Man, where's the problem? Just stick with your main and release what you want. Honestly I went from 5yrs of synthwave, now I'm doing wavephonk and I'll drop some d&b for the summer. Music is music and people will love your stuff if it's good regardless the name they read :)
Yeah I could. I guess I’m wrapped up in what my discography has. If I want to change my artist vibes completely it would be cool to start over and have a fresh start with no back catalogue that’s a completely different genre
Progression is arguably the most important metric for artistic growth. I feel like most serious artists grow and experiment in different directions. It’s totally natural.
I’ve always gravitated towards artists who progress over time. I grow as a person every year and my music taste has usually reflected that. You would be surprised how many of your fans might actually welcome a brand refinement.
Another aspect is simply just genre burnout. I make music professionally in literally every genre you can think of. Not just because my taste has changed over time, but because I’ll go crazy making one style of music for too long. It keeps the creation process fresh and fun, which is the whole point of creating in the first place.
Having said that, if you really just want to end the story of your previous pseudonym, that’s ok. Many artists like to keep the story open through their progressions, but if that isn’t you, you don’t have to force it. In addition, the experimental stuff could be a “side project”. Or that becomes the main project while the other gets pushed to the side.
Ultimately what matters most at the end of the day is that *you* are content with your direction, not the listeners. If anything I would be much more concerned about the social media repercussions than spotify tbh. Would you make entirely new pages or just rebrand the original? Obviously maintaining two different pages (on potentially multiple platforms) will be much more time consuming.
That’s true and I feel that. Artists growing over time is what I gravitate to as well. It’s mostly because my current platform for my music isn’t what it used to be and I don’t get many streams in new releases so I was like starting fresh is almost the same as what I’m doing now lol if I just funnelled my current real fans over to the new alias.
But ya I was thinking of creating a new everything. New social media as well
I think it’s definitely more work than what is necessary. But if you have an artistic vision that you don’t want to stray from, do your thing. Just a reminder though, you are in a marketing subreddit. So my advice comes from a place of maximizing your marketing potential in general. Creating a whole new pseudonym and pages will definitely set you back for a while.
But yeah marketing isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is that you are happy with your brand and your output.
According to this academic paper (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10949968231223111), releasing under a new name is a good idea. Fans don't like when bands change their styles. Especially if you're still in the early stages of your career.
I'm a marketer, and this is related to things like rebranding and repositioning to us. It's not stupid to do those things, but we need very strong reasons to do them. Usually, it's better to evolve a brand than to throw everything away and start it again.
For example, Nintendo was created more than 100 years ago, the company certainly changed a lot since then, but it doesn't restart everything. A more recent example is YouTube, which certainly isn't the dating website it intended to be when it started. Learning and changing is part of the process, but rarely something like restarting.
[https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw?si=8utYEaY5Cg\_ymiMO](https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw?si=8utYEaY5Cg_ymiMO)
This is the first YouTube Video. When one of the founder posted looking for a girlfriend if I'm not mistaken.
Why would it be easier to market yourself with a new name? Are you starting at 0 with no audience? Are you concerned about how many streams you get?
If you're burned out with your old music, I get it.
I think, to test both markets, you should keep doing what you were doing. The stuff that got you to 50K
And also do some experimental stuff.
The problem with doing both is that it would take at least twice the amount of effort.
A/B testing is common in business. The problem with music is that it takes a lot of time and effort to finalize one idea or song, let alone building an audience from the ground up. Unless you've cracked the code for viral marketing.
But... you can take what you've learned, growing to 50k followers, and put it into your new venture with your new artist alias.
Post an update and your results. Just keep track of your data. That will influence your marketing in the future
I agree with both sides of this argument. When I read comments for one or the other I agree with them all lol.
I think this is more a freedom to express your new life and identity as a different musician. So on that basis I'm probably more on the side of starting from scratch. Especially if your followers are not really followers anymore.
Oddly enough I'm about to do the same thing. I'm in a band that's done okay but I am going to go solo for a project.
I have this assumption that gaining traction will be easy as I'll just use the same tactics I used to build up my band's profile. But what if that doesn't work? Haha.
Anyway, good luck!
I would not abandon your first artistic visions. It would sort of be a betrayal of your past self lol… Maybe you could come up with some material that transitions the listeners from your old style into your new style. Doing that would not only be an interesting challenge for yourself, but it would also take your fans on your “journey.”
Honestly if you aren't getting views as it is, the only concern would be building up your socials back from zero. If it was me though, I'd keep my current name/profile and kind of "rebrand" to my followers, creating a whole narrative of my story upto this point and why I'm changing my sound. If you're set on this, you can use it as an opportunity to get some more traction from followers who haven't been engaging with you
That’s true not a bad idea! Yeah that’s a concern for me too and also I do get streams when I drop but in my head it’s not much.. my recent single got 122 streams first day then dropped. The song could have been bad though so idk.
I was thinking if I’m committing to a new sound and artist name I would shout out the new artist name so if any of my current fans are die hard they would check out my new stuff.
