In this episode of CCTV: The Nonstop Pop Show, Chris and Chantel Nicole interview Tonianne Tartaro, Vice President of Creative and Content Development at RCA Records, about her experiences working in the music industry. The conversation covers Tonianne's journey in the industry, her musical influences, and the realities of working at a record label in today's saturated music industry.

The episode focuses on the differences between K-Pop and Western pop, and Tonianne shares her insights into the successful creative concepts, packaging, and physical production that have made K-Pop such a global phenomenon. She also discusses some of the challenges of working with Western artists and their teams, and the differences in creative control between Western and K-Pop artists.

The episode includes discussions about several popular artists, including Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Billie Eilish, and MONSTA X, and the unique creative concepts that have made them successful. The conversation also covers the latest creative trends in pop, including AI artwork and NFTs, and how they are shaping the industry.

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the music industry and the creative and content development that goes into making successful music. The interview provides valuable insights for aspiring artists and those looking to break into the industry, as well as music fans interested in learning more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating their favorite songs.

Join Chris and Chantel Nicole as they speak with Tonianne Tartaro, and get an insider's view of the music industry and the differences between K-Pop and Western pop. The episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the creative processes behind some of the world's most successful artists.

Transcript:

came up is interesting because I feel like everything's pretty thought out what do you mean it's like a full box set what do you mean it's a bound book with Vellum in it it's very very glorified the VP of creative and content development at RCA records Tony Ann viewer discretion is advised your fave will be criticized that's Chris that's Jan and we are at CCTV the non-stop pop show and today we are speaking to a very special guest Tony Ann the VP of creative and content development at RCA records [Music] looking for an awesome Global pop music podcast Chris and I have the the inside scoop with extensive experience from performing on stage and working at music labels we review and deep dive into your favorite artists songs and careers and also interview music industry professionals including artists producers choreographer and everything in between so join us at patreon at patreon.com cctvfobs and become part of our amazing crew including Lisette Lily Emily Kevin and Juliet subscribe now and let us explore the world of music together yes and we are joined today as I said by our very special guest the VP of creative and content development at RCA records Tony Ann thank you so much for joining us today you and I did work together for a few years our our roles didn't cross paths too often but you were always one of my favorite people to talk to at the office happy hours and we've stayed in touch because you're an awesome person and so I'm also very proud of watching your career growth and everything you've achieved so far in this very tough music industry so yes welcome yeah thank you so happy to be here all right well before we dive in just want to note Tony Ann's comments and thoughts are hers and hers only and are not representative of RCA or Sony music or any of the artists she had worked with or currently works with

