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Is the Music Industry Rigged?

So recently, I was on a podcast, and I was asked if the music business is rigged, and a lot of you were shocked by my answer. 

@therackethouse

@Jesse Cannon / Music Marketing answers one of the biggest debates in music #IndependentArtist #IndieMusic #UnsignedArtist #NewMusic #Musi... See more

If you prefer reading my response, here’s a transcript:

But what did I mean by this? 

The LIES Major Label Artists Are Using To Get Fans

Well, the fact is, there's many reasons I find this to be true, but let's focus on the one I want to discuss in this newsletter, which is that major labels use of fan accounts and astroturfing to promote their artists is what many of these labels are bragging about to the artist that they want to sign as the weapon that they'll use that will really break them and really is one of the main things they're all focusing on in their strategy right now. And since my mission is to always level the playing field and show the tools to the artist with smaller budgets and to those who are DIY, I want to get into this. By the end of this newsletter, you'll know whether using fan accounts, influence accounts, and astroturfing promotion is right for you and how to do it effectively.

Astroturfing and Fan Accounts Explained

So first off, the main thing we're talking about is astroturfing, which is the opposite of grassroots promotion. Think of it this way, grassroots promotion is the majority of what we discuss on this channel. I talk about how you do artist development and smart organic things to promote your music, and I don't talk much about ads, and instead, natural things to promote your music that genuinely get fans excited to listen to your music, just like how grassroots are a natural occurrence. Whereas astroturf is that fake grass you play sportsball on. It's fake, often paid for, or inauthentic, and most people with eyes get spotted as fake. But if you're not looking too closely, you may not be able to tell whether it's grass or astroturf. 

The Role of Influence Accounts

Okay, but what about those influencer accounts? Those are accounts that do videos like, "Here's four underground shoegaze songs to sink into your bed too." Or... "Did these five pop artists just write the song of the summer?" and have a slide deck or a compilation listing off artists and songs they recommend.

Well, usually some of the artists featured in that video wrote “the song of the summer,” but one or two others either paid to be in that video or are run by an artist's label or management, astroturfing that their artist is in the same league as those other banger tracks.

The Impact of Fan Accounts

Fan accounts are some of those ones you see if you stan any artist and spend time on social media and get shared videos from friends who obsess over an artist. It can be something like Gracie Abrams Nation that posts every three seconds about Gracie and the really strange way she pronounces words when she sings. — Okay, they probably don't do that.

Or it could be a Two Hollis fan account called @2HornedUp42Hollis247. And it posts every single time a fan catches Hollis serving a look in Japan or at some hype beast clothing shop.

Or they could be the accounts that do a ton of the work for artists who refuse to do social media or interviews. So, like you may have one for Mk.gee called like, @IwantMk.gee. That reposts the little content he makes and like news about him that he's making music with Justin Bieber.

And if you look at these accounts, which you can simply do by searching your favorite artist with a Stan Army or a genre name and look for something like “HQ”, “Nation”, “Crave”, or “Heads” at the end of the name, you're probably going to find someone doing these type of accounts.

Now, is that someone running the account a fan? Someone hoping to get a job with a label or management? Or someone being paid by a management company or label? Well, you kind of can't always tell so easily

The Ethics and Reality of Astroturfing

But from what I'm seeing with the meetings I'm in and the friends I talk to in this business, it's increasingly looking like exactly what I said at the top of the newsletter: which is I'm starting to believe the majority of the people running these accounts and are creating these conversations on the internet are on the payroll for all, if not some of their posts, and not disclosing it whatsoever — which is different than a lot of things on the internet.

Legalities

For example, when I have someone paying me in my videos, I'm required by law that actually gets enforced to disclose it. And I do. But as Billboard has reported, this doesn't happen with music recommendations, and the FTC, which is the law enforcement program that enforces this, doesn't care to enforce it on music recommendations since it's in the gray area. And frankly, that costs money, and it's pretty stupid.

And I do find this disturbing because when you are reading really stupid takes or obvious lies on the internet, well, sadly, I know for a fact, many times they're making up lies they know will create conversations. Frankly, let's just say I may have been in the meeting where we came up with one or two of those that your friends are discussing, since that picture where you see a married artist looking a little too cozy with another famous person.

