- 6 minutes ago
How do songs go viral in today’s music landscape? And why has making it as an artist never been more strategic? Jesse Coren and Andrew Spelman, co-founders of Chaotic Good, joined Billboard On The Record for a live episode at SXSW to break it all down. Speaking from their experience building one of the leading viral marketing agencies in music, they explain how TikTok trends, niche audiences and volume-driven campaigns shape which songs take off. Coren and Spelman share how they simulate trends, optimize placements and use data to help artists reach the right listeners while freeing them to focus on their art. From algorithm insights to creative strategy, they reveal what it really takes to turn a song into a hit and navigate the fast-changing world of music discovery.
Love what you hear? Follow Billboard On The Record on Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube @billboard so you never miss an episode.
Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
Love what you hear? Follow Billboard On The Record on Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube @billboard so you never miss an episode.
Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
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MusicTranscript
00:00How do songs really go viral?
00:02Sure, it could be something as simple as a single singing video posted to TikTok that just totally explodes.
00:07But now trying to engineer virality has become a big business in the industry.
00:12Perhaps no one knows more about how modern songs go viral than my guests today,
00:16Jesse Koren and Andrew Spellman, two of the co-founders of Chaotic Good.
00:20These are some of the music industry's go-to digital marketers.
00:24From Geese to Zara Larson, Travis Scott, and Alex Warren,
00:27the Chaotic Good team has had a hand in making sure new songs reach listeners
00:31in a time when 100,000 songs are uploaded every day.
00:34An AI slot makes it harder to find good new hits than ever.
00:42Welcome back to On The Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and Sickbird Productions.
00:46As always, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and this week we're doing something a little bit different.
00:51We are at South by Southwest in Austin at the Billboard house,
00:54talking to some incredibly smart executives in front of a live audience.
00:57I'm joined in this episode by Jesse Koren and Andrew Spellman,
01:01two of the co-founders of Chaotic Good.
01:03Jesse and Andrew, at their core, are artist managers.
01:06After successfully building a management company called Mutual Friends,
01:09which is home to talents like Chelsea Cutler, Jeremy Zucker, Quinn92, and more,
01:14the pair said that they were inspired to start Chaotic Good
01:16because of the challenges they saw artists go through every day
01:19when trying to promote their music online.
01:21The truth is, back in the day, labels could basically engineer a hit song.
01:25There used to be all these different levers that they could pull,
01:28including late-night show performances, MTV, radio stations, press, etc.
01:34They could even guarantee that you would be put in the front of record stores,
01:37making it seem like an unknown artist was actually the hottest thing out there.
01:41Relationships went a really long way back then,
01:43and labels had both that and a bunch of money to spend.
01:47But today, many of the gatekeepers are gone,
01:49and now music discovery is largely dictated by the whims of algorithms,
01:54especially those on TikTok.
01:55That's where Chaotic Good and other digital marketing companies like it have come in.
01:59They're hired by record labels to come in and find a way to crack the algorithm.
02:02In 2020, which predated Chaotic Good, it was the influencer campaign.
02:07Pay a popular girl on TikTok to play her song in the background of a video.
02:10But now, even that doesn't work super well.
02:13That's when the idea of volume campaigns,
02:16or as Chaotic Good calls it, trend simulation, started to take over.
02:20So basically, instead of paying a handful of top creators to use your song in a video,
02:24what if you created this network of hundreds to thousands of small TikTok accounts,
02:29plugged the songs into the background of those videos,
02:32and created what looks like a groundswell of genuine interest in the song?
02:35These creative pages are often themed,
02:38whether it's a fan page for the artist,
02:40or meme pages, sports clips, love quotes.
02:43All of these types of accounts can be used as vehicles to share songs in the background.
02:47This might sound simple, but pulling this off is no easy feat.
02:51So today, we're here to talk to Jesse and Andrew about how they do it.
02:55So let's go ahead and cut to our conversation at South by Southwest.
02:58All right. Hello, hello, hello.
03:02Welcome back to our second live taped episode of On the Record,
03:06which is Billboard's new music business podcast.
03:08We are going to discuss all things virality.
03:11How do songs go viral today in this incredibly crowded landscape?
03:15I'm joined here by Jesse Corrin and Andrew Spellman.
03:18They are the founders of Chaotic Good,
03:20which is a digital agency used by so many people, it's hard to count.