yes that is correct and full disclosure everything I say is only what I know I've only worked in certain aspects of the music industry at certain companies so whatever I do say is only related to what I personally know it could be totally different at a different company so oh yes that out there as well definitely thank you very much very much no just taking it back a little bit going back to your childhood what were some of your musical influences growing up oh yeah so I am definitely dating myself but I am definitely part of the TRL generation so I grew up with in the 2000s with Brittany and Nsync and the back street boys and I used to watch MTV and VH1 and TRL after school every day and that was just like a really big moment in just pop culture at the time and that was like my religion basically like I used to go home and be like TRL time and wish that I was there I grew up in New York and I was never allowed to go to Times Square my mom never brought me and I was like why can't we go I know now like as an adult I understand why I really am going to Times Square and stand there for how many hours um but yeah so that's generally like I used to sit there and like watch TRL and making the video and pop-up video and all of those that I really wanted to just like be immersed in that all the time um so so that's generally like where it kind of like blossomed my dad was also a musician so music was always around in general in my life my mom was like well you always listen to the radio the radio was always on she grew up on Disco like so I had a big wide verse of musical taste and my dad's like and Pie Jessica world love Jessica um which was really fun and then when I was um younger I started getting into like pop music and the Spice Girls and and sank and Backstreet and Brittany and Christina and I just like I loved everything about it yes this is why we're friends um so yes you have a degree in graphic design and you were pursuing the music business very early on in your career with internships and major labels like Atlantic and Sony so what inspired you to then take the steps to actually want to work in the music industry yeah so back to you know growing up in music and wanting to just like immerse myself in at all times um I used to be on forums when I was a kid and I taught myself Photoshop and I used to like make like backgrounds and little avatars and everything of like people's favorite musical artists yeah so like that was like my little side hustle at like 13 years old was like getting requests for people on different forums and making those um whether it be like musicians or movies like I did a bunch of like Harry Potter ones like everything when I was a kid so um so I kind of like started doing that and then I was like on zangon in my space and I built different things for all my friends and they've made their mind spaces look great and they're saying that they're making banners and headers and all that stuff so like that was a hobby of mine when I was young way younger and then when I got into High School I primarily focus on Art I was always an art kid I never played any sports I sat there and colored like that with my thing um and yeah so then I realized like I can actually like make it a career in a way I was really heavily into photography when I was in high school but then I realized like oh wait a second like I could actually like do this as a job and like very Millennial mind process of being like do what you love and make it your job and it was like okay cool I was gonna do that so I ended up going to Art School and I studied graphic design and kind of just wanted to always do music stuff I was like made my own different covers when I like had any projects or movies or posters all that kind of stuff toward posters Etc and um one day I saw that there was an opening uh at Sony music and I kind of supplied and then I ended up getting it which was great so that was like my first like step in the door of seeing how the actual music industry worked then I just like I fell in love with it awesome so what were some of your first internships like um they were pretty basic uh my first one was I mean my first internship was out of outside of music but my second one was at Sony and it was a generalized Central system which I can get into a little bit later um but it was a centralized system and the team worked across all labels under Sony so um basically we went to work at the Sony building which was really exciting which is a different building and it was now um and we were stuck in our little cubic holes and basically we would just go to the different art directors and create directors and ask if they needed help so like we're gonna do like logos or like help with little advertisements like very very basic um type of things to help out any other creative directors but I worked on a like all but a bunch of different types of um music so there's Masterworks which is the classical label so I worked with a lot of classical artists right um did a few artwork for like Leonard Cohen and all all that stuff um and then I also worked on some things from Miranda Cosgrove when she was signed to say and Beyonce I got like a little a little like step in the door I don't know if anything I did actually like went anywhere but I was like I'll get to work on Beyonce it was like the best thing ever like very small um but yeah it was very very much um a very basic internship and then when I went to Atlantic I didn't turn there I did a lot more it was a lot smaller it actually had their own art Department um so I was working one-on-one with those are uh art directors and sat right next to them instead of being like like in a cuticle um it was more of an open floor plan so I got to experience a little bit more there um that I did at Sony because like there would be artists walking around like what's going on it was a lot more of a a more immersed experience than I was at Sony at the time oh that's awesome so uh you took your your fandom and turned into a profit but that's kind of that's it yeah basically all of us can do that so it's inspiring yeah it was definitely like the fangirl to like worker or trajectory in a weird way because like I'm I didn't study music um I never played him as uh an instrument that was not my thing um but it was just basically like I just loved the whole vibe of music industry and you know it's not the same as it was then at all like you don't see artists on Yachts anymore throwing money you know it was a completely different yeah Vibe I mean even even the industry as a whole like there's things completely different from what I assume it was back in 2000s too so I missed out on the fun part that's what I thought too I loved like the artist development kind of aspect of how things works like those stories about like how they found Britney sound yeah all those things were so interesting to me and they don't really do that anymore they weren't doing that by the time I started working at it either so yeah yeah I still have I hold on to hopes of you know discovery that way you know at a club and someone goes through great okay thanks yes

