Session 6: Bina Rosenvinge (Gateway Music) on distribution, playlist pitching, and why the waterfall release trick works

Bina Rosenvinge explains why Gateway Music charges per release instead of a monthly fee like DistroKid: if you're not streaming much, a percentage cut earns the aggregator nothing, so a flat per-release fee is honestly the more sustainable model for artists who release in bursts rather than constantly. She walks through the mechanics working artists actually need: the distributor doesn't affect the streaming algorithm, so where you distribute from doesn't change your reach; the waterfall release strategy (each new single also includes the earlier tracks as bonus listens) works but shouldn't be stretched past three tracks or it gets messy and hits Spotify's re-release content guidelines; and space singles a month to six weeks apart because people are slow to actually listen. Her clearest piece of advice: never let playlist pitching become your actual strategy, because a lot of what lands on New Music Friday is already built to sound like New Music Friday, and organic monthly listeners that don't spike and crash matter more than one week on a playlist.

Full transcript

Session 6 - Conversation with Bina

[Rasmus]
We're recording this, so you know, Bina, with CrackBot, and the aim is to try to collect some condensed value from the conversations at the end of this whole thing. Yeah, no pressure. But I mean, as long as we leave with one or two golden nuggets, I think we'll be just fine. No, but we can start off slowly as the time passes two o'clock here, but you're joining today because you've been also in the music industry for a while. You have also been an artist yourself, or am an artist yourself.

[Bina]
Well, I don't think you ever stopped being an artist, but I'm not actively singing in a band or anything right now, but I was in a rock band as a singer, and I play a bit of piano. I played piano when I was a kid, you know, and I've studied musicology and know my way around chords and different instruments and stuff, so it's also easier to talk to musicians that way.

[Rasmus]
That is true. You understand a little bit when they say stuff, you're not totally only coming from the business side. But I guess, wouldn't you say that most people actually, I mean, most people that I know works in the industry, they had some, in some way, they played music in some shape or form.

[Bina]
Yeah, because it's all about networking and I kind of fell into what I started to do in distribution because I was like, I knew people from like singing with them and being in bands and working at a venue and stuff. So yeah, it's kind of natural that it's musicians and at least people who love music, who fall into these kind of jobs, I think.

[Rasmus]
Yeah. Maybe we should, maybe would you be okay with giving a slight introduction about yourself, just a little bit about where you come from, what you've done, what you're doing?

[Bina]
What am I doing? Well, my name is Bine and I live in Aarhus in Denmark, the second biggest city in Denmark. Yeah, as I, I don't know if it would go way back, but I played piano like when I was in school and started singing, joined some choirs, got some confidence. And then I was like, you know, when you're a teenager, you're like, oh, I'm just going to be the biggest pop star in the world. But I kind of quickly, I was like, I was a huge Westlife fan, for example, but I thought all the behind the scenes and who was their tour manager and what is the strategy behind the releases and stuff was kind of exciting for me as well. I just wanted to know everything. So quite quickly, I was like, okay, so if I can't be on the stage, I want to be behind the stage somehow. And yeah, turns out the behind the scenes stuff is more approachable than becoming the biggest pop star in the world. So, so, yeah, but I've been like singing in a couple of rock bands that didn't quite go anywhere, but it was cool. And I got a lot of great experience, though, as I said, I can know what people are talking about. I know the struggles. I know the like what you can that you can think, oh, why, why bother? Like, yeah, I know all those feelings. Yeah. So, yeah. So, so I kind of battled a couple of years about should I go and study musicology because I was afraid that music would be ruined for me because I don't want to I don't want like a formula on why this song is good. Yeah. But I did it and then the musicology in Aarhus is quite focused on teaching, teaching music like in high schools and stuff. So I but you could pick like a culture line, it was called. And I was like, yeah, that's that's exactly it. I thought it would be more like business minded, but it was more like culture in general and libraries and museums and and the very unique like, you know, theories about capturing an audience. And yeah, so I kind of looked around and I always loved London and I've been like really wanting to live in London. So I actually, between year one and two in my master's, I went to London for a year and I studied music industry management.

[Rasmus]
Okay. And what school in London, you studied in London?

[Bina]
London Metropolitan University.

[Rasmus]
Oh, very official.

[Bina]
In the north of London, yeah. And it was cool because it was the teachers were like working as music lawyers. I was going to say in their spare time, but I think it was the other way around. They were teaching in their spare time. But yeah, you got like stories from the real world and it's not like just the book says this when you want to work in this industry.

[Rasmus]
I actually have a question. I know that you haven't finished explaining everything, but is it like how big of a difference did it feel that the industry was in London compared to like Denmark or Netherlands or something?

[Bina]
Because of the United States and England are like, you know, consider very, very international, you know, I don't think I think there were maybe one or two actual English people in the class. Okay. So there were people from the Netherlands and Belgium and a few from the States and Bulgaria. And yeah, so I got a lot of friends like that, that I obviously for many reasons don't really see anymore. But it was cool also to like hear about their like music industries. That was just a bonus. Yeah. That was quite cool. And then I went back and finished my dissertation in Denmark after a long, long time about I wrote about music export, you know, and yeah, I fell into working at the distribution company because I was doing my what you call it, you know, the semester where you're out working instead of studying.

[Rasmus]
The internship.

[Bina]
Internship. That's it. Yeah. I did that at a booking agency. And there was a girl ripping CDs. That was how it was back then, loading them up to iTunes. And she had to do something and then I just took over her work and then just stayed. And finally started working full time as a label manager at this distribution company. That was...