03:25But a lot of labels hire them, artists, managers,
03:28all in the service of breaking their songs online.
03:31So thank you guys for being here.
03:33Thanks for having us.
03:34All right.
03:35Okay, so I figured that we could start by just talking about the history of TikTok marketing,
03:39the very short history of TikTok marketing, because it's already changed.
03:43The online landscape has already changed a million times since TikTok was,
03:47you know, popularized in like about 2020.
03:50So Andrew, do you mind explaining to me like kind of the
03:54progression of TikTok marketing for artists?
03:56Yeah, for sure.
03:56I think in a lot of ways, it's changed a ton.
04:00But like the core principles of what we do to make a song go viral,
04:03like are the same, which is like, we are looking for like underpriced,
04:08efficient places to put your songs where we think your audience will be.
04:11So that hasn't changed.
04:12But like when TikTok first started like proliferating,
04:15it was a lot of the old techniques applied to TikTok.
04:18So macro influencers or trigger markets or all these kind of concepts
04:21that are really popular in 2019 or 2020.
04:23So like, like a Charlie D'Amelio, like hire Charlie D'Amelio to use your song in a dance or
04:28something like that.
04:29Jesse and I worked on a record together before we were partners where we hired Dixie D'Amelio.
04:33Yeah, this is from, you know, five, six years ago and it made an impact.
04:35I think what we've seen the progression be and what we've done a chaotic good is kind of really think
04:40through what it means for like a feed to be algorithmic.
04:42And that really, really changes what your approach should be.
04:45So it's a lot more volume.
04:46It's a lot more thinking about niches and it's a lot more kind of like hand-to-hand combat.
04:50And so like our day-to-day isn't that different.
04:54Like we are kind of studying the internet and TikTok and seeing what's working organically
04:58and then trying to recreate it at scale inorganically.
05:00Okay.
05:01I've heard people talk about these kind of new age campaigns on TikTok and use a bunch of different ways
05:06to describe it.
05:07I've heard volume campaigns, I think y'all have said trend seeding before, where basically, can you describe exactly like
05:14what this means?
05:15We use the term trend simulation, which I think is useful.
05:18Basically what we're doing like every day is sometimes artists get lucky, they post a song and it goes viral.
05:25And so what we're doing is going and looking and studying what actually happened.
05:29Like, you know, what were the inflection points?
05:30Who are the key people that picked it up?
05:32Like what, who are important people in certain genres?
05:35Like, what are the niches?
05:36Why did this happen?
05:37And so then we have a song that isn't naturally going viral.
05:40We apply that to it.
05:41And so we say we're kind of simulating a trend.
05:43And part of that is also studying how the TikTok algorithm works, like what's important, how you want to pace
05:48out videos, all these kind of things.
05:50And so we can get into kind of the details there, but that's how we think about these song campaigns.
05:53Yeah.
05:53And what we've done, I think, since the like initial song UDC campaign is scale out a bunch more.
06:00So now we focus a lot on narratives and discourse online.
06:03And so it's not always even song specific.
06:06It could be, you know, a little bit more about an artist campaign or somebody who worked with another artist
06:11or, you know, we had somebody we work with who produced a big pop record.
06:16And so it became about how do we get that narrative out there ahead of their record that they were
06:20putting out.
06:21So, yeah, it stems a lot further now than just the song campaign.
06:26Yeah.
06:27I've heard it described to me before as like back in the day, it used to be top down for
06:31marketing.
06:31So it's like hiring your biggest creators you can find, paying them and having them use their song in a
06:36video.
06:37So now what you guys are describing, like practically speaking, is you run or have a network of a bunch
06:44of different accounts that are meme accounts or sports clips or truck videos or whatever these types of accounts are.
06:53And then you can plug the song into those.
06:55So it creates more of a groundswell effect rather than coming from the top down.
06:59Is that correct?
06:59Correct. That's correct. And there's a very like specific reason why this works on TikTok.
07:04A question I like to like kind of ask everyone in the music industry is, you know, why do no
07:09songs really break off Instagram reels?
07:11Like ostensibly, it is the same platform as TikTok.
07:14It's an algorithmic feed that you swipe on.
07:16There should be Instagram reel songs, but that kind of is not a category that exists.
07:19And the reason we think that's true is TikTok is entirely based around trending audios.
07:25Like that is the main primitive.
07:26It's like a really obvious point, but it has huge implications.
