Marc Dorian, singer of Dorian, has shared a reflection on the obsession of record companies with numbers, and has criticized that these record companies sign influencers to publish an album before artists who really have musical talent. Marc believes that, due to his obsession with numbers, the industry may be missing out on “the Nirvanas of the future.”
In a video uploaded to TikTok that has gone viral, Dorian relates that “for some time now in music the club is all the time talking about figures, that if this one has more followers, that if the other one sells more tickets, that If so, he has more streams”, and assures that “there is a real obsession with this to the point that many labels no longer sign new artists if they do not have a lot of followers already built organically by themselves.” Dorian points out that “not everyone has the same ability to use social networks and tell their life, and create a virtual fan page before releasing their first album, but maybe they do have a lot of talent for music, which is what it would be about.
On the other hand, Marc reflects that “we find ourselves with a panorama in which influencers release albums, people with little talent but who are signed before artists who deserve it more,” and he raises the question: “What would have happened if in this era Nirvana would have come out? ‘Bleach’ was fair in terms of quality, who would have suspected that with ‘Nevermind’ they were going to blow up the rock world? Who would have signed the Chemical Brothers or Daft Punk with the numbers that club electronics sold in the eighties? “Who would have signed them today, when it happened that in the nineties they blew up the music board?”
Marc concludes that the industry should focus on talent and not on numbers: «Fewer numbers and more focus on art because perhaps we are missing the Nirvana of the future, the Planets of the future, the Daft Punk of the future , or even people capable of creating a new musical style.
Last August, Billboard published a report analyzing the difficulties that record labels are encountering in creating new massive superstars the size of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé or Harry Styles. Olivia Rodrigo or Ice Spice are among the exceptions. TikTok was cited among the problems, as well as the “fragmentation” of the media and the “allergy” of record companies to “taking risks.”
Dorian spent a year on the JENESAISPOP podcast Revelación o timo, where they talked about their career, “indie” or their vision of current music.