[Rasmus]
What company was it? That's when you and I met, I think.

[Bina]
Yeah. And then, like I guess in many countries, the second biggest city and the biggest city is always kind of a competition. So I've always been like, everyone moves to Copenhagen, which is the biggest city in Denmark to work in the music business. And I've always been stubborn and been like, nope, will not do it. It has to be possible to stay here and work. And there has to be a music industry in Aarhus as well. And that kind of, yeah, shook me a bit when Digity decided to close in Aarhus and focus all of their energy in Copenhagen. But then I went to the competition and they opened a division in Aarhus instead. And that's Gateway Music, which is a part of the Danish Musicians Union, I think it would be called.

[Rasmus]
And can you maybe, because here's one thing I think could be interesting, and I know we're probably going to talk more about that. But when you mentioned this, one thing that I really like with how you're doing it at Gateway is that it seems like most distributions are now moving towards sort of like pay a monthly or yearly fee all the time, including a percentage. But you guys are actually insisting on doing it differently.

[Bina]
Yeah, we're more like selling the, like you pay a distribution fee per release and then that's it. Like you don't pay monthly or yearly to keep the music online. And then we take a percentage of streaming, which can be nothing if you're not streaming anything, it's nothing. But yeah, that's and I think then it's really easy for people to see, OK, I'm buying this and I'm getting this and that's it. And then we have different label services as well you can buy. So it's like going to a store and then I want that, then that. OK, what do you have actually?

[Rasmus]
Because I never heard you tell about the difference on Tubbo's, because I know that not everyone offers that also.

[Bina]
Yeah, exactly. And in this world, in this digital music world, you never know what's going to happen. And if Spotify all of a sudden just opens up the gates and like YouTube, you can just upload everything yourself, we don't have anything to do anymore because basically distribution of music is just moving files like from my computer to Spotify basically. And then there are, of course, all these content guidelines that we have to follow. But the pure distribution in itself, you can also get at DistroKid or one of these other bigger platforms where you just get access to.

[Rasmus]
Because everyone's basically doing the same, right?

[Bina]
Yeah.

[Rasmus]
Everyone's basically doing the same.

[Bina]
So we kind of want to move a bit closer to label work without trying to be a label because we're not like putting money into people and we're not doing the promotion for people. We have different partners, like if you want PR, we have that or that person that we recommend. And then the label services that we do are kind of like we can do a press kit or we can do like we can make sure you get an official artist channel on YouTube and we can kind of like look through all of your profiles on the different streaming services to see if they align and help you make it look nice.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, yeah.

[Bina]
Stuff like that.

[Rasmus]
And like what?

[Bina]
Like if you can't make a cover artwork yourself, you can pay.

[Rasmus]
You can help out with that.

[Bina]
Yeah, we can help out. Yeah. So the kind of things around releasing your music that obviously not everyone can know how to do.

[Rasmus]
No, it's also nice to feel, I think often what a lot of artists, I remember this also from when I was still playing myself, is that you're often also just looking for someone to sort of do things with so you don't feel so alone with everything. I think that's a big thing.

[Bina]
How it is right now, there are a lot of solo artists because it takes a lot of money to have five people drive the band and make money. Whereas if you're one person and you have like a loop pedal or something, you get all the money yourself. But that also gets really lonely if you're at the stage where you're not yet as big as having a manager or a booker or anyone. So if you're like near a circle of friends, don't know a lot about the music industry, and it's nice that we can kind of step into the role of not being a manager, but someone to talk to and to give advice and stuff like that. And that's the difference between where I was before in Diggity and Gateway. We have to talk to everyone because you don't just get access to the platform and upload anything yourself. You send us everything. So we are doing all the writing metadata and uploading files and stuff.

[Rasmus]
A lot of the bigger platforms like Distrokid or something like that, you don't really get like a personal assistant or what you will. You get like a chatbot or something.

[Bina]
I've always been like, okay, if you're in Denmark, try to find a distribution company who's also in Denmark and who has people in it. Or Distrokid must have some people in it, but you can't really just call them and ask a question.

[Rasmus]
No, no, no. Because then everybody wants to call that one guy. I have an old friend also that works at, what is it called? It's one of these things. You can't, do they? What is it called? I almost had it there. Orchard.

[Bina]
The Orchard, yeah.

[Rasmus]
But I don't think they have a lot of people either. Maybe it's just him or two people or something.

[Bina]
They have some people, but then they have like, you have to be like a really big artist or label to be signed.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, they changed away. But I feel like a lot of, or not a lot, but some aggregators did that. They changed away so you can't just independently sign up anymore.

[Bina]
Yeah, they shut down Spinup as well. That was, I don't think, earlier, like a couple of years ago.

[Rasmus]
Do you know why they did this?

[Bina]
Yeah, but because there's no money in it. If you don't, if you're not a big artist and you don't stream, then the aggregator is not earning money from the percentage as well. That's why we kind of have to charge a distribution fee per release, because that's what we're getting.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, that makes sense. Because if you're an artist and you can sign up for free and you just take a cut, but if you, the artist releases a ton of stuff that puts work on your table, but if it streams enough to earn one dollar over a year, and if you have 5,000 artists all of a sudden with that, then I understand that becomes...

[Bina]
And that's also why I'm not like, I won't just say, don't use Diggity, use Gateway. Because if you really have a lot of music or you're a label, or like you have a high volume of releases, then maybe their structure is better. Because when you pay per month, you can release all the music that you want. So if you do have a lot of music or is a label, then maybe that is the better solution. Whereas in Gateway, our slogan is kind of closer to the musician. And that means our structure is better suited for like artists that are working as artists and maybe have an album with three singles and then a long break. And then maybe out touring and stuff like that. And then a new release with singles.