07:29And so on TikTok, it's really easy to get views.
07:32You just post trending audios.
07:33Like TikTok weights that really heavily in the algorithm.
07:35But artists can't do that because they want to promote their own music.
07:39And so a big part of what we are doing is posting enough volume across enough accounts with enough impressions
07:44to try to simulate the idea that the song is trending or moving or whatever you want to call it.
07:49And then as that happens, the artist posts are doing better and all this kind of thing.
07:52Because, you know, if you were building a new account, which we do many times a day, you would never
07:58post non-trending audios.
07:59It's worse practices, but artists have to.
08:01And so we view our job as kind of pushing against that and helping them.
08:04Interesting.
08:05Wait, so like how do you run all of these accounts?
08:08Do you just have a bunch of cell phones somewhere or?
08:10Yeah, pretty much.
08:12We have a large network of, you know, both employees and contractors and people in our network and, yeah, a
08:19lot of phones.
08:20We have a rapid Verizon at this point.
08:22We are like a VIP customer of them and our office is overrun with iPhones.
08:26And our partner, Adam, has this theory about which iPhone is best.
08:29It gets very, it gets deep very fast.
08:31Do you think it's more superstition or do you think there's actually merit to what he's saying?
08:36I think a lot of like trying to figure out the voodoo of the algorithm is.
08:40However, this is our job, like full time.
08:42And like we study it at like a collegiate level.
08:46And so, you know, anything to get an edge.
08:49Yeah.
08:49Can you tell when the TikTok algorithm changes?
08:53Like is there a moment where you're like, whoa, wait, what was working yesterday is all of a sudden not
08:56happening today?
08:58I think what we can tell is like, you know, I said TikTok is structured around trending audios.
09:02I think the other side of that coin is TikTok is structured on these kind of like trending formats.
09:07And so for a specific genre and a specific time, there will be a format that really works.
09:11I think what we're paying attention to is when that starts to have diminishing returns and we need to take
09:17our camp and set it up somewhere else.
09:18I think we really pay attention to that.
09:19I would say like algorithm changes is more so kind of on like Instagram and Reels as they're figuring it
09:25out.
09:26And so like if you listen to the meta earnings reports, which I doubt anyone does.
09:31But I'm not listening.
09:32You know, is view time on Instagram Reels is up 30 percent.
09:35And so that's a real thing.
09:36Like they're clearly perfecting the algorithm.
09:38And so we as a company have to pay more attention to it.
09:40We've been running a lot more experiments there.
09:42And I think a year from now, if you ask me like what's changed, I think it'll be that we've
09:45done a lot more on Instagram.
09:47That's very interesting.
09:48Yeah.
09:48Well, OK, so one of the big updates is that TikTok in the U.S. is now under new ownership.
09:53And I feel like personally, as a TikTok user, I've noticed that the algorithm is a little bit different.
09:58There's also a couple of days where I was getting like repeat videos that happened multiple times.
10:03But I'm wondering for you guys, has that impacted you?
10:07Have you seen that algorithmic change?
10:08No, I mean, I think it's more just being mindful of like the macro scale of what this means.
10:14And like Andrew said, like paying attention to what, you know, the competitors are doing and making sure that we're
10:21mindful of what things may change at any time.
10:24And we always say like we reserve, you know, a percentage of our bandwidth to kind of experiment and to
10:29make sure that we're building out the like, you know, emergency situation just in case something were to happen on,
10:36you know, any platform in this, in this case, TikTok that we use, you know, so heavily.
10:41And yeah, so I think that's it's more about, you know, I don't think we're seeing that much change right
10:46now, but it's a it's a signal that we should always make sure we're prepared for anything at any time.
10:51Yeah. And I'm wondering, you guys work across like pretty much every genre at this point, right?
10:56OK, so could you give me some like practical examples of types of content that resonates with certain audiences in
11:02certain genres?
11:03Because I imagine if you're working on a country song one day and a Latin song the next day, those
11:07are not going to be the same campaign to try to reach those audiences.
11:11So give me some examples.
11:12This is a really core principle of the company, which is, you know, we can drive impressions on anything.
11:17At this point, we know how to go viral.
11:18We have thousands of pages, but making sure that they are like not empty calories and that they are impressions
11:24that will actually find your audience.