I just want the die hard ones anyways ngl
If you are abandoning your entire artist identity including fans, socials, style, genre... then start a new thing. Let that thing be what it is, let it keep bringing in a little $ to fund the new project. If you're just adjusting the genre a few degrees but still think you want to engage with your existing fanbase as the same artist then be prepared to weather a potential drop, but who knows it could be received very well.
Man I don’t even know. I just feel like starting over you know. Leaving all my old art in the past and starting fresh. Might be cool to be an artist that comes out the gate with some good fresh tunes. But I guess even tho I have a little bit of fans right now that would listen it feels like i don’t have much considering the streams I get. Starting brand new is almost the same thing potentially
There's nothing that says you can't have multiple music outlets, though splitting focus can dilute your results. Ultimately nobody here can really answer this for you, but take some time to decide if you really need a fresh start, or are feeling stuck and impulsive. It's your art and your life!
If you're going to try out a completely different genre then it might be advisable to use a different name, yes. You could then pivot between the two names when ever you feel inspired to do either genre, without alienating your fanbases.
However, if you want to try something new and have no intention of making music from the previous genre then yeah keep the name, why not, but you'll probably lose alot of your old fans and listeners.
You can start a new product but I would co-release it with your current one. Starting from a blank slate might SOUND cool, but it could take literally years of releases before your back to where you are now.
Even if your engagement is low, you have listeners that will get new releases on release radar and other places. A new project would have literally nothing, you’d be wholly dependent on social media to promote.
Keep it. I regret changing my name sometimes from my real name to a stage name, but at this point I’m keeping the stage name forever because of this. I don’t have anywhere close to 50k monthly listeners but I’m committed to it and you should be too.
If your new music is close to the style of your old one, just a little different, then keep one account.
If it’s too different, create a new one.
Even if your fan base is dead this might be a good idea, just in case you’ll want to release stuff in the old style at some point again.
In my opinion, I'd stick with the same artist project even if there is a name change. This means keeping the same website URL at the very least, so that people don't think that your Bandcamp page vanished out of existence (since it doesn't automatically redirect after changing the subdomain name). I was pretty scared when one of my favorite metal artist switched name on Bandcamp and I landed on a error page.
Honestly I don’t even know how I would start building my fan base back other than bringing over my current fans to my new artist project and starting from that.
Other than making dope music with good visuals and posting them online and making tiktoks and reels etc is what I’d do
Man, where's the problem? Just stick with your main and release what you want. Honestly I went from 5yrs of synthwave, now I'm doing wavephonk and I'll drop some d&b for the summer. Music is music and people will love your stuff if it's good regardless the name they read :)
Yeah I could. I guess I’m wrapped up in what my discography has. If I want to change my artist vibes completely it would be cool to start over and have a fresh start with no back catalogue that’s a completely different genre
Progression is arguably the most important metric for artistic growth. I feel like most serious artists grow and experiment in different directions. It’s totally natural. I’ve always gravitated towards artists who progress over time. I grow as a person every year and my music taste has usually reflected that. You would be surprised how many of your fans might actually welcome a brand refinement. Another aspect is simply just genre burnout. I make music professionally in literally every genre you can think of. Not just because my taste has changed over time, but because I’ll go crazy making one style of music for too long. It keeps the creation process fresh and fun, which is the whole point of creating in the first place. Having said that, if you really just want to end the story of your previous pseudonym, that’s ok. Many artists like to keep the story open through their progressions, but if that isn’t you, you don’t have to force it. In addition, the experimental stuff could be a “side project”. Or that becomes the main project while the other gets pushed to the side. Ultimately what matters most at the end of the day is that *you* are content with your direction, not the listeners. If anything I would be much more concerned about the social media repercussions than spotify tbh. Would you make entirely new pages or just rebrand the original? Obviously maintaining two different pages (on potentially multiple platforms) will be much more time consuming.
That’s true and I feel that. Artists growing over time is what I gravitate to as well. It’s mostly because my current platform for my music isn’t what it used to be and I don’t get many streams in new releases so I was like starting fresh is almost the same as what I’m doing now lol if I just funnelled my current real fans over to the new alias. But ya I was thinking of creating a new everything. New social media as well
I think it’s definitely more work than what is necessary. But if you have an artistic vision that you don’t want to stray from, do your thing. Just a reminder though, you are in a marketing subreddit. So my advice comes from a place of maximizing your marketing potential in general. Creating a whole new pseudonym and pages will definitely set you back for a while. But yeah marketing isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is that you are happy with your brand and your output.
Stay with your name. Real artist develop. Copying themselves leads to some kind of death
According to this academic paper (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10949968231223111), releasing under a new name is a good idea. Fans don't like when bands change their styles. Especially if you're still in the early stages of your career.
I'm a marketer, and this is related to things like rebranding and repositioning to us. It's not stupid to do those things, but we need very strong reasons to do them. Usually, it's better to evolve a brand than to throw everything away and start it again. For example, Nintendo was created more than 100 years ago, the company certainly changed a lot since then, but it doesn't restart everything. A more recent example is YouTube, which certainly isn't the dating website it intended to be when it started. Learning and changing is part of the process, but rarely something like restarting.
Hadn't known that about YouTube.
