TL;DR Quick Summary

Derek Sivers talks with Ariel Hyatt about music marketing, how independent musicians describe themselves, and the best way to reach people. This article covers three conversations, the pitches Sivers still remembers, and the one idea he keeps coming back to that helps indie artists succeed.

Why Derek Sivers is worth listening to on this

Derek Sivers founded CD Baby in 1997 and spent the next decade watching independent artists try to explain themselves. More than 150,000 of them, each writing their own description. He read the ones that worked and the ones that did not, at a volume nobody else in the industry has matched.

That gave him something rare. Not a theory about positioning, but a pattern he watched play out across an enormous sample.

He is also a musician, which is why the advice lands differently. Berklee graduate, professional player since 1987, toured Japan as Ryuichi Sakamoto’s guitarist. He has been on the artist side of this problem too.

I have spent thirty years on the publicity side of the same problem. When Derek and I talk, we are describing the same thing from opposite ends of the pipeline.

I recorded these conversations a long time ago. I am archiving them here because none of it has dated. The platforms in the background have changed. What Derek says has not.

Conversation one: the pitches Derek Sivers never forgot

In our first conversation, Derek talked about what makes an artist description stick. He recalled descriptions he had read years earlier and could still recite, which is the whole point.

A few he singled out:

• The Divorcees: the hard liquor sandwich of Americana, one shot each of Jäger (Cash), Tequila (Willie) and Whiskey (Waylon)
• Leftover Salmon: polyethnic Cajun slamgrass
• John Taglieri: if Vertical Horizon and Third Eye Blind got hit by Train
• Devil Doll: Jessica Rabbit meets Joan Jett
• Sleeping Lion: Boston-based alternative electronic duo

Read them out loud. Each one puts a sound in your head before you have heard a note.

Derek’s own framing is that this is a frame of reference, not a summary. Some people call it an elevator pitch; marketers call it a USP; my friend Bob Baker calls it a Brand Identity Statement. The label does not matter.

If you want the full walkthrough on building your own, we cover it in Artist Bio Basics: Creating The Perfect Pitch..

Conversation two: the two words that changed a band’s career

Part two is where Derek tells the story I quote most often.

A band described themselves as hillbilly flamenco. Two words. That phrase changed the course of their career, because it was odd enough to remember and narrow enough to place them somewhere specific.

Derek’s argument is that narrowness is the feature, not the bug. The instinct is to reach wide, because the internet feels global. He thinks that is backwards. Something small and strange travels further than something broad and safe, because people can repeat it.

My side of that conversation: think about what you actually like and what speaks your truth, and stop trying to be everything to everyone.

Derek also makes the case for comparison. He used one for his own band. Naming two artists a listener already knows is not a lack of imagination, it is a shortcut into their head.

More on narrowing your audience in The Musician’s Guide to Finding A Target Market..

Conversation three: why marketing is about people

The third video sat in my archive for a couple of years before I posted it, and it is the one I would keep if I could only keep one.

Derek strips internet marketing back to the thing everyone forgets. You are marketing to people. Not to algorithms, not to platforms, not to a follower count. People are at the core of all of it.

It is a simple point and it sounds obvious right up until you look at how most artists actually spend their time online.

Key takeaways

• Derek Sivers read descriptions from more than 150,000 artists at CD Baby, which is why his read on this is worth more than most.
• The descriptions he still remembers years later are the strange, narrow ones.
• Hillbilly flamenco is two words and it changed a band’s trajectory.
• Comparison to known artists is a legitimate shortcut, not a failure of nerve.
• Narrow travels further than broad, because narrow is repeatable.
• Underneath everything: you are marketing to people, not platforms.

Want the full walkthrough on writing yours? Start with Artist Bio Basics: Creating The Perfect Pitch..

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