good art

If you want to make it as an artist, you need to make good art.
Good means different things to different people. But in general, people know what they like and people don’t often like crap. You should always make sure everything you put your name to is the best possible product you can create. If you’re not able to create great product, you should stop wasting your own and everyone else’s time. There is absolutely no point in making something that is a poor imitation of what everyone else is doing.

Whether you’re a street press publication in an already overpopulated marketplace or you’re a DJ who has decided to start making your own music. If there are plenty of others doing the same thing you are but better, you should find something else. Music is a funny thing; it’s different to other markets. The first rule of marketing is to find out what people want then figure out what the best way of getting that product or service to them is. Not to create a product then try to make people want it. That never works. But with music, people don’t seem to do it that way. Musicians tend to follow their inspirations and peers, try to do a good job of it and then hope people like it. Maybe a smarter way to do it would be to analyse trends in sound and create whatever is popular. That would seem to make more sense, but, you’re probably not going to find too many artists that wouldn’t think that was a pretty effective way of compromising their integrity. Maybe it’s a matter of striking a happy median between the two philosophies.

As long as the art you create is really good, you’ll probably do okay.