the TrueFans AMP— Magazine Issue 144

Helping Music Artists build real careers —
without selling their soul.

“Music is the closest thing we have to magic.”
— David Bowie

In This Issue... 19 pages (about 28ish minutes to read) You'll Get... 

• Recommends— Jay Gilbert & Your Morning Coffee

• Your BIZ—Why Streams Alone Don’t Build Music Careers 

• Greatest Music Artist of All Time—Linda Creed: Invisible to the World. Immortal Through Her Songs. 

• in partnerships with Pressed Fresh Collective                                                     

• TrueFans STRONG Opinion—“If You Use AI You Are NOT a Songwriter.” That’s Bullsh•t!

• P.S. from PS— Sad But True: a Music Artist MUST Be a Music Marketer.

Here’s the playlist

If you’re serious about understanding the music business as it actually is— not as somebody on YouTube says it is— then you should know Jay Gilbert. And you should absolutely be reading Your Morning Coffee. Not someday. Now.

• Recommends— Jay Gilbert & Your Morning Coffee

One of the biggest mistakes Music Artists make is staying wildly informed about plugins, microphones, TikTok hacks and “how to go viral”... while remaining dangerously uninformed about the business they’re trying to build a life in.

Jay Gilbert helps fix that.

For years now, Jay and co-host Mike Etchart have been quietly creating one of the smartest, most consistently valuable resources in the New Music Business.

No hype. No guru nonsense. No “10X your streams by Thursday” garbage. Just informed, experienced, deeply connected perspective on what’s really happening in music: Streaming. Royalties. AI. Touring. Fan engagement. Catalog sales. Vinyl. Copyright. Marketing. Social media. Direct-to-fan. The future of the business. All of it.

And here’s the important part...

Jay Gilbert isn’t some commentator standing outside the industry throwing rocks at it.
He’s lived it.

Working with companies including Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, Jay learned the business from the inside out—label strategy, marketing, artist development, promotion, fan building, releases, branding, and the thousands of details most artists never even see.

Then he did something smart.

He took all that experience and started translating it into useful information independent artists could actually understand and apply. That became Your Morning Coffee.

What began as an email to friends became one of the most respected and widely-read newsletters in the music industry. And deservedly so. The thing we especially appreciate is that Jay and Mike understand something many “music marketing experts” still miss...

This business is changing fast.
But human nature isn’t.

Fans still want connection.
Artists still need community.
Trust still matters.
Attention alone is not a career.

Sound familiar?
That’s one big reason Your Morning Coffee fits so naturally with the whole TrueFans philosophy. Because while technology changes every 15 minutes, the core truth remains remarkably stable: People support artists they feel connected to. Or as the TrueFans Manifesto puts it:

“Fans don't just buy your products; 

they join your movement.”

Jay Gilbert gets that.

A lot of people in the industry talk at artists. Jay informs. There’s a difference. And in an era where outrage, panic and algorithm-chasing dominate so much music conversation, Your Morning Coffee has become something increasingly rare:
Useful.
Consistently useful.

You’ll find stories you missed. Trends you should understand. Industry shifts that actually matter. Smart commentary. Practical perspective. And perhaps most importantly... Context. Because information without context is noise.

And unlike a lot of “breaking news” creators, they don’t just toss links at you and run away screaming. They explain what it means. That matters. Especially now. Simon Owens, host of The Business of Content podcast, said this about Jay:

“Industry veteran Jay Gilbert writes one of my favorite newsletters... one of the most influential newsletters in the music industry.”

Hard to argue with that.

And while we’re here... Do yourself another favor and check out the Music Biz Weekly Podcast as well. These interviews are worth your time.

Real industry people.
Real conversations.
Real experience.
Not twenty-three-year-olds renting Lamborghinis for Instagram ads.

Bottom line?
If you want a sustainable music career, you need more than talent. You need understanding. Awareness. Perspective. And good information from people who actually know what they’re talking about.

Your Morning Coffee delivers exactly that. Highly recommended.

Everybody wants more streams. More followers. More views. More playlist adds. More attention. And sure… those things matter. But as this sharp piece by Dawn Jones from Pressed Fresh Collective points out, attention and career are not the same thing.
Not even close.
Because streams may create discovery, but connection is what creates fans.
And fans—real fans—are what create careers.

