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The Industry Plant Conspiracy Theory Needs to Be Cancelled

Every time I go on YouTube it's another video from some kid who's never been involved in the music business — and in many cases has barely left their hometown — racking up tens of thousands of views with titles like "Top Ten Industry Plants" or "Revealed: So-and-So Is An Industry Plant." The Twitter fever has gotten bad enough that people are now trying to cancel artists over this. So let me make the case that this whole industry plant thing is actually what needs to be cancelled, and that everyone spreading it is making a fool of themselves.

First, What Even Is an "Industry Plant"?

I'll let our leading internet conspiracy theorist (my made-up ragebaiting podcast host alter-ego), Adam Johns, explain:

Okay, get that guy out of here. But that's basically what people are actually claiming — that rich parents and record executives are teaming up with major labels to make their talentless children famous, hiding the real origin story behind some DIY mythos while major label money does all the work. Most of these theories are so dumb it's unfathomable that anyone buys into them. This really is QAnon for teens and college kids who are too damn online.

Yet everywhere that demographic gathers online to discuss music, it's spreading like wildfire — discussed as if there's empirical evidence, by people who've never once been part of what actually goes on when it comes to signing and breaking artists. They're spending hours combing family trees like they have genealogy degrees and Ancestry.com expert status, trying to prove every artist they want to cancel is connected to someone rich enough to pull puppet strings. They're digging through high school yearbooks to prove origin stories are bullshit.

You know who never discusses this? People who actually work in the music business. At big labels and indies alike, we can see firsthand why this whole conversation is so fucking dumb.

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

Labels Can't Buy Popularity

To believe the industry plant theory, you have to believe major labels have the power to push artists into the mainstream on the strength of money and connections alone — that even a talentless act can be inserted into culture and receive success. Here's a really easy way to test that theory: go to any major label's website and browse their roster. Catalog it for a bit. What you'll see is how many artists they try to make famous that go absolutely nowhere. I estimate that at least a third of the artists’ majors fail and get dropped, and I think that's conservative. And if you put the same energy into researching those failed pushes that you put into diagnosing famous artists, you'll find the same levels of connection and backing — funny how connections don't equal fame.

Major labels have platforms and influence, no question. They can amplify and accelerate. But unless people are genuinely enjoying someone's music, there is nothing a label or a billionaire can do to make it stick.

And don't get it twisted — I'm not here to carry water for this system, because it's bullshit. I was quoted in a piece for Vox calling out the lies Spotify tells when they claim they don't discriminate between signed artists and DIY artists, and the advantages they hand signed acts on playlisting are clear as day.

Is Spotify really trying to tell me they offer those big editorial playlist spots to artists on CD Baby? Come on. But even with all those platform advantages, labels don't have a magic tool to manufacture fame by throwing money at the problem. Each major label is competing against the others to blow up its artists. There's only so much space. The artists with great songs win.

Paris Hilton is the daughter of one of the richest men in America, and that couldn't make her more than a one-hit wonder. 

The Selfie at the Label

Here's something I observed regularly when I was working at Atlantic/Elektra. Guests — including the rich kids who got the favor meetings — would always take a selfie in front of one of the giant artist hero images near the lobby. The blow-up pictures of successful artists are near the entrance. They'd be sure to location-tag it, let everyone know they were at a major label, "big things to come." Except they're not. If you look at those location tags over time, those people never come back.

Major labels are full of favor meetings. But that's not who gets signed. These days, unless the analytics software shows traction, there's a viral hit, or an A&R genuinely believes in you, they are not wasting their time. Why on earth would they spend their limited budget and attention on a rich kid when there are artists who've already proven themselves and gone viral and can actually generate income?

Now, most people spreading the industry plant theory have never had a job in a corporate structure where they answer to a boss. But for those of you who have — just imagine your quarterly check-in where you tell your boss you signed a rich kid instead of any one of the hundreds of viral sensations already posting numbers. Your job isn't going to be long for this world.

