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Last Monday, I got to know Boston-based indie musician Walter the Producer. His music isn’t on any of the playlists I follow, and he has less than 150,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. If I had not searched his song I might never have been able to find him on Shazam when I was at a brewery in Phoenix, 2,000 miles from home.
Finding new music has become somewhat of a game. Walter Creator even pokes fun at this; His Spotify artist bio simply says, “If you follow me I’ll hunt you down.” Rich artists always have an edge over independent musicians when it comes to promotion. But changes in the algorithm at Spotify, the rise of viral TikTok songs, and changes in tactics at places like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone have made it significantly more challenging.
Making music is now easier than ever. This dynamism inspired the founders of Groover. The Paris-based startup was launched in 2018 as a platform to help independent artists promote themselves by allowing them to submit music to personal curators, who can respond and enhance the music accordingly Which they like. Groover co-founder and CEO Romain Palmieri said that he and his two co-founders started the company to help fix promotion issues they encountered in their respective music careers.
“Independent artists have more access to music production, which is great and creates more creativity, but the main challenge for artists is how do you promote the music and get it heard by the right people and in the right People can get the right curation,” Palmieri said. “We wanted to create something that could solve that.”
Groover just raised an $8 million Series A round led by OneRagTime, Techmind, Trind, and Moza Angels. Palmieri said the company plans to use the funding to continue expansion in the US – already its largest market – and add new features for artists, including coaching and promotional resources.
The business model of this company is different from all others. The 3,000 and growing music curators on Grooveer set their own price, and each transaction is split, with half the money going to the curator and half to the grooveer. Palmieri said that if a curator doesn’t hear a song within seven days, the composer gets their money back, but 90% of requests are responded to in that time frame.
Although I like the concept of artists having a more direct relationship with these individual curators, it bothers me that pay-to-play has become the best option for these independent artists. The curators working with Groover are not only promoting the music they love, but they’re also promoting music they love and are paid to listen to.
But! I also think that music journalism is shrinking because the number of independent musicians is growing rapidly. The solutions are good, even if I don’t get them right. The fact that artists get to choose who they’ll work with on Groove, the outreach is relatively cheap, and the response rate is quite high, make it seem like the most artist-friendly approach that no promotion can offer. Is available.
Palmieri said most independent artists don’t have better or more cost-effective options. They can either constantly promote music publications with no chance of getting noticed or pay for PR, which does not necessarily ensure much success.
This system also works better for music curators, Palmieri said. They also often have trouble finding diamonds in the depth of the growing sea of new music. Groover’s system helps them get paid more directly for their work while making their job a little easier.
I’m glad to see that someone is working to fix this problem because as a listener, it has become increasingly difficult to find new music. I have seen many tweets, had many conversations with friends which show that this issue is being felt everywhere. Only one person still posts in the pretentiously named Facebook group for music lovers that my friends and I started sharing new music in high school.
Grooveer isn’t the only startup that wants to help small musicians. Gigfinity is another startup that helps both musicians and venues book events better with a more streamlined booking and payment system.
I love gigfinesse the way I love groover; That is, I like startups that offer clear solutions for both sides of the table. Both of these startups help artists but they also help the industry people needed to get those artists off the ground. The community needs each other to be able to move forward. Every musician starts somewhere.
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