11:26And so, you know, for a lot of underground rap songs, it'll be these kind of like stretched out clips
11:32of video games right now are really popular or like for a lot of like singer songwriter stuff.
11:36I'm sure a lot of people here have seen the kind of yellow text quotes.
11:40You know, we call that pastel talk.
11:41Like we think we were kind of the first people to do that.
11:44And now a lot of copiers and then you have to pivot to the next thing.
11:46And so, you know, when we spoke, you know, however many months ago that was on the countryside, it is
11:51a lot of trucks.
11:52It is a lot of cowboy hats and things like that.
11:55But it makes sense.
11:55Yeah.
11:56I think for us, one thing as it relates to our team is really focusing on hiring people who understand
12:02the niches and the genres.
12:03We feel like, you know, we can sort of teach anyone the principles that we have as a company on
12:09how to go viral and, you know, how to make an effective campaign.
12:11But I think that them being people who understand these niches and these genres like very, very intimately is a
12:19really, really important like core principle for us.
12:21Yeah.
12:22And well, OK, so let's get into like why you founded this company in the first place, because you guys
12:27are managers by trade, tried and true managers, have been managing for a long time through your other company, Mutual
12:33Friends.
12:33And did that inspire the creation of the digital marketing arm?
12:38Like, tell me more about that origin story.
12:40Yeah, totally.
12:40I mean, initially it wasn't let's start an agency.
12:45But I think we just, you know, recognized all the challenges that happened for us and for the artist.
12:51And, you know, we were in a time and I think still are where there's so much pressure on the
12:57artist.
12:57And, you know, it's how much are they posting?
13:00Have they posted today?
13:02Why haven't they posted, you know, the whole thing?
13:04And I think for us as managers, our job is to support the artist.
13:07And so, you know, for a while, I think, you know, we were used to sort of throwing our hands
13:14up and thinking, well, if they're not driving it from their page, then, you know, what can we do?
13:19And we sat for a little bit like two years ago, I would say, and we just recognized like this
13:24isn't going anywhere.
13:25We've had a lot of success in digital, but we're not doing enough.
13:28And so I think at that point, we knew we really wanted to strengthen how we were in digital as
13:34managers.
13:35And then it made us more aware and more, you know, made a top of mind for us.
13:40And then I would say it wasn't until we kind of met our partners, Adam and Tim, two really brilliant
13:46young Internet kids who were building something really interesting and had this approach that we had never really seen or
13:52heard of.
13:54And we decided at that point, like, this is not only something that will help us and our roster, but
13:59the industry needs.
14:01And so that was the idea to start the agency.
14:04Interesting.
14:04OK, so you guys feel very confident that you can make a song go viral online, but does that actually
14:09translate to streams all the time?
14:12And do you still consider a campaign to be a success if there is virality on TikTok, but maybe not
14:17a huge translation into streams on Spotify?
14:20That's a great question.
14:21I think the way we think about it is, you know, if there's a ton of virality, but we aren't
14:28seeing conversion to streaming, it's kind of like two options.
14:30Like there's something irreducible about the song that people just don't want to listen to.
14:34And that is something like we can't fully control.
14:36But the first thing we check is like, are we targeting the right people where the audience is?
14:40And so we may be driving a ton of views.
14:42There may be some trend happening, but it may not be connected to the song or may not be finding
14:47the audience of that artist.
14:49You know, if we still have a viral trend, like I think it can still be a really successful campaign.
14:54We manage an artist named Kevin Atwater, who we saw that there was a lot of overlap with his fan
14:59base and the show Yellowjackets.
15:01And so we'd been trying a lot of stuff for this song and we ended up putting a quote from
15:04the song like before the audio and it went crazy from the show.
15:09Like, you know, I feel it so deeply in my bones.
15:11I think it's a quote, something like that.
15:12And then the song starts and it went crazy.
15:14And the song has, you know, 40,000 creates on TikTok and it extremely improved a lot, but it's not
15:18like a crazy consumption hit.
15:19But what it's done is now every time he posts with the audio, his posts do well because he has
15:23this trending audio and it's tied to his brand.
15:25And now fans show up dressed as the characters and it's kind of been this huge like moment for him.
15:29So I view that as like a huge success for client on our roster, but it's not this kind of
15:33runaway TikTok number one hit.
15:36Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:37That's so interesting.
15:37I mean, you guys have run campaigns for all sorts of artists.