you have gone gotten really far so now you are at RCA as the VP of creative and content development so what does this kind of job entail oh yeah it was wild to even think about that it's like a posture syndrome to the max like I think about it all the time and I'm like damn like that's what I did you did pretty well I'm so proud of you oh thanks um yeah so basically right now the way that it's working um as we stand at RCA it's still very much in flux it's a newer Department um so as I said before when I interned it was at a centralized group and that doesn't really exist anymore at Sony so now all the labels either have their own creative Department similar to the Atlantic model or they figure it out otherwise I have no idea I don't work at those levels so I don't know what their process is like um but at RCA yeah we've built a creative team um which is a lot of fun um and basically what I do now is that I oversee the our digital animation aspect of it while uh my boss who's our SCP she oversees a lot more of the bigger picture creative development start of it and then I kind of Taken and make it more um instead of like at a micro level yeah like at a micro level rather than a macro level um so yeah so we take everything when the photo's already done and when and I see what we can do with the artwork and then with the physical product and all that fun stuff and kind of like bring it down the line to um start promoting the artists and the song which is a lot of fun um I am currently helping her with like a lot of uh you know reaching out to photographers and doing all the bigger picture stuff but as a team grows it's going to be more like that separation not necessarily a separation we all work together but more of like you know I'm going to oversee a lot more of this instead of dabbling on both sides ah delegating a lot more that's awesome so for those people who have never worked at a record label what do you think are some of like the big misconceptions or kind of things that you found kind of the most interesting in terms of people's like expectations versus the real thing it's very very glorified in a good way you know like I had this conception like famous people or something we're all people with jobs that are trying to like you know make sure that we're releasing and putting out the best things we possibly can um it's also um the fastest paced industry I'd be like in the entire world there's really like anything can happen at any given time I mean even on the creative world is like wild and think of like agency lifestyle friends that I know that like would sit there and work on a project for like one project for six months yeah meanwhile like we have a 12 artists coming out with a song on Friday so we have to make sure that we have everything done for all 12 of those artists and that includes like assets from front to back artwork social Clips you know websites everything that has to do to release everything on Friday so it makes sense yeah um so that's another thing that I don't think people realize is that like it's a lot it's a lot and it's fast and a lot of the times we don't have as much time as we would like to to put into building out something so great and fun you know but yeah I think that was definitely interesting for me too and I think that's to also what's different from the late 90s time right because they would record the album you'd have the music done six to six months to a year maybe even before it comes out and you have time to actually flesh that all out as opposed to now where an artist will be like this song needs to come out next week or there's like oh this song got placed in a TV show it needs to come out right now and it's like we all just have to do what we can and it ends up not being like a very well planned release it's just like you kind of have to just do what you can so interesting and sometimes it works and it's great and it's amazing and we're like yeah we can kind of like piggyback off of that like success and kind of make it bigger as as we go and like working them with how it's growing sometimes it doesn't like I can't tell you how many songs we release at any given we I don't even know how many songs we release all the time where um it could have been something really great but it gets buried because I mean within the past like five years I would say the music industry so I don't even know how to navigate you know my Spotify anymore because it's just so much yeah very much at any given time yeah extremely saturated um which is kind of sad um for a lot of musicians that like really want to put their work out there but are getting the ability that they need it is no it seriously is I think I've recently uh went through like my Instagram messages and somebody found me I'm like how did you find me he said Spotify really and I said you're kidding me you are kidding me he doesn't know I'm like oh my God that's awesome yeah but it's you're right but thank you but there's so many almost too many were just like why is this on here but hey it's a business yeah there's no real quality control if you want something up on Spotify you can easily do it yourself yeah for sure all right so before we dive deeper into your work what are some Creative Concepts that maybe you have done but not necessarily but both in western music and K-pop that you think are really successful and Innovative and should be looked at as really great examples of well-executed creative Direction yeah I mean and the reason why I really got into Kpop and