[Rasmus]
So that makes sense.

[Bina]
If you have like 10 singles in two months, then it's way too expensive to use Gateway Music.

[Rasmus]
That also sounds like a lot of singles though.

[Bina]
And I have to upload all of them. So it's okay with me if you... No, you know what I mean.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, I know what you mean. But would you say, you and I talked a little bit about that before today, but I'll just ask you today also, is that like if you're an artist that is not in Denmark, would you say like, yeah, it's still worth using Gateway? Or what would you advise someone to do? Let's say they're in Netherlands or Germany, for example.

[Bina]
Yeah, well, it kind of depends because mainly our pitching, to play it in the Nordics. So it would depend on that. Would you be... Always via Spotify for Artists yourself also.

[Rasmus]
Okay, yeah.

[Bina]
But if I have to say the same thing to someone in the Netherlands that I would, to someone in Denmark, I would say try to find a local distribution company. Because then like the payment is also like from a Dutch bank to a Dutch bank.

[Rasmus]
Simpler. Yeah, because I think most people just know about the big ones. If you go in, you know, most young artists now just will Google or AI search. You know, I said I distribute, they'll give you Distrokid and a few others maybe. And then you go there and of course it's simpler maybe.

[Bina]
Yeah, but you also kind of have to be careful that it's not just one person with a Distrokid account playing Aggregator. And then charging you something that you could get for free. And yeah, but then again, what we are charging for is this personal relationship with someone who's helping you release your music. So, yeah.

[Rasmus]
But you also, I mean, I understand the value of this is that, oh, I have a question before I say this. So, let's say that I'm a Dutch artist from the Netherlands. I sign up to you and Gateway. I asked you to push my singles and my albums. Will you actually be able to push them to Spotify on the Scandinavian playlists?

[Bina]
I probably would. But it's the same thing as like wanting to break America. It doesn't really make sense if you're not going to go there physically and follow up on this playlist success. So, it all depends on what you put in your pitch writing, you know. Press release and stuff. And if you're like a local artist from the Netherlands and not really looking to tour in Scandinavia or something, then I don't know if the promotion side would make sense. But, of course, we can release it. We can do the distribution. That goes out to worldwide, you know. And then if you do the PR on the side, then that's two separate things.

[Rasmus]
That's interesting. So, if I was a Dutch artist in reality and I was going to go tour in Denmark, then I should release my next single with you guys.

[Bina]
Yeah, maybe. But, again, you have to take into account if we do a payout outside of Denmark, there's going to be the normal banking fees and stuff.

[Rasmus]
That's true.

[Bina]
Yeah. But, of course, if you're making a lot of money, then that's not as noteworthy as if you're not. So, the basic distribution, if you're just looking to how do I get my music on Spotify or Apple Music, then, of course, we can do that. And then maybe it's more comforting to use a European company than Distrokid or someone else where you can't really talk to people. But I don't know if there is a similar aggregation.

[Rasmus]
That's what I was just going to ask you. If someone wanted to find a local aggregator in the Netherlands, how would you go about that? Maybe you can ask AI now. Maybe AI will tell you.

[Bina]
Maybe AI or maybe go to one of the organizations, like the CODA in the Netherlands. I don't know the name of it. But the collection societies or if there's a music union, they should know the local.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, who is there. That's a good point.

[Bina]
But that being said, you're always welcome to reach out. And I will definitely love to work with artists outside of Denmark. And you're not selling your soul to Gateway Music. If you want to take down the music, there's nothing. You can just do that within 10 days. Yeah, there's not like a... We do a contract, but you're not like bound to use Gateway Music for two years or anything like that.

[Rasmus]
What I have here, I actually have a question here from Green Tea Bitches. I think it's a Danish artist. I have a feeling like, because I think that they are going to record actually with Trolls in Tape Town soon. I think Trolls talked about that. I think they're in Copenhagen. There's a question here, maybe stupid questions. There's no stupid questions.

[Bina]
We all ask these questions.

[Rasmus]
So they're asking, does the distributor affect the stream algorithm? For example, we are a Danish band and now distribute via a Danish distributor. But most of our listeners are in the US and the UK. Should we change to a US based distributor if we just want to maximize streams and we have other people doing the PR exactly? Like, does the reach, I guess, does the distributor matter in this?

[Bina]
No, I don't think so. No. Because once it's on Spotify, the algorithms kind of take over and that has nothing to do with where it came from.

[Rasmus]
OK.

[Bina]
Maybe when you're pitching to Playlist, as I said, because we focus mainly on the Nordics and I know that Diggity are going through The Orchard and it's the same for them. But The Orchard has a worldwide network of people, but then it kind of takes a lot to get the UK team working a Danish track, for example.

[Rasmus]
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. But I guess also the algorithms should also by itself a little bit pick up that they might want to show it to more US and UK listeners, or is it not? It's not specific.

[Bina]
I think as soon as they have a fan base, because I guess they have since they can see where people are listening. As soon as the fan base kind of picks it up, that's what gets the algorithms going. So the organic plays are more valuable than a playlist that you're on for one week and then you're off it again.

[Rasmus]
I see here also they have follow up questions. So it's like, thank you? If we pitch ourselves to Spotify, does it matter which distributor we use?