15:40I was looking through your Instagram, you know, you have artists on there like Coldplay and Zara Larson and Childish
15:45Gambino.
15:46Could you walk me through an example of what are these campaigns working and why you think it works so
15:52well?
15:53Maybe Childish Gambino or...
15:54Yeah, Childish Gambino is a fun one.
15:57The song is Let Our Home.
15:58And, you know, when we get a song, you know, we see it as a team, you know, the full,
16:03you know, we're 25 people.
16:04And we talk about what we've seen on the internet that week, what we think is going to work.
16:07And then we try to put it into action and we have like a very serious kind of like testing
16:12process and kind of like all of our tricks were not working.
16:16You know, we throw the fastball and the curveball and the other thing and it wasn't working.
16:21And then we kind of noticed one style of like quote on screen creators really working.
16:28But we weren't able to do it at a scale that was actually moving the needle.
16:31So Adam, who is one of our partners in the company who we mentioned, kind of had this like, fuck
16:37it, I'll do it myself mindset.
16:39And, you know, we are confident and so is he that we can train anyone to go viral.
16:43And so he just started training his friends, his brothers, his brother's friends and built this kind of like army
16:50of people to post on TikTok.
16:52And the song started going crazy, just driven off these people.
16:55I'd be swiping on my feet and seeing his brother, our employees going very viral.
17:00The song went like very high on the TikTok charts.
17:02And now all of those people are hired by other labels.
17:05And they're some of the top influencers in music who had no experience before.
17:08And I think like that's one of the most fun parts is like we'll do whatever it takes, honestly.
17:13Wow. OK, wait. So for those who like aren't on TikTok every day, like I am like, what is a
17:17quote on screen?
17:18Like what's an example of that? Like are these love quotes? Are these?
17:21Yeah, just kind of any quotes, just, you know, phrases.
17:25It could be, you know, relevant to something that's happening at the moment.
17:28It could be more, you know, introspective.
17:31Things you share with your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your brother, your sister, they're like engineered to be shareable.
17:36And but with like a little bit of finessing and teaching, like, you know, we've kind of created this army
17:40and we they've driven over 500 million views on TikTok.
17:43Just Adam's friends, cousins, brothers.
17:45And so obviously that is a much more efficient way to run a campaign than to go and try to
17:49pay Charlie D'Amelio.
17:50Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just think that's so fascinating because I didn't know about any of this until
17:55I started talking to you guys for a story that I did last summer on these types of campaigns.
17:59I can't tell you probably how many of these accounts I fell for not knowing they were all thought about
18:05and manipulated in a way I've seen many times on my, you know, TikTok feed, maybe a picture of a
18:12coffee cup with like a quote that's like, I can't believe I found you in this world.
18:15And it's I think that's an example of what you're talking about, where it's like designed for me to be
18:20like, oh, my gosh, should I send it to my boyfriend?
18:21And you share it. It tells the algorithm that someone's interested and highly engaged in it.
18:27And then it keeps feeding that. Meanwhile, there's a song in the background.
18:29That's right. And I want to like add one kind of caveat to the kind of Charlie D'Amelio joke
18:34that we have going here.
18:35It's like once we have a song that is moving and algorithmically hot, like we do engage macro influencers every
18:40day and think they're really important.
18:42You just want to do it at a stage where the sound is hot because then their post will do
18:46better.
18:47You'll have higher ROI. I think the worst thing that we all experience as managers is going out to a
18:51macro influencer, paying them a lot of money.
18:53And it's the worst post of the month. Like we think that should never happen.
18:56The sound should be hot and you should test it like what the like creative should be along the way.
19:00Yeah. I mean, OK, what would you say to someone who's like, I'm freaked out by the fact that there's
19:05so much going on online that I don't know about?
19:08How do you guys feel about those who who might hear about this kind of campaign and just be like,
19:12what are you manipulating my feed?
19:16It's unfortunately a lot of the Internet is, you know, manipulation, I guess.
19:21And I think Andrew would always say, like, everything on the Internet is fake.
19:25I think that one one thing that we always say is all opinions are formed in the TikTok comments, which,
19:34you know, is a reminder to us of like we can help.
19:38And I don't know if this will make anyone feel better, but but we can, you know, a lot of
19:43what we do on sort of the narrative side will be, you know, controlling the discourse.