Well, we may have sent that to a fan account and told them to say, “Is it just me, or does it look like Incel Hypebeast and Rihanna are totally smashing? She's cheating on Rocky. Just look at that touch!” And of course they're not. Incel Hypebeast is an incel, remember? y'all are clearly addicted to drama.

The Attention Economy

So I'm sure a lot of you want me to make this make sense right now, and go into why this could be worth your time. A lot of the music promotion that's happening today is that these accounts are present on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, Blue Sky SnapChat, and posting numerous times about their favorite artists or whatever subject they're trying to influence conversations around.

They know even if something isn't true or isn't the least bit controversial, like when Chappell Roan simply says she doesn't want to talk about politics or the biggest one recently — really we're fucking discussing that Morgan Wallen walked off the SNL stage early?? Really?? Is that what you people find interesting in this crazy world we live in where so much cool shits going on??

If I had a dollar for every time an artist just walked away while I was doing something with them because they think what they want to do is more important, while we're doing something they're supposed to do. Well, I'd at least have enough money to have a nice steak at St.Anselm.

The Real Truth…

And listen—when this stuff picks up, it’s easy to write it off as something cooked up by a teenage girl in her bedroom or some fan deep in internet brain rot. And yeah, it does usually start there.

But then someone on the artist’s team sees that little spark that a fan account is making in a small corner of the internet. And a label or management account picks it up. Fan account armies catch wind, pour gasoline on it, and blast it to their followers. Then everyone starts copying the same inauthentic behavior—and suddenly, we’re all stuck talking about the dumbest shit imaginable.

But a lot of this activity is being paid for by the management labels to interns, low-level influencers, and other marketing companies that don't need to disclose this. Which is a thing that's been slowly growing for years now, and is starting to get really out of hand in my opinion.

Music Internet Sausage: How It’s Made

But truly, so much of this is just letting the broken brains of the internet generate an idea, and then watching it spiral.

Say the person who runs the Bad Bunny fan army sees a post claiming he’s giving out hugs outside a Puerto Rican bar in Williamsburg. They start posting blurry pictures. Someone decides he got a little too close to a guy who vaguely looks like Pedro Pascal. Next thing you know, the internet is saying Bad Bunny and Pedro Pascal had sex in the streets of Williamsburg.

The fan accounts amplify it. Then another dumb spin-off happens. And they keep posting. And they keep talking—until these things become the craziest rumors you’ve ever heard in your life.

That’s how the internet sausage gets made at the top of the music world.

Major Label Leverage

But some of you might be wondering—why would they bother doing something this boring? We all know major labels have felt a little less useful ever since short-form video took over as the main way we promote music. Telling artists to “just post more” and buying a few influencer placements isn’t exactly a strong business model, especially if they still want to convince artists they’re worth signing to.

So what they’ve done is they’ve started weaponizing the influence they have over the people running these fan accounts. And while I’ve known this has been going on for years, it’s become even clearer from a bunch of recent conversations: this is the play.

I’ve had that this is the answer the big labels and management companies have come up with to be useful and give value, so artists feel like they have to sign to them. To the point that this now seems to be the main thing they’re selling in meetings when they’re trying to sign pop acts—which is frankly a bit sad for them, but actually good news for small artists, since it means the artists who get people talking are the ones who get popular, which you can do yourself — That is, if you actually just listen to the advice I give instead of ignoring it.

But let’s make the picture of what they’re doing clearer, so you can see why this is such a big deal.

Controlling the Narrative

So first off, one of the main reasons labels love this is because it lets them control the narrative around their artists. And that’s huge—because internet sentiment, especially among the fans who act as tastemakers, can completely kill the momentum of a record and turn it into a money pit. Or it can blow the record up and make it a massive success.

In a previous newsletter, I wrote about how fan sentiment among the most influential corners of the internet is what gave Charli XCX the biggest splash of her career with brat. But those same fan ecosystems also tanked Katy Perry’s career so badly she’s literally going into hiding in outer space—well, for 10 minutes at least.

The fact is: this strategy is smart. Labels and managers have realized that controlling the conversation is essential. You either dominate the discourse, or the fans will meme you into irrelevance.

Labels Paying for PR and Control

And particularly what I just described as a big deal, which is why a label may pay 20 to 60 accounts for a few hours a day of work to post about their artists, creating counter-narratives when things go wrong.