• Your BIZ— Streams Aren’t Careers. Connection Is

The Great Streaming Illusion
There’s a dangerous illusion floating around today’s music business. An artist gets 100,000 streams. A Reel catches fire. A TikTok blows up. Spotify smiles down from the algorithmic heavens for a few glorious days and suddenly everybody starts acting like a career has been built.

Maybe. But probably not.
Because streams measure attention. 
Not connection.

And attention is rented while connection is owned. 

That distinction alone explains why some Music Artists disappear six months after their “breakthrough” while others quietly build audiences that stay with them for decades.

Pressed Fresh calls this “the illusion of momentum.”

That’s a great phrase because it describes exactly what so many artists are experiencing right now: movement without foundation. Playlist adds. Short-term spikes. Algorithmic love. Big-looking numbers. And underneath it all?

No real emotional connection.
No larger story.
No durable relationship with listeners.

Discovery happened. But connection didn’t. That’s the trap. Because without connection artists wind up having to recreate attention over and over again, chasing the next spike, the next bump, the next “moment.”

That’s not a career.
That’s survival.

Exposure Isn’t Positioning
One of the strongest distinctions in the article is this:

“Exposure is borrowed attention but Positioning creates long-term brand equity.”

That’s not just smart. That’s foundational. Because a lot of artists think exposure IS the strategy. Get seen. Get heard. Get clicks. Get follows. Get streams.
Fine. Necessary even.
But exposure only means people encountered you. Positioning answers the deeper questions:

Who are you?
What emotional space does your music occupy?
Why should listeners care?
What do fans FEEL when they experience your work?
What story are they stepping into?

That’s where careers begin. Not with metrics. With meaning. And the artists who last almost always have clarity around that meaning. You hear them once and something clicks emotionally. Not because they hacked attention, but because they stand for something recognizable and real.

Artists Who Own Emotional Territory
Pressed Fresh talks about artists defining their “emotional lane.”

We love that concept because the greatest artists almost always own emotional territory. You hear Bruce Springsteen and immediately feel struggle, redemption, heartland humanity and hope. Taylor Swift built an empire on emotional specificity, vulnerability and storytelling. Billie Eilish created an instantly recognizable emotional and visual atmosphere. Chris Stapleton sounds like lived truth and soulful authenticity.

You know them because they know themselves.
That’s the key.

Not perfect branding.
Not endless content.
Not gaming the algorithm 17 times a day.

Clarity. Fans can feel clarity. Always.
And confusion?
They feel that, too.

Slow Growth May Actually Be Better Growth
One of the smartest parts of the Pressed Fresh piece is the reminder that sustainable artists are often not the fastest-growing artists. They’re the ones who compound momentum strategically.

That’s such an important distinction in a culture addicted to immediacy. Because real careers compound. Trust compounds. Story compounds. Identity compounds. Community compounds. Virality spikes. Connection builds. And honestly, a lot of Music Artists today are being pushed into becoming full-time marketers who occasionally make music. Constant posting. Constant feeding of the machine. Constant pressure to stay visible.

That’s exhausting.

The artists who endure tend to build bodies of work instead of content piles. They create worlds listeners want to revisit. They give fans something emotionally consistent to return to over time.

That takes longer.
But it lasts longer, too.

Fans Want a Journey—Not Just Content
Another point Pressed Fresh Dawn gets exactly right is the idea that releases should feel like chapters instead of isolated events. That matters because fans don’t just want songs. They want a relationship to the artist behind the songs. They want to feel part of something unfolding. A voice. A perspective. A world. A movement. A journey.

That’s one reason the album era created such deep loyalty. Fans lived with artists over time. They followed growth and evolution. They felt connected to a continuing story.

Today many artists are pressured into acting like content vending machines: Single. Clip. Trend. Repeat.

But listeners still hunger for meaning.
Still hunger for identity.
Still hunger for artists who make them FEEL something recognizable and true.

The TrueFans Connection
This is where the Pressed Fresh article overlaps beautifully with the entire TrueFans philosophy.

They emphasize owned audience channels: email lists, fan communities, direct engagement and live experiences. That’s the real infrastructure. Because platforms change. Algorithms shift. Streams fluctuate. But people who genuinely care about YOU and your work?

That’s durable. That’s leverage. That’s career equity.

As we’ve said repeatedly in the AMP, the goal is not attention from everyone. The goal is connection with the right ones. Or as Seth Godin said:

“Rather than trying to reach broad swaths of the marketplace, aim for the smallest viable audience and delight them.”