19:48And so, you know, I think most people see a video or see something about, you know, an album that
19:53came out and it's like the first thing that they see or that first comment that they see is their
19:57opinion, even when they haven't heard the whole album.
19:59So it's really important for us to make sure that we are ahead of it and controlling that narrative and
20:04making sure it's in the direction that we want.
20:05I think like in the past, let's say like a label and a management team do a great job.
20:10They get their artists on SNL or Tiny Desk or Triple J or something like that.
20:13They post it and then they kind of wait for the comments off.
20:16This was a terrible cover choice.
20:17Voice sounds terrible.
20:18All those sorts of things.
20:19You know, what we do at Chaotic and with our management clients is, you know, the second the porn, you
20:24know, SNL drops at midnight, you should post 100 times saying that was the best performance of the year.
20:28The question is, how do you do that at scale?
20:30And so it takes a lot of work and infrastructure.
20:31But like I think controlling the narrative is really, really important.
20:36OK, so basically you can do that also not just with songs, but like you can have someone hire you
20:41because they just went on SNL and they want to make sure that everyone saw the SNL performance.
20:45So you could.
20:45It's both seeing it and then also kind of like pushing a narrative about it or kind of whatever we
20:50want to be like have said about it.
20:52Like a huge principle of what we do kind of, you know, alluded to in the beginning is like, you
20:56know, whenever someone goes on SNL, like organically, some people will post that was amazing.
21:01Or that was terrible.
21:02So all we do at Chaotic Good is look what happens organically and then do it inorganically at scale.
21:07And so like, you know, when someone announces a tour, for example, like, you know, as managers, that's like the
21:13biggest day of the year is the tour on sale.
21:14Like that is where the majority of your revenue will come from.
21:17And these days, like it's crazy to us.
21:20Like artists will just post a static flyer on Instagram.
21:22You know, if you have the infrastructure in place, like when we started to do this, the moment the tour
21:27goes on sale, you should post a hundred times across many TikTok accounts, driving it, pushing narratives, talking about how
21:32great they are live.
21:34And so it does get overwhelming because I don't think the pendulum is swinging back anytime soon.
21:38I think like what we're seeing is things get more and more extreme.
21:41It's more and more of why I think we exist and why we feel so passionate about what we do.
21:47You know, a lot of like the things that we've set out to solve through the agency are the pain
21:52points that we felt as managers.
21:53You know, we would go.
21:54And like Andrew said, like that first, you know, tour announced day, I wish we could do more.
21:59You know, we're relying on the promoters and their, you know, kind of standard ad budgets across all the different
22:04shows that they're doing.
22:05And it just felt like, you know, and it's happening more and more now is how do you cut through,
22:10you know, and the only way to really do that is the infrastructure.
22:13And most companies and, you know, artists, managers just can't do that at the scale that we do.
22:19Yeah.
22:20Yeah.
22:20So it's basically like fighting the fact that there is so much volume happening.
22:23Just in general, the internet is so noisy that you kind of have to fight volume with more volume, I
22:28guess.
22:28Quality and volume.
22:29Quality is important, but like I view it as an arms race.
22:32It's like, you know, one artist hires us and we run 20 pages for them.
22:36Someone else will do 25.
22:37And for the right artist at the right time, like I think it's the right strategy.
22:41And so I don't think it's going to swing back for a long time.
22:45And again, the context of, yeah, like you said, the timing and the song, you know, it's taking those moments
22:52that are so hard to necessarily get as an artist or a manager or, you know, the team and making
22:57sure that you're doing everything you can in those moments.
22:59Because usually it's just really hard to control so much of what has to happen.
23:03One benefit, I think, though, for artists who are probably listening to this thinking like, oh, my God, this is
23:07insane, is I think like having a company like us, like it takes a lot of the burden actually off
23:13the artist's shoulders for promotion.
23:14I think like when TikTok first came out, it was the, you know, the era of self-promotion.
23:19Some of the summer, we all seen the TikToks, you know, we hate them.
23:21And I think like that is clearly a short-term strategy.
23:25We've seen so many artists come up and come back down.
23:27And so I think with companies like us, it actually frees the artists up on their main channels to be
23:32way more like narrative driven and brand driven and fan focused and not have to be so kind of desperate
23:37online.
23:38And so like, you know, our prediction for this year is that artists' main channels become way more like about
23:43narratives and less about stream my song.
