The Metal Musician's Primer: Stop Playing Their Game
Head’s up. While everyone's losing their minds about whether AI is going to "replace musicians," they're missing the actual knife fight happening right in front of us. This isn't some sci-fi nightmare about robots with guitars—it's the same corporate bloodbath we've been drowning in since Napster torched the castle.
Roland Kluger gets it. The guy's been wading through music rights deals for The Beatles and Dylan for half a century, and he's not worried about the machines. He's worried about the same parasites who've been bleeding us dry since day one: the platforms.
If you're waiting for Spotify, YouTube, or Apple to suddenly grow a conscience and pay you fairly, I've got some bad news: You're already dead in the water.
Welcome to the Penny Hustle
Here's the brutal truth Kluger laid out: Streaming turned music into a penny business. Back when we actually sold albums—you know, physical things people paid real money for—there was an economy. Now? You're getting fractions of a cent per stream while Spotify's valuation hits the stratosphere.
You need millions of plays just to make rent. That's top 1% territory, and you know it.
But here's where it gets interesting. Kluger sees a split coming—a fork in the road that's going to separate the survivors from the casualties. And you need to pick a side right now.
Two Worlds: Pick Your Battlefield
The music economy just broke in half, and which side you land on determines whether you eat or starve.
Functional Music: The AI Killzone
This is music as wallpaper. Lo-fi beats, sleep sounds, coffee shop jazz, generic background tracks for some YouTuber's vlog. If your music is just "vibe" without identity, you're standing in the blast radius.
Reality check: AI is going to dominate this space completely. It's cheaper, faster, and platforms don't have to pay a cent in royalties when they generate their own mood music. If you're making "functional" music, you're competing with an algorithm that works for free.
Phenomenal Music: The Human Territory
This is music as connection. Story. Pain. Identity. Cultural moments. The stuff that makes people tattoo your lyrics on their ribs.
The difference: People don't just listen to music anymore—they subscribe to the artist. Your worldview, your struggle, your story. That parasocial bond? That messy, inefficient, beautifully human connection? AI can't fake that. Not even close.
Stop Waiting for the Tour Bus: Three Strategies That Actually Work
I know the old model: tour until your back gives out, hope you sell enough merch to cover gas money, rinse and repeat until you're 50 and wondering where it all went. That's done.
But forget everything you've been told about needing to be on stage to survive. The death of mandatory touring is actually your biggest opportunity—if you stop thinking like a band and start thinking like an IP holding company.
Strategy 1: Sell the Struggle, Not Just the Song
AI can generate a track in seconds. What it can't do is replicate the 3 AM doubts, the scraped-together studio sessions, the fifth revision of that bridge that finally worked.
The move: Stop just dropping songs on Spotify and disappearing. Sell access to your process. Voice memos from the road. The demos that didn't make the cut. Production breakdowns. The story behind each track.
Why it matters: You're shifting from the penny business (streaming) to the dollar business (membership). 500 real fans paying $5/month to watch you work? That's $2,500 monthly. Guaranteed. That's worth way more than 500,000 streams that might earn you $1,500 if you're lucky.
Strategy 2: The Invisible Tour (Sync Licensing)
Don't want to play for crowds? Play for scenes instead.
AI can churn out generic background tracks all day. What it can't do is create that specific emotional gut-punch a film director needs for the moment the protagonist realizes everything's been a lie. Game designers, YouTubers, filmmakers—they need specific, complex, narrative-driven music. That's human territory. I can attest to this. I’ve worked on short films. I’ve worked on short videography projects that tell stories. And I have gone through countless hours of editing, understanding that only music that was designed for the project will actually work in the end.
The move: Get your music into sync libraries—Artlist, Songtradr, boutique agencies. But here's the key: tag your metadata like your life depends on it. Don't just write "heavy metal track." Write "slow-building tension, apocalyptic dread, clean intro exploding into distortion, perfect for confrontation scene." Check out my latest YouTube videos on how to do this.
The payoff: One placement in a TV show or a popular YouTube channel pays $500 to $5,000 upfront. It's the most sustainable income stream for non-touring artists right now, period.
Strategy 3: Own Your Ground (The Anti-Platform Play)
Kluger's warning should be tattooed on every musician's forehead: "The platforms' goal is to pay the least amount possible. They will only pay when forced."
Stop building your castle on land you don't own. Instagram changes the algorithm tomorrow? You're invisible. TikTok decides metal isn't "advertiser friendly"? You're done.
The move: Every single listener needs to move to a list you own—email or SMS. Offer a free B-side, a sample pack, a hidden track, whatever. Just get that email address.
Why this is everything: When you have 5,000 emails, you don't need an algorithm to sell a new shirt or digital album. You have direct leverage. You control the relationship. Not Zuckerberg. Not some 23-year-old product manager at Spotify.
The Bottom Line: Be a Phenomenon or Be Data
Kluger's final word is simple but devastating: Don't let them see you as data.
If you're just an audio file on a playlist, you're replaceable. Disposable. Worth 0.003 cents per stream.
But if you're a source—of story, of process, of specific human emotion that can't be algorithmically generated—you're a phenomenon. And phenomena don't play by penny business rules.
The industry is designed to pay you scraps. Your job is to accumulate enough leverage to demand what you're actually worth.
Now stop doom-scrolling and start building something they can't delete.