For example, I’ve been tipped off about a certain account that constantly pops up on my For You page saying inaccurate or downright stupid shit. Turns out, they’ve got a job: make sure Lady Gaga’s Mayhem record is perceived as a hit—because if it isn’t, her career starts slipping into legacy artist territory. But if she’s got a hit, she stays in the mainstream pop conversation.

So, what does this account do all day? It compares Gaga’s chart positions to the flop of the year, Katy Perry, to make sure no one can say Gaga is flopping. Even though, let’s be honest, the record isn’t blowing up the way they’d like. Half the top tracks from the album aren’t even in the top 10 songs on her page—and the record’s been out for less than a month.

And some of the other accounts like this do similar things. They call artists like Doechii an industry plant, which if you post 10 years of YouTube videos on your artist development process that literally no one watched and that makes you an industry plant, well, I don't even know what the fuck a real artist is anymore then.

Arms Race

And here’s what’s even more stupid: some of the discussions I’ve had suggest this is becoming an arms race between labels and management teams—over who can get these accounts more followers. Because now they’re insulting each other’s artists and using this psyop shit to disparage one another, and they need to make sure their own propaganda arms are long enough to dunk on the other.

Reasoning/ Positioning

But there are so many reasons the bigwigs are paying for this dystopian bullshit. One of them is that, for many big artists, you don’t want to post everything you do, like who you’re dating, because it feels cheesy and would be embarrassing.

A great point Billboard journalist Kristen Robinson made is that it’s a big cringe when a music artist shares 50 clips from an hour-long interview of themselves. But when a fan shares them, it just feels like they’re genuinely hyped and thought it was important. And after all, everyone else is now sharing it, so it must matter. Plus, it’s a way to test which content sticks and what doesn’t.

It creates what the kids love to call an “aura” around the artist, where you start to care about their every move, and they seem glamorous because look at all the praise being heaped on them.

The Common Scenario

But one of the main reasons management and labels call me to talk fan accounts on consulting calls is that they either want to post wins or interviews that feel too cheesy to go on the artist’s main account, or the artist just flat-out refuses to post at all. And they know they need to fill the void.

I mean, there are very few artists who get away with posting nothing. This is their workaround: throw some cheap 20-year-old in Nebraska a little money—it doesn’t cost much, they’ve got a low cost of living, and they’re underemployed enough to do this all day.

But now here’s the craziest part: it’s not just about steering the narrative toward the truth.

Hyperstitions, Hoaxes, and Headlines

Many of these artists have gone full-on Gary Vee—flooding the zone with whatever they can. Any content at all is better than nothing, apparently.

So what happens? Well, we have a confirmed report from Billboard that Shaboozey’s team paid to have a hyperstition made about him. You know what a hyperstition is, right? It’s something that isn’t true, but everyone believes it because it feels true. Like how people say Vice President JD Vance had sexual relations with couches. It’s not true, but everybody kind of believes it, because… he gives off that vibe.

Anyway, the hyperstition in this case is that Dolly Parton is Shaboozey’s godmother. Not true. But his team put it out there themselves, no shame whatsoever—and even confirmed they were the ones who did it. Because they know it’s better to have people talking than not.

Another example is a video of Benny Blanco walking in on his fiancée, Selena Gomez, and Gracie Abrams. Suddenly, the stan accounts are pushing that Selena and Gracie are having an affair—because her fiancé is “too ugly.” Which, first off, is stupid, false, and rude as hell.

@itsbennyblanco

umm.. hi ??? @Selena Gomez @gracie abrams

Contradictions Are The Conversation

Anyway, these artists and their teams know what I keep telling you all: contradictions are the conversation. Meaning, when something feels off—when there’s a contradiction, or a detail people think is false, that’s what gets people yapping. It gives them something to talk about, and that conversation pulls them deeper into the artist’s world because now they feel like they have to keep up just to be part of the conversation.

Now, if I’m being real, I know that if you do this, it’ll just make everything more fake. But here’s the truth: when the music is trash, it doesn’t matter. No one streams it. I see people doing this every day, just throwing out songs no one likes. Or some fuckboy making a perfectly directed TikTok that’s absolutely flawless and still only gets 40,000 streams off 8 million views because no one actually wants to hear the rest of the song.

The rules of gravity still apply. Just like they have for the last half-century of music: if people don’t like what you’re pushing, they won’t listen. And that’s more true than ever.

Now, before I tell you what to actually do, let’s address the thing a lot of you are already thinking: “I’m not big enough to do this.”

