| > Taylor Swift had a rich daddy buy a record label for her. For everyone else, why bother? Taylor Swift (an insanely hard-working artist) started gigging when she was like 12 or 13, and her dad invested in (didn't buy) a startup record label, that built up a roster of artists and did very well on its own terms. (Despite being attached to Toby Keith) Record labels, publishing companies etc., do not cost much money to start up, actually. His investment was likely small, and also likely comparable to the cost of seeing a child through a college education. Less, perhaps. A quick google suggests he got 3% ownership for perhaps as little as $130K, which indeed is comparable to the total cost of getting a child through higher education in the USA. And of course her parents were helping her: she was 13. Did her dad make a pretty smart decision to ensure some influence over the people responsible for his daughter? Of course he did. You would. More generally: hang around your local (proper) music scene sometimes, and pay attention to which young starter bands have helicopter parents, and which do not. And then try to correlate that with success. Pushy helicopter parents are very often an active disadvantage, because promoters hate working with them. And they are inherently uncool. Even -- perhaps especially -- when they used to be cool. |