Exactly.
A hundred people who deeply care about your work are infinitely more valuable than a million casual impressions that disappear tomorrow morning.

The Artists Who Last
Maybe the strongest line in the entire Pressed Fresh article is this:

“Fans follow artists who know who they are.”

Bingo.

Not artists chasing every trend.
Not artists screaming the loudest online.
Not artists obsessing over every metric.

Clear artists. Music Artists with emotional consistency. Music Artists with identity. Music Artists with point of view. Music Artists whose work makes listeners feel understood.

That’s connection.
And connection is still the most valuable currency in the music business.
Maybe more than ever.

TrueFans Takeaway—
Streams matter. Exposure matters. Discovery matters. Algorithms matter. But they are not the business. They are tools.

The business is relationship, friendship, partnership.

Identity. Story. Trust. Community. Meaning. Emotional resonance.

Attention may get somebody to click once.
Connection is what brings them back.
Again and again and again.

That’s how listeners become fans.
And fans become TrueFans.

• in partnerships with Pressed Fresh Collective

I’m from Philly. And somehow… I had never heard of Linda Creed. Which is crazy. Because millions of people know her words by heart... and so did I.
— John Fogg

• Greatest Music Artist of All Time—Linda Creed: Invisible to the World. Immortal Through Her Songs. 

There’s a strange thing about music history. Some of the people who shape our lives the most are almost invisible. No spotlight. No screaming crowds. No Netflix documentaries. No billion followers.

Just songs.
Songs people fall in love to.
Songs people heal to.
Songs people hold onto when life gets hard.
That was Linda Creed.

Born in Philadelphia in 1949, she grew up in North Philly during the rise of what would become the legendary Philadelphia Sound. Gamble and Huff were changing soul music forever. Studios all over Philly were alive with possibility. And this young woman kept showing up carrying notebooks filled with poetry.

That matters. Because great artists usually begin as students first. Watching. Listening.
Learning. Eventually, producers noticed something unusual:

Linda Creed could write emotion.

Not just lyrics. Emotion. And when she partnered with Thom Bell, something special happened. Together they created songs that still feel alive today.

Songs That Became Part of People’s Lives
The hits came quickly.

Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart).
Betcha By Golly, Wow.
You Make Me Feel Brand New.
People Make the World Go Round.

Songs recorded by The Stylistics that became woven into the emotional fabric of people’s lives. Wedding dances. Slow songs. Late-night drives. Memories.

That’s the thing about truly great songwriting.
It doesn’t just entertain people.
It accompanies them through life.

“Soul music is about longevity and reaching and touching people on a human level.” 
— Aretha Franklin

Linda Creed understood that instinctively.

Her lyrics never felt manufactured. Never felt cold. Never felt like someone chasing trends. They felt human. And she kept writing.

For The Spinners.
For Johnny Mathis.
For artists whose names became famous all over the world.

Meanwhile, most people never heard hers.

That’s the songwriter’s paradox. The singer becomes the face. The songwriter becomes the soul.

Then Cancer Entered the Story
In her twenties, Linda Creed was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. And still she kept writing. Through treatments. Through exhaustion. Through fear. That matters too. Because songs written from inside real struggle hit differently.

Somewhere in the middle of fighting for her life, Linda wrote the lyric that would define her legacy:

“Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

Mama… once you know the story behind that line, it lands differently.

Originally written for a Muhammad Ali film and first recorded by George Benson, the song already carried enormous emotional weight. Then Whitney Houston recorded it. And suddenly the song became immortal. Whitney’s performance was extraordinary. But the emotional core of that song?

That came from Linda Creed.

A woman facing mortality… writing about self-worth.

That’s not just songwriting.
That’s testimony.

“The most powerful songs come from truth.” 
— Bruce Springsteen

And the truth inside Linda Creed’s writing is probably why those songs still live decades later. Not because they were fashionable. Because they were real.

Quiet… and Eternal
There are surprisingly few famous interviews with Linda Creed. Few television appearances. Few giant magazine profiles. Few glamorous celebrity moments.

She wasn’t building a brand.
She was building songs.
And somehow, that almost makes the story more powerful now.

Because today’s music culture can sometimes feel obsessed with visibility. Algorithms. Attention. Personal branding. Constant promotion. Linda Creed reminds us of something deeper.

The work matters most.
Not the noise around it.