Astroturfing Strategies for Small Artists

So let’s talk about astroturfing. What you can usually get away with at first is just some light astroturfing. The truth is, any artist—no matter how small—can pull it off. As the internet says, you know, as a treat.

All it takes is making a sock puppet- AKA an account where you pretend not to be yourself. And if you’re thinking, “That’s fucked up, Jesse. How could you condone that? You’re an adult,” well… let’s take a quick trip to a place I call the “honesty room”.

I Faked It, Too…

I think I’ve admitted this in less public places before, but yeah—I faked it. I astroturfed my way to success, too. The truth is, from the 375 subscribers I started with—carried over from my previous following—to my first 5,000, I had fake accounts all over Reddit posting other people’s content, and mine too.

And to be honest, I got pretty bold with it. I had so many different sock puppets that if someone called me out for posting my own stuff too much, I’d just switch to a different one for a month or two. I’d let the one that got caught sit dormant, maybe delete a few posts so I couldn’t get traced as easily. Then I’d go back to it a few months later once everyone forgot the screen name. And yeah—I made those screen names very forgettable on purpose.

They all had different personalities, locations, and voices. And frankly, with AI, which didn’t exist back then, it would’ve been way easier. Some would use lots of triple periods. Some were super vulgar. A few were obsessed with EDM. Others were punk. I’d comment with them on different days, switch things up. But when people asked questions on Reddit, I’d just point them to my videos—or to someone else’s if they were actually helpful. But never to the accounts I disliked or whose advice I thought was garbage — *cough* Hawaiian button downs *cough*

It Only Helped

So yeah, not only did I help people find helpful things, just like you. I could also help them discover my videos or great songs. Those sock puppets helped a lot of people. No one got hurt. But they definitely helped me build myself up during the early days, which are always the hardest. And yeah, I got caught a few times. But honestly? It never mattered. I’d just kill the account or let it sit quietly for a while. That’s part of the risk—you do have to be careful. It’s easy to fuck up and burn one of your accounts. Even famous streamers mess this up.

Anyway, if you’re sitting there thinking you only have a few thousand fans and maybe want to explore this… go for it. Astroturf some message boards. Stir up some online discussions. Or do it on short-form text apps. Better yet, make an influence account. Let’s say you’re an anti-pop artist—make an account called @AntiPapi — Yeah, sure. Then build a Spotify playlist called “Best Anti-Pop Songs,” tweet out the new additions, and tag the artists. Start an Instagram. Post carousels and Reels. Slowly grow the influence, even though you’re pretending to be someone else.

And if you’re worried about people recognizing your voice? I don’t know — use something like ElevenLabs or Kits.AI and change it.

Here’s the wild part: you can even run ads on these videos on TikTok or Instagram. I’ve got a whole guide on how to do that on my member feed.

Should YOU Astroturf?

But honestly, if you already have 20,000 monthly listeners and feel like there’s a ton of content you could be sharing: stuff that doesn’t quite fit your artist account or just feels corny to post yourself, a fan account can do a lot of that spreading for you without the embarrassment. Just watch what other fan accounts are doing and copy the playbook. And if you’re even smaller, starting a faceless influence account can work really well, too.

But remember what I said at the top of this newsletter: the music business isn’t rigged at the bottom — it’s rigged at the top. If you want to blow up and get millions of monthly listeners, you don’t have to do any of this shit. But starting an influence account might help you get there faster.

You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You are a DIY artist who gets to decide that yourself, and you have more options than ever. This part of the game doesn’t affect you, since here’s the funniest thing: the Viral 50 chart is constantly filled with an artist that came from nowhere. Because the fact is, a lot of the time, the people who are rising up these days aren’t doing anything but putting out great songs and calling attention to them through many of the things I describe in my newsletters.

So you don’t have to do this dystopian bullshit if you don’t want to. But it is a tool that’s available to you. And if I’m being real, it’s probably time to start lying like everyone else if you just want to get out of the situation you’re in. But that’s between you, your guilty conscience, and your free time.

We know what path I chose now. And that’s why there’s this disgusting taste in my mouth that tastes like the devil.

Member Feed MasterClass

Now, I’m gonna be real—if this newsletter got you thinking more seriously about astroturfing, I have a full masterclass on exactly how to do it with way more detail.

In either case, thanks for reading.