[Bina]
No, it doesn't. But when we pitch as a distributor, we also pitch to Apple Music. And in our case, UC and Amazon. In rare cases, it's mostly like classical and jazz that gets picked up.

[Rasmus]
And that's not possible to do when you're doing it yourself. Then you can only pitch on Spotify.

[Bina]
Yeah, exactly. But then again, Spotify is the biggest platform for playlists. But we've hit some nice international Apple Music playlists recently. I think there's been a shift in the Danish or Nordic Apple Music.

[Rasmus]
Okay, interesting.

[Bina]
We're getting a lot of playlists starting from the new year. Also kind of new in indie and new in rock. Not just the new music daily.

[Rasmus]
I don't know if this is connected, but I have a friend called Nisbyster that has a label in Copenhagen called Esche. And they release a lot of stuff that's been getting more and more traction internationally. And I know because one of my other friends that's a mastering engineer that does all the mastering for them, is that they got a lot of... Elias Rønnefeld got Pitchfork something. And then with Ice Age that they also released, they got Pitchfork something else. And then they did the Smerts album, the Norwegian artist, that also got Pitchfork. Like pop album of the year or something. And it started becoming a thing that there's this Copenhagen Scandinavian indie pop sound that they're starting to pick up in the US. I was talking actually to Emil about this. So maybe that helps that they're like, oh, wait a minute. There's stuff happening in this. I don't know if... Do you think that could be something?

[Bina]
It helps that you have a label, because it's like if you compare it to when you're pitching to radio or something. Of course, they know all of the PR companies. When they send them something, it's going to be of some value and they know, OK, she knows what I like. So I'm going to check out what she sent me. Versus if you're a private person just connecting to these radio personalities. And of course, it's the same if you're a label or if you're a big aggregator, you have this bigger personal connection to and know who's at the other end of your send out. Whereas we work with Denmark Music Group as our aggregator. So they are actually in charge of the actual communication with Studyfind and the others.

[Rasmus]
What do you have? Do you have any examples of artists or songs that you got on like the Apple playlist or something? Anything that...

[Bina]
Yeah. And it's like, who was it? Ruben Moreno.

[Rasmus]
Oh, yeah.

[Bina]
Yeah. He just released his first solo album, actually. Fun fact. I didn't really know that he didn't do any solo music before. And some different kind of smaller rock and metal acts. Yeah. And usually rock and metal has like a broader, like it might be niche, but it's the fan bases are more like, what do you call it? Loyal, maybe?

[Rasmus]
Yeah.

[Bina]
So like this genre travels better outside of Denmark, especially if you sing in English, of course.

[Rasmus]
That helps.

[Bina]
But yeah, we had like someone called The Human Edition.

[Rasmus]
Okay.

[Bina]
They got on the new in rock, all the new in Poland, something like indie or rock or something. Their international playlist.

[Rasmus]
Okay.

[Bina]
Oh, and the biggest one was a jazz release that I had last year with instrumental jazz. But on two of these, I think they were called Jazz Essentials and like something in that two different ones.

[Rasmus]
Yeah.

[Bina]
He was kind of like, boom, our number one streamed artist in all of music.

[Rasmus]
Okay.

[Bina]
For a couple of months. So it's those playlists are kind of cool to get on. But we just like a normal release. And then someone in there were like, I like this track. I'm going to put it on this playlist. Oh, yeah. Sometimes you could argue like if the song is great and the pitch materials is great, it shouldn't really matter who it comes from. Because the curators at the other end should be able to identify what works and what doesn't.

[Rasmus]
Yeah. Yeah, I suppose that what is good about these more new music kind of things is that it also makes it possible for a new artist to be, how do you say, motivated to keep pushing and releasing. So because you start feeling like, well, it doesn't matter because it's only going to put all the big artists in the playlist. Like, what are you?

[Bina]
And this is still the case in a lot of like a lot of releases don't end up on the list. And that's what I wrote to you. Like, it's important for me to say playlist pitching should never be your strategy. No. Like, no. And I see a lot of people like, OK, so we're going to make a two minute hip hop track that just starts and then the chorus is there five times and then it's suited for new music.

[Rasmus]
That's what the algorithm wants.

[Bina]
Yeah, that's good. But yeah, in all honesty, if you put on new music Friday, that's a lot of what it sounds like, what you're putting on there. But I have a hard time advising people to like change how they make music so that they can get on a playlist.

[Rasmus]
I think also, I mean, wrong. One thing that is interesting is this thing with AI taking over more and more music, right? That also is the that is the reason for you to do the opposite, because I will figure it out faster than any of us can.

[Bina]
What the algorithm wants.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, exactly.

[Bina]
And Spotify has all these playlists with their own. First, it was their own artists that they had paid to write different kinds of music, and now it's going to be AI writing this music. And then it's like, what is the value of getting on these playlists then? Because it's not like, we're not side by side with real artists.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for stores and spa retreats.

[Bina]
Like in the elevator, like the music, it becomes like that. And then it's like, okay, we need to get more organic here. And yeah, so I always say, okay, yeah, it's great if you get on new music Friday. But it's a lot of the labels that are sitting on these spots. There are like between 80 and 100 tracks on the Danish New Music Friday. And a lot of tracks released every week. So it doesn't really.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't make sense. But is it maybe correct to say that people should not, like you say, don't make pit like Pelle is pitching your strategy, but more consider it. This is like, it's of course, it's people like, I think people know that it's important to have good listeners on Spotify, because now sometimes the bookers and the venues will look a little bit like that. It's like, oh, do they have any listeners? But you should not let it overshadow the rest of your.