Billie Eilish, The 1975, and Clairo

Let's go to everyone's favorite accusation: Billie Eilish. People love to pretend her parents are LA movers and shakers who pulled off some secret music business coup. If you believe that her parents — in that tiny house, with their two minor IMDB listings — had enough pull to make her the biggest artist of the past decade, I have a lot of things to sell you. It's Los Angeles. There is someone with her parents' level of connection with a kid who's an aspiring singer on every single block, and I mean that pretty literally. A friend of mine has a kid who can't get a record deal to save their life, lives just blocks away from the Eilishes, and is friends with one of the biggest record producers I know.

Then there's The 1975, who people call industry plants because singer Matt Healy's parents are well-known actors — his mom hosts the UK equivalent of The View. Except this theory falls apart the second you know that the band was together for an entire decade before their debut album got signed to a major label and they started becoming a big deal. With all those connections, they still couldn't get their kid a record deal. You know why? Their early music sucked. I have heard those demos. I love that band — they're my favorite band — but those demos sucked. It wasn't until they got genuinely good and started their own label that the music connected with people, and they became the creative force they are today.

And Clairo being an "industry plant" because her dad's a marketing executive? So what you're telling me is her dad spent a million dollars to make videos that are lo-fi and songs that sound like they were recorded on a laptop and barely mixed? Come on.

Why Connected and Rich Kids Do Get Advantages

I'm not pretending the playing field is level, because it isn't. There are two real advantages here worth acknowledging. First, when your parent is an established entity in a creative field, they understand the creative process, they value it, and they raise you around it. They invite over friends who can help teach you what actually matters in a creative career — things you'd otherwise have to figure out entirely on your own over the years. The nurture of creativity is a real and distinct advantage. Second, those people make connections, and no career reaches mass exposure without connections and open doors. That part is real.

But here's the thing — there are just as many artists who got a record deal because they happened to be in the right bar, or dated someone who passed a track to a friend, as there are from any of the family connections the internet obsesses over. And there are just as many artists who came from nowhere with zero connections whose music is now a big deal because it connected with people through the internet and algorithms. The "connections" thing as a determining factor is largely a myth.

Part of the problem is that with 60,000 songs being uploaded to Spotify every single day, getting to the right ears matters enormously, and being in proximity to people with platforms helps. That's a real issue — and it's a big reason you see so many artists move to New York, LA, Nashville, and Philly. That's where you build the connections that get you heard. But that's a structural problem with music cities, not a secret music industry cabal manufacturing fame.

The One Complaint That Actually Has Merit: Upstream Deals

Here's the thing I do actually believe in: artists releasing music on fake DIY labels when they're really signed to a major. This has been happening since at least the 90s. An artist signs what's called an upstream deal — basically signing to some indie label as a front while the major pays for promotion behind the scenes, hoping it blows up organically enough that the major can swoop in for the next record with all this built-in hype. In its more modern form, an artist just releases a "DIY" record while the major is quietly pitching it, promoting it, and putting their best people around it — while pretending this artist is operating at the same level as every other independent artist out there.

This is the version of the complaint I can actually understand. This is worth calling out.

But it's also worth some context, because it fails constantly, and nobody talks about it when it does. The Tramp Stamps are the clearest recent example — apparently, Dr. Luke was behind that one, trying to make it happen, and the internet said absolutely not. That "industry plant" got no water, no sunlight, and died. My friends in the music business send me links to artists who are "bound to blow up" because they have a major label behind them, and I'm told to listen, and then I watch it go nowhere. The people decide who gets big, not these origin stories. Most of us just listen to a song and decide if it slaps.

Everyone Fakes It to Some Degree

Here's why I have a lot of grace for artists who do have upstream deals and do a little "faking it to make it." If you study the backstory of nearly any major artist, there was a moment of bluster, an unseen hand, some embellishment. The padding of numbers and the business of selling an artist's story is in the background of basically every career. If you want to cancel people for that, you have to cancel all of your favorites.

The former game show host who became president literally paid extras to attend his campaign launch to bolster the crowd numbers. If manufactured momentum invalidates someone's eventual success, we'd have to reconsider a lot.

Thanks for reading.