this is how Chris and I like became are you in closer because I was like wait of course you like K-pop I'm really into it it was like like my coveted discovery of like I knew obviously as like you know BTS were starting to pop off like 2018 or whatever and I was like I feel like I would really like this because I just love a boy band like it's totally my thing and I just didn't click and then all of a sudden during covert it was like that's it I got it and now I'm like and I'm I'm immersed in it but um yeah the thing that really really got me into um K-pop world is how much everything is planned out and thaw it out around the concepts um and say like okay well this is like what we're going to do here's the music um here's what the creative is going to look like here is what the album is I kind of like do it all which is really fun has its pros and cons um but I really really love that and that's something that I've been trying to see what we can do as at RCA um and like how we can kind of get a head start on that creative to make sure that everything's goodby anyway I'm depressed um so I think that I um noticed in the west enrolled in K-pop so k-pop's interesting because I feel like everything's pretty sought out already um so I don't really have one that I feel like put a finger on that I'm like this is perfect um just because every single one that comes down I'm like this is such a cool concept and this is gray and I love how this all kind of ties it together this is amazing um but on the Western Front what I found recently at least was smart and like kind of not to say that it took the K-pop model because it's something that's been doing like look in this for years but like even like the Taylor Swift idea of the this being an entire concept around midnight and a clock and how the vinyls all matched together and it was just like okay pop idea where you should get every single version of the album and they all kind of tie in together and even had um a merch piece that was like the the hands of the cloth that you could actually put the vinyls on your wall and like actually making it to a clock and I was like oh brilliant like that's smart hello like things like that that like kind of all just tie in to the idea and the concept of what the artist really has is just super smart to me I mean Beyonce's been doing it really well too um but she's Beyonce so I mean I can't really you know everybody knows it's like I don't need to talk about it um but I'm trying to think of anything else that can kind of come to mind it'll come to me but like those are the top two that really really stand out to me as far as something that seemed like it was really planned then executed out I mean like even like Billy eilish for example like when she was popping off um in like 2018 like her entire concept like her as a person and then how it related to her music and just like dimmer like convoy-ass type Vibe and it kind of continued on um that whole era of Billy eilish was really smart because it all tied in together too the the her last album kind of interesting to me how to kind of like like a 180 but um but yeah I think that was really smart too especially for like a developing artist at the time right because Taylor Swift and Beyonce are obviously established artists the budget's there the time well and it's her and yeah I guess the time was there because they know that their fans would come regardless of when they would release something um but I thought that was also interesting um and at least in a pre-covered world this interesting post covet of how everything's been kind of rolling out so I was at talking to a friend just about like K-pop albums and how crazy they are um and I kind of was just like look Western artists can never do this because it costs so much money to produce it over here yes um yeah so yeah what was what was your first K-pop physical purchase okay so my first physical purchase was I think it was a wavy album to be honest for you maybe it's good intro into uh like really getting into Kpop like my friend made me a whole playlist because she really got into it during covet too because we also have a K-Pop group named atheist who are yes um and we it was like recently we recently signed them and and we've already tried to like understand a little bit more about world and kind of get into it and then she was like she got into it she was like no Italian you really need to start listening to it you're gonna love it I was like okay okay okay um so she made me an entire playlist of like just songs that she really loved and the ones that I kind of like kept gravitating towards were waiting songs something like that I kind of like fell into it and then she was like but listen like you gotta like look at the packaging of everything um and I was like what do you mean like as a designer I loved packaging I was like my thing and it's like that's what I do now is like really making sure like our physical product is at the par Etc um and I was like okay cool so I looked into it I was like wait what do you mean it's like a full box set what do you mean it's a bound book with velluminum the designer club or like and I'm like what are you talking about and they're like yeah it was like 20 bucks like it's just like blew my mind um so yeah so they were the first purchase um because I was like I want to see exactly like what this is so I bought um I think it was yeah take over the moon the two um and those are hard bound books with like gold I mean I can show you and yeah