[Bina]
No, and you can get a lot of monthly listeners that won't go up and down and up and down every time you release music. If you kind of look at the long on the long, what do you call it?

[Rasmus]
Long tail.

[Bina]
Yeah. And so if you get your fan base to grow organically and that that also means getting out in the real world, as I call it, if you have a release, do you can you do something out in the real world to match it with and not just sit inside the digital space and and release your music and then it's not on a playlist and then you're like, oh, well, that didn't work. And then your song is just dead to you. You know, there are a lot of people who feel like that. And it's like, well, the song is just out. Like if someone hears it in a year, it's still a new song to them.

[Rasmus]
So that's true. That's a good point.

[Bina]
Keep working at it, even though it doesn't really get.

[Rasmus]
I have a question for you. I have a question here being that someone sent in before the show, but they're asking if they're saying like, OK, I'm a new artist that is going to release a few singles to then be followed up by an album. And if you would give me some advice on how should I go about my release process, what is the what is the best way that I can do this?

[Bina]
Don't rush it. That's the short answer. Like have like a month or a month and a half between each release. Because people are very slow, like even like the Foo Fighters just released a new album. I was like, oh, I'm going to listen to that someday. And I haven't yet. But I'm like, I haven't had the time or I forget about it all the time because I'm like, I don't know. But like if you release a song, it's going to take people at least like two weeks to be like, oh, yeah, I should. And then you can be like, oh, did you did you already listen to the song or else it's here? Click the link and then switch over to, oh, a new song is coming. So just give people time to listen to the first one before you go to the next one. And there's also the whole thing of like if you have success on radio, then you're kind of like stepping on your own toes if you're releasing a new track too soon. And just like you have a longer space of time to talk about your music.

[Rasmus]
So it's not like and then I mean, that also makes sense. Because what you always have this thing with if you say that when you decide on buying something, right, you see ads, they run ads at you for a while and you have to see it. I can't remember what amount of times I've heard it, but you need to see something multiple times before you like buy it.

[Bina]
Is it seven or is it more?

[Rasmus]
Yeah, but I never actually considered that. Of course, it can be the same with music where you can say, oh, yeah, this artist says, oh, I should listen to it. But right now, I'm just I'm in the toilet. So now's not a good time.

[Bina]
Yeah, I'm going to do that later. And then our attention span is just like non-existent because we're bombarded with things all the time. And then also like you can hear a track the first time and be like and then the third or fourth time you start picking up the details and like, oh, I really like that part. And oh, how clever they have. I don't know. Shallow playing the first melody or something. Yeah. And so not even getting people to listen one time, but having them keep listening is the key. Oh, so you just have to like if you have like two singles and an album, like do that over like three or four months at least. And also remember to have something to follow up after the album, maybe an acoustic version or yeah, something.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, because it's about the constant momentum almost, right?

[Bina]
Yeah, maybe not constant, but then like if you're just like releasing a single every two weeks and then the album, people will be like, well, what happened?

[Rasmus]
Yeah, no, it makes sense.

[Bina]
Yeah.

[Rasmus]
Would you say would you say what would you choose if you had to choose? Okay, I'm releasing two singles and then an album. Would you say one or two months in between each release?

[Bina]
I think rather two than one. Always like also for my sake, if I'm pitching it, we have like a five week deadline. And and on Spotify, you can only pitch one track at a time. So I can't pitch the next track until the first track is online.

[Rasmus]
So that is that is valuable information. And so because I've seen sometimes people like, yeah, I don't want to release singles. We just want to release one EP or one album. But that actually gives you less opportunities to pitch because you can only pitch once per release.

[Bina]
And in some cases, I kind of advise people to do this, but it's it's very much about what genre it is. Like I like someone releasing like some piano pieces. And those really well, there are a lot of instrumental playlists, but it wasn't really going to be the next big like and have like a huge PR budget and stuff. And I was like, well, in these kind of genres, the whole album is kind of one piece. Yeah, one masterwork or something like that. And then don't separate it, maybe.

[Rasmus]
OK.

[Bina]
It all kind of depends. And that's that's a lot of what I do for work. I talk to people and kind of try and help them decide, like the one that got on the jazz track that got on the playlist. He was almost not including it on the album. I didn't know. And he was he just sent me all the 10 tracks or however. And he was like, if you had to pick like three singles out of these. And then I picked that one. And he was like, oh, OK. But that was because he had like he had a rough time when he was recording it. Like something happened. And so emotionally, he was yeah, he was kind of sick of the track or something like that. I don't know. But I didn't know that. I just thought it was a great track.

[Rasmus]
Oh, it's actually one thing. One thing there is is I think one takeaway that I'm hearing when you say this is because it resonates with me in terms of like nowadays I mainly do the live sessions for Tape Town, but I used to record and produce a lot of bands also in the studio. And I would often use more like people that was not musicians or producers or anything that just listen to music to hear their opinion of if I was in doubt about something on a song. Because it gives you a different perspective on it. Because most musicians or music producers, they then will consider it in like a I don't know, they take on like a hat of, oh, yeah, now I have to evaluate this from this standpoint. So sometimes it can be very valuable to have someone that can look at it totally from the outside, where it's just like, OK, which song do you think would do best on the radio?

[Bina]
Yeah, and they don't listen to it with their work ears.

[Rasmus]
Exactly, their work ears, yeah, not their all their emotions, because they spend the time in the rehearsal space in the studio.