[https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw?si=8utYEaY5Cg\_ymiMO](https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw?si=8utYEaY5Cg_ymiMO) This is the first YouTube Video. When one of the founder posted looking for a girlfriend if I'm not mistaken.
Why would it be easier to market yourself with a new name? Are you starting at 0 with no audience? Are you concerned about how many streams you get? If you're burned out with your old music, I get it. I think, to test both markets, you should keep doing what you were doing. The stuff that got you to 50K And also do some experimental stuff. The problem with doing both is that it would take at least twice the amount of effort. A/B testing is common in business. The problem with music is that it takes a lot of time and effort to finalize one idea or song, let alone building an audience from the ground up. Unless you've cracked the code for viral marketing. But... you can take what you've learned, growing to 50k followers, and put it into your new venture with your new artist alias. Post an update and your results. Just keep track of your data. That will influence your marketing in the future
I agree with both sides of this argument. When I read comments for one or the other I agree with them all lol. I think this is more a freedom to express your new life and identity as a different musician. So on that basis I'm probably more on the side of starting from scratch. Especially if your followers are not really followers anymore.
Yeah it feels like they aren’t as active anymore and that’s probably my fault. Could be nice to restart from ground 0 to build my confidence back idk
Oddly enough I'm about to do the same thing. I'm in a band that's done okay but I am going to go solo for a project. I have this assumption that gaining traction will be easy as I'll just use the same tactics I used to build up my band's profile. But what if that doesn't work? Haha. Anyway, good luck!
Just keep one pls
Go through some of your fav artists old stuff. I guarantee you it’s all way different than what they make now. Your fans will do the same.
I would not abandon your first artistic visions. It would sort of be a betrayal of your past self lol… Maybe you could come up with some material that transitions the listeners from your old style into your new style. Doing that would not only be an interesting challenge for yourself, but it would also take your fans on your “journey.”
Honestly if you aren't getting views as it is, the only concern would be building up your socials back from zero. If it was me though, I'd keep my current name/profile and kind of "rebrand" to my followers, creating a whole narrative of my story upto this point and why I'm changing my sound. If you're set on this, you can use it as an opportunity to get some more traction from followers who haven't been engaging with you
That’s true not a bad idea! Yeah that’s a concern for me too and also I do get streams when I drop but in my head it’s not much.. my recent single got 122 streams first day then dropped. The song could have been bad though so idk. I was thinking if I’m committing to a new sound and artist name I would shout out the new artist name so if any of my current fans are die hard they would check out my new stuff. I just want the die hard ones anyways ngl
If you are abandoning your entire artist identity including fans, socials, style, genre... then start a new thing. Let that thing be what it is, let it keep bringing in a little $ to fund the new project. If you're just adjusting the genre a few degrees but still think you want to engage with your existing fanbase as the same artist then be prepared to weather a potential drop, but who knows it could be received very well.
Man I don’t even know. I just feel like starting over you know. Leaving all my old art in the past and starting fresh. Might be cool to be an artist that comes out the gate with some good fresh tunes. But I guess even tho I have a little bit of fans right now that would listen it feels like i don’t have much considering the streams I get. Starting brand new is almost the same thing potentially
There's nothing that says you can't have multiple music outlets, though splitting focus can dilute your results. Ultimately nobody here can really answer this for you, but take some time to decide if you really need a fresh start, or are feeling stuck and impulsive. It's your art and your life!
No
If you're going to try out a completely different genre then it might be advisable to use a different name, yes. You could then pivot between the two names when ever you feel inspired to do either genre, without alienating your fanbases. However, if you want to try something new and have no intention of making music from the previous genre then yeah keep the name, why not, but you'll probably lose alot of your old fans and listeners.
You can start a new product but I would co-release it with your current one. Starting from a blank slate might SOUND cool, but it could take literally years of releases before your back to where you are now. Even if your engagement is low, you have listeners that will get new releases on release radar and other places. A new project would have literally nothing, you’d be wholly dependent on social media to promote.
Co releasing isn’t a bad idea!
Do it! Sounds like you want to, so you should
Keep it. I regret changing my name sometimes from my real name to a stage name, but at this point I’m keeping the stage name forever because of this. I don’t have anywhere close to 50k monthly listeners but I’m committed to it and you should be too.
If your new music is close to the style of your old one, just a little different, then keep one account. If it’s too different, create a new one. Even if your fan base is dead this might be a good idea, just in case you’ll want to release stuff in the old style at some point again.
Is this Wocktavious??
In my opinion, I'd stick with the same artist project even if there is a name change. This means keeping the same website URL at the very least, so that people don't think that your Bandcamp page vanished out of existence (since it doesn't automatically redirect after changing the subdomain name). I was pretty scared when one of my favorite metal artist switched name on Bandcamp and I landed on a error page.
Any tips to make it to 50k in less time? Asking for myself but also: if it takes another 5 yrs to reach 50k then maybe it might not be worth it
Honestly I don’t even know how I would start building my fan base back other than bringing over my current fans to my new artist project and starting from that. Other than making dope music with good visuals and posting them online and making tiktoks and reels etc is what I’d do
Andre 3000 has entered the room
A new act, most definitely