um yeah I love them I love them all I can show them all I could be here for hours and honestly that's great because a lot of people don't think that a lot of the Americans working on K-POP projects care so it's good that you actually have invested so thank you for being invested like literally because I've seen some people you don't care much do you it's okay I mean I've seen it too and I'm like okay just don't understand I mean like now like I'm so new I guess it's been like three years now but like I'm still very new to like it as a whole like I haven't been there since the beginning I haven't been there like for the past like five six seven years you know so it's like there's still stuff that I'm learning yeah um I know it as it is today and what it was I mean that is your guys's Fortune what's up mine you could tell me all about it how it was back then but um but yeah so I'm like slowly learned but anyway it's okay so purchase like the purchase yeah you're in it yes so I'm in it so like this like this is a hardbound book that's like gold foiled which is like yeah beautiful edges it's all boiled on the edges

yeah yeah yeah I mean as I purchased more and more I realized like this is like really well done but it's like a very basic model of like a paper album which is like a get very very wild yeah but even still like this is very impressive to just like knowing that like something in the western world like this would cost like 40 bucks it's wild it's wild me so um so yeah so the idea of like it happening in the western world is like I've been trying but I'm like how can you like really make this something but a lot of our plants they're in Europe ourselves inspired well um they're all in Europe um and we don't only have like our own plants so it's not like we have our like go-to we have a couple I think that we reach out to depending on like this timeline Etc um and it yeah we're all you know with the rest of the music industry in the western world like all of American labels go to these plants so we're competing with literally everybody um so that's the first part the second part is that Western um musicians and fans don't really gravitate towards CDs as much because these are all CDs they're not even vinyl they all look vinyl so vinyl is even more expensive to replicate an even longer of a turnaround time so like that's even another layer of it and I think all of these K-pop groups I'm assuming that all of their plants are in Korea so there's this link right there so like everything gets it done like locally and everything just gets shipped across so yeah completely different world out there you're right I remember years ago there was this group called Bap their album was supposed to be it was supposed to be chartreuse but it ended up coming out mauve they had already signed the moth ones and then they had to help them off ones and resign the chartreuse one oh wow like I remember watching like listening a Twitter post like hey guys it was the wrong color like a slight difference I mean dramatic with the mob and the chartreuse but when I tell you it was the difference of like a like a tan versus pale skin that's how like slight the difference was and they trashed all those albums to replace them and I thought no yeah the K-pop fans are crazy like if there's a typo I think there was wasn't there an NCT thing where like they forgot Joe Young on like one photo right and they like well yeah it was pretty cool those fans were nice

I mean I think I think with Beyonce's recent album The Renaissance one it was paper it was like a Crystal Cave but there was like a mini poster she used to put the mini posters inside of her DVDs now there's a mini poster a larger poster and a postcard so she is

yeah they're at a whole another level it's pretty it's amazing sometimes yeah it's intense it's something that's you know I I love it I literally purchased so many of them because I'm like what are they doing next like I need to know like how they printed this one versus the one that they did last time like what's that is it like they come out with different assignments um a lot of some of them are like like magazines sometimes they're books sometimes they're boxes so they have like everything all all in it the thing that I really it was really interesting to me because it's so so different from years that like they one they do I feel like they do everything in like one building personally like everything is like in one building and they do it all at once they have their photos they do whatever they do um but knowing that they can like create like photo books and have three different versions of those lips and like all those photos are approved yeah

I'm like we have anything like this like

yeah yeah I love that for you though it's also like it's half fandom but also just half research oh yeah totally like it's kind of awesome and that's a very different perspective I do the same thing I look at the like the girl group like albums by have an album or friends like I'm getting rid of this album I don't want it I'm like I'm running here because I'm like photo shoot idea yeah yeah so you're right it is very whole inspiration like a Pinterest board in front of you right in your hand yes and they're so they come out so often so that's like I'm never bored so I'm like what did I do this time and just kind of like to see how everything plays into each other and how they've done it and every label is so different too as far as their quality is concerned I'm a little biased however um most of my albums come from the FM Universe which is a wild time which we have to offline about by the way because that's been crazy um but I like recently um bought a couple of 17 albums yeah I will have like 12. um 17 albums and they are like so beautiful like I never thought like they can be like they have a highlighter in them so you can draw their logo like the concepts yeah yeah it's just like they put so much thought into their albums every single time and there's like five versions of it so they have five different photo shoots and get the cards and stuff oh the whole the whole world I can go on about this for literally hours I guess you know I guess creative stickers are in most amounts get stickers scratch off tickets with like words of encouragement from the group like oh we need to talk about Monsta x a little bit because they were signed into Sony oh yeah I know you didn't work directly on their project right that you have no no they were a different label okay so I was in a New York very briefly for over the holiday for a meeting and apparently before the holiday break um one of my designers found a whole box of mom sex albums the ones that we released in the states and I was like fun let's see like what it was compared to like how we did it it versus like how they do it yeah and oh my god um I would be real pissed as a fan too um because like literally they had the different versions yeah yeah they had a different versions of all the members and I was like okay cool and like I opened it and it was like oh the same everything was the same the photo cards weren't even quality like I would I would have been as somebody like that works for that company and I would have been like absolutely not like how did this even pass yeah yeah that's not good yeah that's yeah and then that's just the physical product too like I think all the creative like musically promotion marketing wise it was all rough yeah yeah we just it's just a completely different ball game but it's so funny because it's exactly what we used to do in the 2000s just on like 10 Times Crazier yeah they took what we did and was like yes how do we make this even way crazier and more personal right B2K had that B2K had different albums for a girl white girl fan right here we actually had a different album Sorry version for their members that's how they kind of determined who was the most popular and that's why raspy got treated like crap but