[Bina]
Yeah, I do that myself. Sometimes I can I can catch myself being like, oh, they shouldn't have repeated that chorus because now it's like four minutes and then it will never, it's too long now or something. And I'm like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's just an artistic decision.

[Rasmus]
But do you think, OK, do you think you're most colored by your own like musicianship or by the time that you now spend because you spend significant time now on like pitching and the whole distribution side? Which hat do you think that you wear more naturally?

[Bina]
I think maybe my work hat, because actually I don't get to, as I said, I haven't even listened to Foo Fighters new album yet because I when I get home, I don't put on music. And it's not like I choose to. I will not listen to more music. I just don't do it because I'm and then when I'm at work, I listen to a lot of the tracks that I'm like uploading and stuff. So it's and I get really like music disturbs me. Like if I'm writing something, I can't listen to music because I'm listening too much. I either have to listen to like classical music or death metal where I can't understand a word they're saying because then I can't.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, exactly.

[Bina]
And so I see the point with all the chill and focus playlists and stuff. But but I'm like, I don't want to then it's just noise. Then I would rather just and like if I'm on the bus, I don't listen to music. I listen to the people around me. Sometimes I get really annoyed by the people around me, but I don't listen to music. Like I've just like made it a habit to not like listen to music all the time. I don't know why. Every New Year's Eve, I'm like this year, I'm going to listen to more music all the time. Then I'm like.

[Rasmus]
But I think it's I think it can be natural because you work with it. I've had the same when you know, when I started when I when I was producing a lot of music all the time, I just when I got home, I was just like, yeah, I don't really want I haven't had a like I haven't had a stereo system since I was 14. I think I literally don't have that. I think I do.

[Bina]
And I have like a vinyl, like a record player and stuff.

[Rasmus]
I have a record player, though, with small shitty speakers.

[Bina]
I think it's because the choices paralyze me. Yeah. Like if you open Spotify, I'm like. I can put like all the music in the world and I can't think of one single song that I want to hear.

[Rasmus]
It's like the Netflix problem.

[Bina]
But I found a solution. My coworker has had like a new New Year's resolution to listen to more albums.

[Rasmus]
Oh, yeah. And the whole thing.

[Bina]
And then I was like, oh, I can connect to this because I'm from when you bought CDs and listen to the whole thing and then you have to make choices all the time when you were listening. And so I've been listening to more music because I'm listening to albums. And that way, I also know that Spotify isn't tricking me into listening to fake artists.

[Rasmus]
That's another side.

[Bina]
I don't trust Spotify anymore to present me with new music because who is this artist? Is it really?

[Rasmus]
Exactly. It's a fake artist. Maybe you should do like an album club like you have. Like my mom recently joined a book club. She loves it. Maybe you can have like album clubs and you're like, OK, we all listen to this album. Then we'll meet up and talk about it.

[Bina]
Yeah, that sounds great. I would. I hope I would have time for it, but I have a three year old as well.

[Rasmus]
OK, fair enough.

[Bina]
I listen to a lot of children's music.

[Rasmus]
Oh, yeah. Well, I guess that's that's inspirational, too, in some ways. I have I thought about something you just said, which because. Of the question also, you know, does it matter where you release your music, what way you distribute it, right? And so if it doesn't really matter from a technical standpoint, then I suppose like what you can get if you have a place like Gateway is you have a bit of you have a more personal connection. And also maybe because I can I can imagine like if if I was an artist and I release for you guys and I call you up and ask your advice and such, you will also care a little bit about it.

[Bina]
And of course. And I wouldn't I wouldn't like just say, yeah, Gateway is the only way like, no, I kind of find pride in like being like I'm also just being transparent. Yeah, I work at Gateway Music, but I'm also like being in the music business and I want to I've always wanted to help artists. So it's not like, oh, if you're really if you're not going to distribute through Gateway Music, I'm not going to talk to you. I would love to.

[Rasmus]
It's a hard place also to be like overselling things because you never know when, you know, the job or situation changes.

[Bina]
No, apparently you don't. That was quite of a shock. But I've landed a really, really great place. I love being at Gateway Music. It's more like for me, for how I like to work. I talk to people more.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, I think it has a nice vibe. I met some of the other guys also from your team. They're very, very kind and very sweet people. Certainly seems like they also care about people. And one thing I just wanted to because there was one thing where I was thinking if I was why I would prefer to release for you is that because even though you say, yeah, it's hard to sort of, you know, you pitching, you can't necessarily guarantee it will land on something. But I think there is an aspect of if you pitch a lot all the time, you do pick up on some small like indications like you are certainly more likely than me or probably anyone in this room to know if someone brings a song to you, you'll probably have an idea where would this fly? Where would this actually have a chance so that you can recognize that because of everything you pitched? So I think that is a very, very big value thing. Why if I had to release something tomorrow, I would pick you guys because I could call you up and say, OK, listen, I have these songs. If you don't think they totally suck, you know, where would you think? Which songs should I, which are the singles? Where should we pitch it? Like, what do you want to do?

[Bina]
Yeah. And that's just also the fact to just like talk to people beforehand and be like, even if it doesn't land on any playlist, it's not the end of the world. Or maybe your track is more suited for radio or it's more suited for live. Where is your audience? Like there are a lot of things to look into, like aside from the playlist.

[Rasmus]
I see here more questions. I'm going to go through a few questions here for you. OK, so Green Tea Bitches again. I gotta say, really nice with the questions, Green Tea Bitches. They're really good questions.

