Releasing More Music Is Killing Your Fanbase (Here's What to Do Instead)

Do you ever wonder why you keep dropping music every 30 days but you're getting no traction? Truth is, if your music is dope enough, people don't want more of it. They're suffering from fatigue and desire something bigger — so let's fill that desire.

All of the technocrats on the big platforms—from Instagram to Spotify and everywhere else—want you to create more content and release more music to level up in the music game. The thing is, you actually believe that's what your audience needs. They have their own reasons for wanting you to think that, but it's not actually true. They're just telling you to keep flowing through their systems. The reality is, your customers desire something a little more in-depth than just more music and content.

For many of you guys, this will be a brand new concept, but for those who've been in the game for a while, you will find that this will help enhance what you're already doing.

I intend to help you understand what your audience wants from you, not what you think they want from you. And I'm going to give you a quick roadmap that will turn things around for you

Over the past 20 years, I've helped a lot of artists get started — that's my thing. I'm probably one of the best igniters of careers you've ever seen, and everyone wants to drop more and more music, so let's go ahead and put those rumors to rest.

I reached this conclusion because many of you want to follow the Russ method. It was a tried and true method for the time, and you want to release music every week, but I guarantee you we don't want music every week. We want the best offering from you each step of the way. And I know this to be true because there are a lot of industry tastemakers grappling with the fact that music projects are terrible because people are rushing. This whole thing came about from the era when people could make more music than the amount that can fit on a vinyl record. 90-minute cassettes came out, then 90-minute CDs were out, and just because you can put more music on there doesn't mean that you should. Eventually, people started doing excessive amounts in the streaming 1.0 era.

What dawned on me is that people don't want more music—they just want you to promote the best music to them, sell the best music to them, and give them the best experience possible so that your album can be remembered in time.

Pause the Production

Right now you're producing so much music, and that may be necessary to find the right songs that will fit with your projects, but we don't need every unreleased song. What we need as consumers and fans is the best songs. You've got to pause the production and you've got to wean out what works and what doesn't.

The reason why you're getting stuck releasing all these songs is that you're throwing things at people to see what sticks, and people actually want to be told what to listen to — they don't actually want to make the choice themselves. They want convenience. This means you have to promote your music to them after you've tested your music with small groups of people to know that it is worth promoting.

I've lived through the physical era coming into the digital era as a collector and consumer, and I've promoted records for independent labels as well as my own, and I've got to tell you that in order to get the most juice out of what you're producing, you're gonna have to work your records. There's no other way to do it; otherwise, you will exhaust yourself doing too much production, you'll exhaust your fanbase with too much music, and you won't be making enough cash flow to sustain yourself.

Stop dropping music just to stay active. Music with no purpose = product waste.

I want you to test the best songs that you believe you have with small groups of people to see if it is a viable candidate to promote. Once you've decided upon the viable records to promote, build a content and promotions strategy around it and then finally execute that strategy to deliver it to the people and your current fan base. Then you need to rinse and repeat this method.

I get that you feel you need a bunch of songs to get your fans, but you don't. You just need a great song with a great promotional run.

Give yourself time to work the records, so you can judge the responses and then put the next record in the queue. People will begin to appreciate your promotion efforts because at the end of the day, people want to be told what to do. They actually want convenience. They don't want to make the decisions themselves like you think they do.

Package the Problem You Solve

Even though slowing down and choosing the best record to promote is an amazing idea, it's still going to fall short of what your fans truly want. Which means your promotional efforts fall on deaf ears. Two-thirds of the people you promote to will go unserved.

This happens because everyone is stuck on putting all of their fans into the Spotify box.

If you keep putting all fans into the Spotify box, your fans that did have the bread to break with you will take it elsewhere.

Once a person becomes a fan of yours, their wallet is open — trust me, all you have to do is ask. As a fan of artists, I'm ready to spend if the offer is right.

So, what you have to do is package the problem you solve. Which means you have to serve fans who think "I need to use this music for something," "Owning this music says something about me, I have to have it!" "This music means something to me, and I want to support it." Three different packages for: Use Cases, Bragging Rights, and the Factory Tour.

These packages satisfy the other two-thirds of your audience that you left over at Spotify that had open wallets and purses but you put them in the same pot as all of the browsers and window shoppers.

Once you make this change you'll never look at the music industry the same. Not because you won't — it's because you'll be making too much money to look back because you've crossed over into the world of influencers.

If you think this isn't true, just look at all of the top independent artists that are making a killing and you'll find this framework.

Build The Offer Stack

Now that you have the best song and the packaged problem, you may think that's all you need, but in reality, you have to provide the components of the package and make sure fans understand the benefits for them.

The reason most artists can't sell is because they don't know how to communicate how fans will make their lives better if they listen to, buy, or experience their products.

When I buy music, I pay for an emotional high, for information, and to satisfy my collection habits to gain bragging rights. Believe me, your fans do the same.

List out the benefits fans will get when they buy your products. Because at the end of the day, people don't spend money to downgrade their lives—they spend money to improve and upgrade their lives. And if you don't know what that is, then another artist who understands how will do it for you.

If it sounds like you just started trapping with your music, you did!

Here’s what you can do!

If you think things will change by bombarding your fans with a bunch of music, it won't. I can promise you that. So the real question is: will you make a change to fix what you're doing, or continue doing it how you've been doing to prove me wrong? How much longer can you afford not to correct your product and promotional efforts? If you need help with understanding this method even more, join the Music Money Makers every Monday at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time as we talk about situations like this live. If you need a system to support all of this money you’re about to make grab my 60 Day record label system as well.

Back Off That Cliff…

When you do this, you're not going to lose momentum or visibility, and your fans who were expecting the music will applaud your step up in promotion. And you don't have to worry about money because you don't have to spend a lot to create products for these initial fans. You just have the "maybe it won't work" anxiety, and I understand. However, just take that overwhelm you feel and break it down into tiny pieces so you can execute this strategy with minimal losses. Remember, successful artists aren't necessarily the ones who release the most music - they're the ones who make every release count.

What’s it going to cost to keep doing it your way

If you continue releasing music without a strategic plan, you're burning through time, money, and creative energy with diminishing returns. Not only are you exhausting yourself creatively, but you're also training your audience to devalue your art. Each rushed release that underperforms is a missed opportunity to build real momentum and connection with your fans.

At the End of the Day

The choice is clear: you can either keep flooding the market with music that gets lost in the noise, or you can build a strategic system that turns your art into sustainable income. It's time to stop being just another artist releasing music and start being a savvy creator who knows how to package and promote their work for maximum impact. Your fans are waiting for you to give them something worth investing in. Will you do it?