you know what he was he's a terrible one he was getting a lot of you know such thing yeah they did use that as like a litmus test who's your favorite who's one we should put in the middle and everyone's like I have my Omarion I have my shoe K-pop was just like well let's reduce that like they took no dude this or freaking with this yeah yeah I mean the the benefit that they have which is not necessarily a pro in any way um but the control that they have you know like they literally can say this is what this is um and this is what you're going to do and this is when it's going to be released and then that's what they do appearance not that at all like we are at the beck and call of our artists we can give as much advice as we want we can say hey like this was what we think could work based on the data but so how we do it for other artists Etc but at the end of the day it's what the artist wants to do um and that's where you know sometimes it does work sometimes they do take our advice and it works out really well sometimes they are but I guess it'll still work out very well you know it goes you know it's always like a kind of a lottery as I like to say like you never know really know it's really gonna hit without like a particular formula we don't really have one anymore because we do have such a wide variety of genres that are really taking off and nothing something that would work for Brittany won't work for Wiz Khalifa like it's weird yeah um while in Kpop it's kind of I mean obviously they have their different genres there as well but it's completely different yeah it's just a completely different world yeah speaking speaking of which you did mention like with the artists and teams and then you're part in the whole situation um so you work hand in hand with the artist and their management and the other teams uh one of our CCT group CCTV crew members on YouTube asks in terms of Creative Design where do the label duties start and end compared to the duties of an artist management marketing PR and this comes from atlamine428 thank you lamin yeah um it all depends it depends on the artist it's like there's again we don't have a particular formula where we're like it says day one you get signed and we're gonna start here Etc and then kind of move forward some artists come in and they already have a creative team that they like and we're working with them and hand in hand and trying to make sure that everything gets delivered on the label side that we need in order to do our jobs correctly and promote the way that we need to do um so it's very it's very different so sometimes we do have like uh small artist that comes in a developing artists and they literally like start from scratch they have nothing and we'd sit down we talk to them they're like What's your Vibe like what do you want to portray like what's what's your music trying to speak to yeah um and we'll try and match them with the best possible photographer or creative director if we have a budget and um you know designer I have a full design team so they're sometimes we end up doing the artwork which is a lot of fun so then at least like we can work it at hand with other they can meet them and kind of like get things done internally as well which is really fun and everybody loves it because it's 3.99 um but they're really tough but they're really talented like I have a really talented team I make sure that that is something that is very important to me to present to artists when they do get signed um so yeah it all depends on what what the situation is so management comes in sometimes they have a team that they really like if it's a management like group of people that have multiple artists sometimes they have the same designer working on that are artists because it's all in a similar Vibe or they might have their ideas or they might have you know chatted with somebody else like at a recording studio and link them up it's like all who you know in a weird way um but that's how it works yeah um but as far as like the management is Management's always involved regardless because they're the speakers for the artist sometimes so a lot of the time the approval process has to go to management and they go to the artist and they come back it's like a lovely game of telephone which is a lot of fun um and then sometimes artists come you know exactly as it was like we would talk about Beyonce Beyonce has her our own creative team check everything on her own nothing comes through the label from my understanding she's part of Columbia so I'm not really sure but usually like she has her team and they do everything that they want to do and then they tap into the lake the one they need to um we have some artists like that as well but there's a lot of artists that we do like set up with creative directors and photographers and make sure that they're you know they're really happy with whatever's being oh they found um my team's always kind of have a hand in what they're doing whether they come out with like a new video like we're cutting books for them making sure that that's all their social media stuff or if they have a new single coming out and they need some artwork done really quick like we'll jump in and help out there so it's like we always kind of have a some sort of hand in all of our projects which is a lot of fun but as far as like Concepts to you know execution it all depends on what the artist has it doesn't have and I think it's like that kind of all across the board as well like even on the music side which is more where I was like some some artists come in they have their albums done already and there's really only paperwork left to do for them like just make sure the producers and everyone are signed off um but some artists do come where you know we need to suggest producers we need to suggest songwriters and it starts from scratch and it's a like a hand in hand kind of creative process and development so yeah it kind of all just depends it's not as straightforward as K-pop yeah yes yeah yeah um that how has your experience been working with artists and their teams and of course you don't need to name names but what have been some examples of really great experiences and maybe some not so good experiences well uh yeah I mean the thing that I constantly remind myself as well is that like artists are artists um so they had their opinions and what they'd like and you can't read their minds um so sometimes it's a little difficult to exactly execute what they're looking for um but sometimes they're like super chill and they trust us and they're like yeah like this is exactly what I was thinking or like you guys did it way better than I could have ever thought of um I mean a lot of my background is in web design so I used to do a lot of websites and digital design and stuff so it was kind of a little step removed from like the overall kind of creative concept thing but like I felt like there I had a lot more leaky way because that's something that artists didn't really quite understand how they really worked um so I would definitely just take whatever like their overall creative is and just make it into like a really beautiful or fun web experience that works both for them and the marketing teams obviously we need to Market it um so I had really good experiences um most mostly good experiences with artists because they've been like yeah this looks greater this is awesome um obviously there are one or two that you know get really complicated because you know they change their mind like that um you know it's I'm trying to think of like one I don't want to name it I mean like I had I did a really great website once for an artist and they literally like sent me a video message and they were like Tony and thank you so much for this website it's so beautiful I love it it's gonna be great for the fans and it's like you're welcome like it took another really stressful environment of doing like seven websites in one week it's like something like that and coming back is like really nice or even just like an email that's just like cool this looks great like from the artist you're like well I did my job like this was awesome cool it works you know um but yeah there have been some times where I've done multiple comps of something and it just like has it yeah through and you're just like you know what not for me it doesn't work for me it's okay that's the thing that you have to like yeah kind of step away and be like they're artists like they have something in their brain and if I'm like maybe somebody else can but you can't take anything personally yeah for you interesting yeah I think you does go a long way I always felt the same like thank yous are not said enough I think in general like in life but in the music industry there was very little thank you yeah um yeah that's very interesting I was wearing on the logistical side so it was very I I was was kind of the person that would always say no to things and I kind of had to in my role like I had to be that realist and I had to be the one that had to kind of yeah James down like this you're asking for way too much do you do with what I gave you mine was not as fun a role like I think for you at least I think because you're also creative it's kind of at least like two artists kind of working together on something as opposed to one person who's just like no you don't have the money for that that's true I mean we do have to say no we don't have the money for that one oh yeah there are times but people like I want to use this photographer and we're like absolutely like people get no photos but if you found a Walmart we will go to CVS yeah