[Bina]
You can call me after as well. Yeah. After ether if you want to talk about something.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, we can facilitate the contact to Bina if you want to connect with Bina. So Green Tea Bitches asks, can you comment on the waterfall release strategy? If I am releasing a four track EP, should I release the first three singles and then add the last one into an EP? Or does it look bad if I release an EP of four songs and there's only one new unreleased song?

[Bina]
People do that all the time. So there's only one new track left on the actual like EP or album because then you have given like each track that you find single worthy a shot at pitching. I suppose also, can I say one thing? But the waterfall release is like if you...

[Rasmus]
Is that different?

[Bina]
Yeah, because that's when you release a single and then you release a new single where the first track is track two. And then on the third single, single one and two are track two and three. And that's to control what the listeners are listening to when the first track is through. Yeah, because if they're just listening to it, if you link to your single and they listen to that, then the algorithms can take them away from your music after that.

[Rasmus]
So here you force them to, if they just press play and do something else, they listen to the second one.

[Bina]
Track two is the first single. But I wouldn't recommend doing it with more than three tracks.

[Rasmus]
Why is that?

[Bina]
Don't just continue doing that. Firstly, because it looks messy. It's confusing. And the content guideline says that you can only release the same track maybe five times.

[Rasmus]
Okay.

[Bina]
So you can't just keep releasing the same track over and over and over again. And it also doesn't really look good. What you could do is create your own playlist as well with your own music and then just add the new release to the top and then just link to this one.

[Rasmus]
That gives you the same... Okay, so that actually gives you the exact same... Okay, wait a minute. Okay, I'm just saying it out loud to understand it myself. What you're actually saying is what people are trying... The benefit that you get out of the Waterfall release strategy is that every time you release a new single, the other songs that you previously just released are also in this release. So when you send the new link to someone somewhere, they will potentially listen to all of them.

[Bina]
But you can actually get... Or you can take an old track that you want to give some new love to and add it as a Waterfall.

[Rasmus]
But instead of doing that, what you're saying is if you're releasing a new single, just put it on top of your playlist with all your songs or whatever. And then link to that and say, hey, we have a new single out. But the link is just linking to the new single in the playlist.

[Bina]
At least you can do that on Spotify and the other places where you can create your own playlists.

[Rasmus]
That's smart.

[Bina]
The Waterfall release is going to go to all the streaming services.

[Rasmus]
Yeah.

[Bina]
So you can do a combination. You can do the both. But I don't recommend doing it more than like with three tracks.

[Rasmus]
Okay. So for Green Tea Bitches' situation here, they're releasing a four-track EP. How are we maximizing this release speed?

[Bina]
You could do the Waterfall strategy with the first single one. It's just single one. And then single two is the first two tracks. And the single three is the three first tracks. And then the EP is the four tracks. Maybe consider... I don't know. No, because you want to hold on to the cover art for each single, of course. But then, yeah, that would be the maximum, I think. Yeah. But if we're going to go technical, the tracks are going to have the same ISIC codes on each release. So no matter which release you're looking at, it's going to have the same play count.

[Rasmus]
But that's a good thing, right? That's a good thing. Otherwise, it will be a shit show.

[Bina]
Yeah. So you're not starting over with the track on each new release that it's added to. But that would get a bit messy. Like if you're looking at the... What's it called? Dystrophy.

[Rasmus]
Dyscography. Yeah.

[Bina]
I need some coffee soon. And then it's going to look a bit like... Okay, how many times have you released this track?

[Rasmus]
Yeah, I can see that. It gets a little awkward. Okay, so we're looking at... This is a question of aesthetics or ultimate digital maximization.

[Bina]
Yeah, you could say.

[Rasmus]
Okay. But actually, what you're saying... Okay, if I was part of Green Tea Bitches band, I would do your trick with making a playlist. I would do the... I'll put the single up and then put it on top of the playlist.

[Bina]
You can definitely do the thing where you release every track as a single until there's just one left, which is the new one on the EP.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, because you want to be able to pitch every song. Because also like your jazz friend that was hating the single that you then pitched and got a big playlist is that you never know which song actually hits the...

[Bina]
Yeah, and don't just do it because of the pitching. Do it because of prolonging the momentum of the EP.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, also because if you're an artist, you know... Let's say... So Green Tea Bitches, for an example, if they're releasing a four-track EP, then now I know they will record... I don't know how much they're coming to record a tape time with Trolls, but they're recording something. So that, of course, has a cost to them to go record songs. And then you also also tour. So you have to put time and effort into making the songs, getting them recorded, you want to release them, then you want to tour. And then if you do that in too fast progression, then there's going to be too much of a gap until you then... Then what's the next thing? And what are you going to keep people engaged with? So that's why you say also spend the time in between the releases, both so that you don't have a long gap in between the last release and the next thing you have. But also so you give it time for people to actually find out that you have new music out.

[Bina]
Yeah. So because you spend so much time getting it ready, and then once it's ready, you're just like, oh, I want the world to listen to this now. And it's a pretty easy trap to fall into. But then you have to be like, OK, easy now. Strategy.

[Rasmus]
I've seen bands also be really good at this, where they release a song and then they like almost every day for two, three weeks. They're just like, hey, did you see our new single? Did you check our new single? And there's always some new content like where they're doing weird stuff.

[Bina]
And you shouldn't be afraid to do that because of the algorithms. Not everyone is seeing all the posts. And one of the best marketing advices that I get is once you're sick of your own product, that's when people are going to start noticing it.

[Rasmus]
That's a good... I like that. That's a good point. OK, so people will not notice your songs until you're sick of it.

