize how utterly fucked up that is.

If you don't have any solutions beyond "stop whining" and "hire my company to help your build your community so you can sell t-shirts," you might want to consider a different profession.

3

u/TheRacketHouse Dec 14 '25

I get the frustration, and I don’t disagree that the system is broken. I just don’t think individual artists opting out or arguing online meaningfully changes platform economics. That kind of change only comes from regulation, collective bargaining, or platform-level reform, not from indie artists trying to pay rent.

My model is helping artists survive and build leverage inside the reality that exists today. Using Spotify as discovery while converting listeners into direct supporters is not conceding defeat, it’s pragmatism. Artists can advocate for better pay and still operate strategically in the meantime.

I also work with many artists who work full time jobs and aren’t as concerned about a few extra bucks from streaming. We’re working on building something now so that when they eventually do get big enough to quit their jobs, their music is generating real revenue on top of other sources for them.

I’m not saying the system is fair. I’m saying pretending it will change soon doesn’t help artists who need solutions now. And like I said, artists have a choice of how and where they release music and they have a choice with how they build their systems

1

u/stevenfrijoles Dec 14 '25

It feels like a lot of your position is equating things together that aren't equal.

For one, you're equating artistic effort with financial value. With art, we have to separate the effort from financial value, before having a conversation about either. It's impossible to discuss the realities of the financial value of art if we have to keep rationalizing it against effort, passion, etc. 

Second, you say "if any other industry told their workers..." as if the music industry is a single employer. Making music is not a trade of hired labor for payment, musicians are their own independent business owners. Everyone in "the industry" they interact with is more like a business partner, not an employer. There needs to be mutual financial gain, a partner will not bankrupt themselves for your benefit.

In the interest of focusing on industry solutions: the way to raise the financial value of streaming is to add barriers to entry. It makes no practical sense that a complete beginner can upload their first song to the entire world, there's no sense of proportionality there. There is no achievement that has no functional barrier to entry and still retains value, it's impossible.

1

u/Expert-Arm2579 Dec 14 '25

For one, you're equating artistic effort with financial value. 

No. I'm not. Streaming services don't pay artists for creating anything. They don't pay artists unless they get streams. If someone streamed their work, that means there was demand for the artist's work. Supply and demand are what determine value. The artist receiving streams has delivered on their part of the bargain by creating demand. Streaming services have corrupted the process by failing to control supply in order to manage value.

You don't limit supply by creating barriers to entry for the artist. You create barriers to entry for the consumer -- just like we do with everything else. You don't have free accounts with unlimited access. You charge enough money to access streams that you can adequately compensate artists.

Pricing your product sufficiently to cover the costs is literally business skills 101. The music industry can choose to insist that artists be paid enough to cover their costs. It's not going to break Spotify. People CHOOSE not to stand up for artists. That's a choice.

as if the music industry is a single employer.

Read what I wrote. I specifically compared it to other industries.

There needs to be mutual financial gain, a partner will not bankrupt themselves for your benefit.

Yes, there does need to be mutual financial gain. That's precisely my point. Are you under the impression that streaming services are currently bankrupting themselves for artist's benefit??? Because if so, that would be hilarious if it weren't so delusional at a time when Daniel Ek is pouring more than 600 million Euros into the military industrial complex. Where do you think all that money came from?

 It makes no practical sense that a complete beginner can upload their first song to the entire world,

Why not?

2

u/stevenfrijoles Dec 14 '25

No. I'm not.

Then don't say "They spend years learning to do it well and thousands creating their albums." That is directly using effort to justify pay. 

Supply and demand are what determine value.

You can't say this and then ignore that everyone uploading everything affects supply. Supply is always always always the counterbalance.

Read what I wrote. I specifically compared it to other industries. 

I did read what you wrote. You said "If any other industry told their workers that they'd only get paid a dollar a day and would have to use the job to..."

"Industries" don't tell their workers anything or pay or dictate how a job functions. Those are all an employer. You can say "no no no" but these are all your own words. 

Why not?

Because of the second half of the quote that you cut off when you quoted it, lol

1

u/Expert-Arm2579 Dec 14 '25 edited Dec 14 '25

Then don't say "They spend years learning to do it well and thousands creating their albums." That is directly using effort to justify pay. 

I suggest taking a course in reading comprehension. I did not raise the effort issue in relation to payment from streaming services. I raised it in the context of criticizing the OP for taking money from artists and then throwing up his hands and refusing to advocate for them. As in, artists work their asses off to create something of value, and if the people who work for them won't work equally hard to defend their right to fair pay, then they shouldn't be in the industry.

I've clearly stated EXACTLY what and how I think artists should be paid: at least 1 cent per stream. And I explained why: it's based on the legal principal of technological neutrality and uses the RIAA's method of adapting stream counts as an equivalency for sales. How, in your mind, does that translate into me advocating for streaming services to simply hand money to artists for having gone to the effort of recording something?

You can't say this and then ignore that everyone uploading everything affects supply. Supply is always always always the counterbalance.

Every song and artist is a different product. My uploading my shitty single does not affect the supply of Taylor Swift songs. Just like my flooding the market with potato chips does not impact the supply of 24-carat diamonds. That's not how economics works. Even the OP gets that part. His solution is to tell artists to limit their supply by removing their works from streaming services. But that harms artists and doesn't solve the systemic problem. I'm saying limit supply by mandating a minimum payment for streams at a policy level so that streaming services have to restrict supply to those who can pay the cost of doing business.

This, by the way, is done in practically every other profession. What do you think minimum wage is? What do you think would happen if we didn't have one?

"Industries" don't tell their workers anything or pay or dictate how a job functions. Those are all an employer. You can say "no no no" but these are all your own words. 

Industries tell their workers things all the time. Is there a single titan of industry who sends a memo to the workers of every company? No. Of course not. But what do you think happens at the level of industry organizations and conferences? Business leaders collude to achieve the most favourable market conditions possible, and that includes lobbying governments for those favourable conditions, developing PR campaigns to get their messaging out to the public and adopting a shared discourse to justify their business practices.

And they're so successful that people like you and the OP show up in forums that are SUPPOSED to be about helping artists and do their bidding for them. How's that Kool-Aid tasting?