but yeah there's times where where I have to say no or like even think that they want to create um as far as like their album or like their packaging where they're like we want this cool fun thing and it's like if you want your album released and in stores in a you know proper time frame right I don't think we're gonna be able to do that or um even on the website I think we're like I want my face to be AI generated like I don't know if we're going to be able to do that internally here that's not something we're really well versed in by yeah um so yeah there have been times where they have like these Grand ideas and sometimes they're like okay cool and then they kind of do it themselves like all right if you can figure it out awesome but you know talking about these Concepts we have another question from an album a day podcast which is add a three day podcast on Twitter and they ask do you prefer to bring a concept to the artist and their team for consideration or would you rather flesh out a concept brought to you um personally I think it's a lot easier a lot easier um definitely not easier um but a lot better to know you're going to get exactly what the artist wants when they think of the concept themselves yeah um it's their image and it's their music of what they're presenting and we can say okay here this is what we can do with this concept and kind of go from there which is a lot simpler I think trying to like figure something out and being like this is a cool concept I don't know if it's gonna work for you but if you like this and then not feeling genuine to them um so definitely we like to hear what the artist has to say or what they want to do or what they think is fun and cool and Innovative and then we can try and like figure out how to do that rather than being like here's something really dope do you want to do this and then like if they hate it or like if they do do it and they don't like it and then it just like them then it like like we do less of that though like it's not usually the case like we're not usually bringing a concept to them and saying like you have to do this like okay oh yeah right so see it as a songwriter we get like I want you to write a hit I want you something that feels like a Vibe what are some words like some really just lazy descriptors that you've received that were so vague but in their mind they knew exactly what the hell they were talking about God wants you to write a hit wow yeah yeah