[Bina]
Until you've posted it so many times that you're like, oh, my God, no one wants to see this anymore.

[Rasmus]
And when your mom calls you up, when your mom calls you, yes, Bina, I've seen the song, I will listen to it. Then you're like, OK, now it's enough. OK, OK. I have another question here from Chingiz, who asks, OK, seriously, that was a great suggestion, Bina. I will carry this with me. Thank you.

[Bina]
Keep it in your heart forever.

[Rasmus]
I will keep it in my heart forever. OK, Chingiz is asking a bit of an unrelated question. I would like to start pitching my debut EP to some labels tomorrow. And I figured the easiest way to make it accessible to label reps is to just publicly release it on Bandcamp and nowhere else. Is that fine or should I keep my work as private as possible until it's officially released for whatever reason? So, yeah, it's like, is that a... Yeah, I get the question.

[Bina]
I think Bandcamp or Soundcloud, where I'm not as familiar with Bandcamp, but maybe you could do it somewhere where you can create like a private link or even...

[Rasmus]
Soundcloud has the private links, yeah.

[Bina]
Because then it doesn't take away from, well, we can't really promote this because a lot of people have already listened to it. Like, it's not news anymore. So making it somewhere where you can like pitch it with like a private link so that only the people with the link can listen to it. And then, of course, make sure that they know it's a private link.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, you can also name it like that. I know like most of the time if I work with someone where they're shopping labels, it will be a closed Soundcloud link and then it'll be called like, you know, don't... They will say something like not released, don't share or something that indicates it very clearly.

[Bina]
Yeah. And also so that you don't... If no label bites, then you can still do like a release strategy yourself afterwards.

[Rasmus]
That is true. Yeah, that's true. I guess the reason that Chingiz asks about Bandcamp is that Bandcamp has also sort of been like a... It doesn't feel necessarily like releasing it everywhere. It feels like it's like your own private shop. But I don't know if they're changing a little bit. I've seen they've been doing some pretty cool moves recently, but I've not paid enough attention. Do you know anything here?

[Bina]
I haven't either because it's not like... We don't distribute to Bandcamp. You have to do that yourself.

[Rasmus]
Okay.

[Bina]
So it's outside of like what you would normally call a streaming service. So and that's also why like you can probably get away with having it on Bandcamp prior to releasing it for real, if you want to say that. But what doesn't normally work is like a couple of years back, it was like a normal thing to do, to only release something on maybe Spotify first and then the others later or TikTok first and then the others later. And then once it had been on like a streaming service, if you categorize it like that, then Spotify would be harder to pitch to. Even if it hadn't been online on Spotify, then the news of the release was kind of already out there.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, interesting. Yeah. I see here Chingiz is answering also Bandcamp these days does feel like a private shop indeed. It's more directly tied to the artist. They only support private links on a premium tier. That's why I had this dilemma. But I would say also it's very easy on SoundCloud to just do a closed link and then to use that. And I think Bandcamp is a nice place. I know a lot of like established artists that use it as their shop to sell also, you know, merchandise and vinyls or CDs or cassettes.

[Bina]
Yeah. And we also do like physical distribution, like vinyls and CDs. And we're not like, oh, you can't use Bandcamp then. Of course you can, because it's like a separate thing. And then there's also in Denmark, we have Sleeve, which is kind of like a like a Patreon, Danish version of Patreon, where you can get like a closed, like almost like a Facebook group, but then better. And then you have no algorithms. And then you can kind of, yeah, people pay you a small amount per month to kind of follow you on there. And you can have exclusive content.

[Rasmus]
But that's pretty interesting. I haven't heard about it.

[Bina]
But I think, you know, when you buy a vinyl, it's in a sleeve.

[Rasmus]
Yeah. I think I see also a lot like the Patreon days seem to have gone down a little bit because a lot of platforms are sort of adding that feature, like YouTube did it and Instagram has done it.

[Bina]
But then again, it's still a hugely American-owned platform. Google and all the kind of giants are involved, where this is more like private.

[Rasmus]
So it's not a bad place.

[Bina]
And there's no like hidden fees and stuff like that.

[Rasmus]
They don't own your soul forever.

[Bina]
Nope.

[Rasmus]
Hey, Bina, thank you so much for joining today. If people want to get in touch with you, how should people reach out to you if they would like to connect with you?

[Bina]
You're always welcome to find me like on Instagram and then my email, maybe you can distribute.

[Rasmus]
Write your email down here just now and then we'll share it later. It's bina maybe at? It's bgr, as in Bina Gildeberg Rosenvinge, at dmf.dk. Okay, I'm going to post it here in the chat so people can just copy paste it. I see Green Tea Bitches typing. I think that she wanted to copy or they wanted to copy paste this maybe.

[Bina]
Feel free to reach out to all of you like on email or Instagram. And even if it's not like I'm going to like capture you and you have to leave your music and gateway music, I'm happy to kind of help where I can. I always suggest that they should go somewhere else.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, well, thank you so much, Bina. It's always a pleasure. And yeah, I'll see you around. Have a wonderful weekend on Sunday.

[Bina]
Yeah, and have a happy Easter, everyone who's celebrating that.

[Rasmus]
Yeah, happy Easter. Take care, everybody. See you later. Bye. I need to close this. James, should I stop the little bear thing? Do I stop it or do I just close the thing? I think I just close the thing. James is writing. James is saving me. Just close it, sir. Thank you. Thank you, darling. Okay, everybody. Have a wonderful Sunday. See you around.