23:45Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, what's interesting is like, I think you alluded to this, Jesse, a little
23:50bit, that these kind of campaigns are also happening in the world of politics and other avenues as well.
23:55At least on this part, if you're pushing something, you're pushing someone's art into their feed.
24:00Percent, yeah. I mean, again, as managers who have done this for a long time, like we are really passionate
24:05about, you know, putting great art into the world and great artists into the world.
24:09And so, yeah, I feel like if we're going to have to manipulate how to get a great song in
24:14front of somebody, it's good to do it with, you know, something that will make people happy.
24:18I really wish that we could keep talking for forever because I feel like I could go on for like
24:21hours with you guys about this, but we're nearing the end of our time.
24:24And so I wanted to end off with just one final question and then we'll do what would you cue.
24:31So my final question to you guys is how is AI infiltrating this process?
24:35Because I know AI slop is like a big concern on TikTok and other platforms right now for users.
24:40Are you guys using AI to generate stuff or are you still making everything by hand?
24:46It is probably like an unexpectedly low amount of our process and not because we're Luddites like we would if
24:53we thought it was if it was effective.
24:55For right now, like it is hard to keep the quality high enough.
25:00And in the world of slop, like that last 2% actually matters a ton.
25:05Where we'll use AI is in very specific instances where there is a specific AI format that is working online.
25:11And so an example of that would be like in the dance space, there are these AI dancing babies that
25:17are very, very popular.
25:18And so it's insane.
25:19Yes, it's insane.
25:20And so we noticed that and then very quickly made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of AI baby pages just
25:26for that specific purpose.
25:27But we are not like pressing a button, generating a thousand pieces of content, having AI uploaded through the API.
25:33We're not opposed to it.
25:34It just hasn't been that effective.
25:36Yeah.
25:36Okay.
25:37Interesting.
25:37Okay.
25:37Well, let's throw it to what would you cue because we're out of time here.
25:41Okay.
25:42So what would you cue?
25:44I'm going to have you guys divide them up however you'd like.
25:46What would you cue to take you back to your childhood?
25:49What's one song?
25:51Mine would be something from Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life.
25:55That was like the CD in our family's car.
25:56Maybe Love's in Need of Love Today.
25:58Great song.
25:59Nice.
25:59Okay.
26:00What would you cue to remember your favorite era of music?
26:04I could take this one too.
26:06Favorite era of music.
26:07Like mine would probably be something off Revolver by the Beatles.
26:12I think for no one.
26:13I think that was like the era where things started getting a little psychedelic, like cream and all that kind
26:18of stuff.
26:18And it's very guitar heavy.
26:19And yeah, that's my world.
26:21Great picks.
26:22Okay.
26:23What would you cue to remember your favorite concert?
26:26What More Can I Say by Jay-Z?
26:28Because I went to the Fade to Black concert like at the Garden, his like last concert ever.
26:33Me and my friends snuck into it when we were in high school.
26:36That's incredible.
26:36Yeah.
26:37Best concert memory for sure.
26:39Amazing.
26:39And last one.
26:40What would you cue to remind you of a moment that changed your career?
26:47Kings of Summer by Quinn 92 and A-OK.
26:51Two artists that we still manage today.
26:53And we have Quinn in the crowd.
26:54And runners in the audience.
26:54There he is.
26:56Yeah.
26:56Which is kind of pivotal moment in our careers and, you know, led to the first record deal and the
27:00first platinum record and all that.
27:02And also a very early viral record in a different time.
27:05Amazing.
27:06Okay.
27:06Well, thank you guys so much for coming to On the Record.
27:09We'll have to have you back soon.
27:10Thanks, guys.
27:11Give it up for Jesse and Andrew.
27:13All right.
27:13Thank you so much to Jesse Korn and Andrew Spellman for coming on stage with me at South by Southwest.
27:18And thanks for listening to this week's episode of On the Record.
27:21If you liked today's show, give us a follow on Instagram at BillboardOnTheRecord, where you can see new clips of
27:25the show every single week.
27:27We'd also appreciate it if you rated our show on your favorite podcast platform.
27:30All these things help On the Record grow bigger and better than ever.
27:34Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peek behind the curtain of the music
27:39business.
27:39I'll see you then.
27:43Bye.
27:46Bye.
27:47Bye.
27:49Bye.
27:50Bye.
27:51Bye.
27:52Bye.
27:52Bye.
27:52Bye.
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