I belong to the school of thought that believes that one’s level of talent is only about 10-20% a contributing factor to being successful in the music industry...

I strongly believe that LUCK actually plays a bigger role (let’s say 55-60%) in determining the level of success of a musician/artist

And because the very critical role that luck plays in all of this has been unconsciously downplayed over the years, many aspiring musicians aren’t making informed career decisions

Listening to @eLDeeTheDon ‘s Nigerian American podcast episode on the Survivorship cognitive bias (the bias that drives a person to overestimate their chance of success) reinforces this belief of mine & I’d like highlight some of the things talked about on this episode.

Musicians / music artistes can be categorised under the following tiers:
- Mega Artistes
- Mainstream Artistes
- Mid-sized Artistes
- Developing Artistes
- Undiscovered (Up and coming) artistes

Where Mega artistes = Super famous worldwide, tens of millions of dollars in yearly earnings (possibly hundreds of millions).

Mainstream = Famous as well, a couple of millions of dollars in yearly earnings

Midsized = Have a cult following, 6 figure $ in yearly earnings

Developing artistes = Starting to have a buzz, growing fan base, fairly decent yearly earnings (probably live from hand to mouth)

Undiscovered artistes = commonly referred to as up and coming. Yet to make enough money to pay bills & rent regularly. (Includes aspiring artistes)

According to statistics, about 91% of all artistes fall under the undiscovered (up&coming) artiste tier.

8% of artistes fall within the developing, mid-sized, mainstream tiers while only 1% of all artistes make up the mega artiste category.

Many artistes never leave the undiscovered artiste tier throughout the lifespan of their careers and sadly end up in what @eLDeeTheDon refers to as the graveyard of failed musicians (Yikes! )

Going by the statistics previously provided, this means that there are more artistes that fail than there are that succeed. Is this high failure rate public knowledge? No, not really.

It’s rarely ever discussed publicly. This may be because not a lot of people are interested in stories of failure. Most journalists aren’t interested and of course, neither are aspiring musicians.

We only hear of and see the successful musicians and the fab lives they live. Unless you know one personally, no one ever hears of the hundreds of thousands of musicians that have failed or how luck was a key factor in the cases of those that have succeeded.

It’s easy to assume that there are more successful people than not if all we see or hear about are the successful ones (and this is basis for the survivorship bias, especially amongst aspiring musicians)

If one is unaware of how minuscule the probability of success is, unaware of this “graveyard of failed musicians”, then one is more likely to succumb to an illusion.

“To elude this bias, it’s necessary to visit this graveyard where you may discover many others who may be more talented, have more financial means than you, or even have everything that you imagine you need to succeed but somehow still failed”
- @eLDeeTheDon

Now the purpose of this thread isn’t to discourage anyone from pursuing their dreams. As a matter fact, it is totally possible to go from being an undiscovered artiste to being a mega artiste (there are many cases of this).

And also it’s not everyone who starts this career with the goal of becoming a mega artiste.

The purpose of the thread is to highlight that it’s important to be aware of the probability (possible fate) before making career decisions. Make a full assessment of what you’re about to get yourself into and the risks involved.

This way one is able to create a fallback plan/ timeline with/and expected milestones / goals. The more aware we are about our real chances, the better our decisions & plans may be.