“Songs are forever. They outlive all of us.” 
— Paul McCartney

That’s legacy. And Linda Creed built one of the most emotionally enduring legacies in modern music history. Even if most people never knew her name.

Legacy and a Lesson for Music Artists
There’s a reason great songs survive generations.
They speak to something fundamentally human. Love. Loss. Hope. Healing. Dignity. Linda Creed wrote from that place.

And maybe that’s the lesson for every Music Artist trying to survive today’s attention economy.

Visibility is not the same thing as impact.
Followers are not the same thing as meaning.
And fame alone is not immortality.
Connection is.
Real emotional connection.

The kind people carry with them for decades.

“People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

Linda Creed made people feel seen. Loved. Understood. That’s why the songs remain.

And somewhere tonight, somebody will hear:

“Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

They’ll sing every word.

And maybe now… they’ll finally know the name Linda Creed.

Tools have ALWAYS shaped art. And some of the loudest voices attacking AI today sound less like defenders of music… and more like people terrified the rules are changing. AI doesn't replace human creativity. But... “The illiterate of the future will be those who can't read or write AI.” So... 

• TrueFans Opinion—“If You Use AI You Are NOT a Songwriter.” That’s Bullsh•t!
by John Fogg

There was a recent thread in a Facebook Songwriters group that turned into a digital bar fight. The question seemed simple enough:

“Can someone who writes lyrics and uses AI to create the music be considered a Songwriter?”

Close to 300 comments later, the overwhelming answer from many of the “real Songwriters” was NO. Absolutely not. Nope. Not legit.

One guy even told me that because I use AI every day in my writing work, I’m “not a writer.”

That’s when I realized this conversation wasn’t really about songwriting. It was about identity. Fear. Change. And people trying desperately to protect the definition of something that technology is already reshaping in real time.

Look… I’m a million-selling author. I’ve written books that have been read around the world. I write every week for Music Artists. I do a Substack on Speaking & Listening. I think about words, rhythm, pacing, emotion, structure, storytelling, and communication every single day of my life.

And yes… I use AI. Every day. Not to replace me. To help me.

Sometimes it helps organize ideas. Sometimes it sharpens rough thoughts. Sometimes it challenges assumptions. Sometimes it gives me ten mediocre ideas that lead to one genuinely good one.

You know… kind of like a co-writer. Or an editor. Or a producer. Or one of those late-night conversations where somebody says one thing that suddenly unlocks the whole song.

Yet somehow, according to certain people online, using AI instantly disqualifies you from being a “real” writer or Songwriter.
Really?

So let me get this straight. 

Using AutoTune, Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, sampling, loop libraries, voice memos, co-writers, producers, melody suggestions, rhyming dictionaries, cut-and-paste editing, and studio musicians still counts… but THIS tool crosses the line?

Why?
Who decided that?
And why do these arguments always sound suspiciously like: 

“I suffered to learn this, so nobody else should get help”? 

Wait! What...?

Honestly, we’ve seen this exact reaction before. Over and over again. Electric guitars were going to ruin music. Synthesizers were fake. Drum machines weren’t “real musicianship.” Sampling wasn’t “real creativity.” AutoTune was supposedly the death of singing. Computers were going to destroy recording.
Then what happened?

Artists used those tools to create entirely new sounds, genres, and movements.
Hip-hop does not exist without technology. Electronic music does not exist without machines. Modern pop absolutely does not exist without software.

And now AI shows up, and suddenly people act like human creativity magically disappears the second software enters the room.
No. That’s not how creativity works.

A paintbrush does not make someone Picasso. A camera, sets and lights do not make someone Spielberg. A laptop does not make someone Trent Reznor. And AI does not automatically make someone a Songwriter.

But using AI also does NOT automatically make someone NOT a songwriter.
That’s the absurdity.

If you write lyrics, shape the emotional direction, choose the genre, guide the arrangement, select instrumentation, revise structure, rewrite lines, reject weak ideas, and push for a better chorus… how exactly are you NOT participating in songwriting?

Because you didn’t personally strum the guitar?
Come on.

By that logic, Bernie Taupin isn’t a Songwriter because Elton John wrote the music.
Songwriting has ALWAYS involved collaboration. Sometimes with musicians. Sometimes with producers. Sometimes with engineers. Sometimes with technology.
Now it may involve AI too.

