Playing Rap to a Country Crowd
There is no greater threat to one’s career than playing to an audience that doesn’t want to hear you. A room full of strangers is much preferable to a room full of people that think you suck. It’s part of human nature to be vocal about that which we dislike, much more so than that which we love.
To put it simply, you’ll tell a couple of friends about something you really love, but you’ll tell the whole world about something that annoys you.
It’s like playing rap music in a country bar… If all you see is a crowd of wallets, you’re going to get beer bottles thrown at you. Before you start rapping, those people are just bystanders. Once you’ve given them a dose of something they don’t want, they become a negative PR force actively working against you.
This is the reason I do not sign people up for my email list that didn’t ask for it. I’ll send invites- ONCE -but if they don’t want my emails, I don’t want to send to them. My blacklist is almost as big as my mailing list. Why? Because each person I send an email to is remotely interested in my music. If they’re not, the last thing I want to do is annoy them!
Lately I’ve been receiving auto-DM invites to a music site via Twitter. One invite? Sure. Identical invites from many different people with no way to opt-out? Now I’m never going to sign up for that service. In fact, I’m writing a blog post about it because they’ve ticked me off. I am now a negative PR force working against them, all because they wouldn’t let me opt out.
The lesson? Don’t play rap to a country crowd. No audience is worse than the wrong audience.
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