Some of the loudest anti-AI voices sound less like defenders of art and more like gatekeepers afraid the gates are disappearing. Because AI potentially opens the door for people who have something meaningful to say but lack traditional musical training.
That matters.
A lot.

There are people with incredible emotional instincts and storytelling ability who do NOT play piano. People who hear songs emotionally but don’t know chord theory. People with powerful lyrics, ideas, hooks, concepts, and stories who never had the money, access, or connections to fully bring those songs to life. AI may become the thing that finally allows those people to create.

Personally, I think that’s exciting.
Not threatening.

Now before the internet explodes, let’s be honest about something else too: of course there will be lazy people using AI badly. There already are. There will absolutely be people typing “write me a hit country song” and pretending they’re the next Chris Stapleton. Fine.

There are also people who buy expensive guitars and still can’t write worth a damn.
Technology has never eliminated mediocrity. It just changes the tools mediocre people use.

AI may actually expose mediocrity faster because average is about to become unlimited. Generic songs, predictable hooks, formula lyrics, cheap emotional clichés… AI can crank those out endlessly.

Which means the artists who stand out will probably need to become MORE human, not less. More honest. More original. More emotionally exposed. More themselves.

And that brings us to the part so many people completely miss.

Fans do not fall in love with software.
They fall in love with PEOPLE.

With voice. Identity. Story. Energy. Truth. Perspective. Presence.

AI cannot live a life. It cannot fall in love, get betrayed, lose someone, get sober, play empty clubs, sleep in vans, fear failure, pray for one more chance, or desperately need redemption. Humans do that. And great songs still come from THAT.

AI may help shape the vehicle. But soul still matters. Maybe now more than ever.

So no… I do not believe using AI disqualifies someone from being a Songwriter. I think that position is reactionary, historically clueless, and rooted far more in fear than creativity.

The better question is not:
“Did you use AI?”

The better question is and are:

Did you create something real?
Did you move somebody?
Did you tell the truth?
Did you make people feel less alone?

Because audiences ultimately do not care HOW the song was made.

They care whether it connects.

Always have.

Always will.

Paul knows you know... You didn't get into music to be a marketer. You're an artist (you don't look back) But you do need to look forward. What's it going to take to have a successful Music Career—without selling your soul?

• P.S. from PS— Sad But True: a Music Artist MUST Be a Music Marketer.

One thing in Dawn Jones right-on piece • Your BIZ— Streams Aren’t Careers. Connection Is, didn’t just jump out at me. It slapped me. Cross the face.

"Music Artists today are being pushed into becoming full-time marketers who occasionally make music. Constant posting. Constant feeding of the machine. Constant pressure to stay visible.
That’s exhausting.”

Oh it's way much more than just exhausting. It's killing. Heart and career killing.

In all my years in this business I've not once come across an Artist who said they got into music to be Marketers. Not once! Yet, today... that's the way it is. If you want even the slightest of careers in music, such as your goal is simply a paid hobby, the marketing—the selling and buying of you and your music—is required. And... sad but true, it's on you. 

Old days: a “record deal” had the label take on the marketing of you and yours for you. No longer. 

Okay, so... instead of a moan-an-groan about how unfair that is, what's useful is what can you do about being an Artist-First— meaning your Music Art comes first!—marketer of your music?

Every marketer no matter the product has three goals: To create... 

1. Trial: People have to try the product.
2. a Franchise: People choose your brand, again and again. (That's a fan)
3. an Advocate: Fans who support you and tell others about you. (That's a TrueFan.)
The Your BIZ piece offers the job that's ahead of you:

The artists who endure tend to build bodies of work instead of content piles. They create worlds listeners want to revisit. They give fans something emotionally consistent to return to over time.

And then adds an important cavéat:

That takes longer
But it lasts longer, too.

The raison d'étra for New Music Lives™ and the TrueFans AMP™ is to help you build a real career without selling your soul— which means NOT being so much of a Music Marketer you kill the art part. 

So, here's an offer (you can, of course refuse, because I'm no Godfather) Call Me. My question is: How can I help you? I'm willing to schedule a conversation with you and learn what I and we can do to get the results you got into music to achieve in the first place. 

Tap this link to my calendar at https://paulksaunders.com. No charge. No strings. No hustle. 

I look forward to speaking with you

Thanks for reading. Give us your feedback.

And PLEASE, if you've got any Music Artist friends, pass the TrueFans AMP™ on, because... It’s Time... for a Change. Big Time. Past Time...