we get a lot of words like oh can you make it like really edgy

what's edgy to you Angie's a big one yeah which is fun um like but like my my definition of edgy is not your definition of edgy so it's like edgy the very broad terms like can you set some examples because I don't normally know what your edgy is because edgy could be like you know like dark and gloomy like that guy with a guitar like on a bridge like I don't know like I don't know what I said it'd be a crazy colors right yeah yeah abstract exactly like grungy and like bright purple and black since like edgy can be so many different things so like that's one that definitely comes to mind um actually um I mean cool like cool

lazy like so much though you probably get it so much and people think I told them what I wanted I'm like you need to give me a list of metadata I don't care how you figure it out give me something yeah I mean back in the day kind of used to be easier because there used to be like a general like aesthetic for the type of artist that would come out like the small young pop singer songwriter had a general like Vibe about them where you're like okay I could pick three different ways of doing this and yeah all three ways they're probably gonna like it because they're gonna pick one out of three and then there was like hip-hop artists where it's like okay I know like these three things they're going to like really relate to the hip-hop artist so it's like nowadays it's just like everything kind of like mixed into each other so it's been really interesting trying to figure out the creative mindset of a lot of you know what the artist wants right um but yeah cool edgy lean is a good word can you make it clean okay different things um so that's great all the time awesome well an album a day podcast also asked is there anything going on in the field that you would like to enhance your knowledge about and what are some current upcoming Trends within music industry that people will see more of in the coming years uh in the creative field name um well one thing that obviously not sticks out is definitely the AI stuff uh more and more artists have been using the AI generators to create their artwork which has been interesting on the legal front yeah that's oh it's risky yeah very risky um not only risky it's just like we kind of don't really know how to handle it as far as like credit is concerned I mean like before like you have a designer or you have photographer and you get the rights for that stuff um but as far as this AI stuff like we don't really know how to touch on it on a legal front yet entirely I mean we kind of have been figuring it out but yeah it's been interesting trying to just like see like what an AI artist comes in or artwork comes in from an artist and we're like okay yeah yeah let's figure this out um so that's been something that will probably be more and more seen on artwork um which is full a good and a bad thing I think I mean there's a obviously a debate about like AI art and stuff um yeah that we don't have to get into but um so that's been something and then like just still like the mix match of genres um as far as like creative's concerned like a lot of it's taken from like the 2000s now so it's like you see a lot more of that like Y2K inspired art meets my bees meets like a little bit of 80s meets all of these different types of like the best aspects of each one of the Decades kind of put together into something really cool and Innovative which is a lot of fun I've been noticing a little bit of that um yeah I think that's pretty much well it's coming to mine right now as far as things that are coming through that I've seen right before I left label I know we were talking about nfts that was kind of right when that whole conversation was going on I know you were kind of leading a lot of the conversation as well so what do you think I know it's died down a little bit in terms of people talking about it in the public but people definitely are still working on it I know a lot of people working at startups that are into it so yeah what do you see kind of happening with that still um I'm not really sure we've kind of taken a step back from the nft space internally um we were kind of like trying to figure it out I mean I think we helped Kings of Leon do something um with their album at the time um I think you were helpful on that thing yeah um but yeah we've definitely taken a step back just because it did kind of die down but a lot of our artists are doing things on their own so like you'll probably see things coming from our artists like with their own individual projects and what they're doing with different partners on their end rather than it coming from the label end um so we really haven't touched in the nft space since that time um so I don't really have much to say on the nfts that most people felt that I'll tell you a lot of artists are gained like web three and then like K-pop now some are good too even though some of it's like not good like dream catchers Is Not Great some of it is almost like AI generated people it's not like a deviant artwork that you guys like rip from the internet so it's starting to turn into like this thing where they're just trying to like a little bit of a cash grab I mean exactly that's what it's for but yeah K-pop is like yeah my technology we have the fastest internet here in Korea let's like you know it's turning into like this thing so it should be interesting to see what they do with it and how everyone else responds now Kpop music is like what are they doing over there so I'm curious yeah also as an SM stand have you heard about how espa's virtual uh member or I don't know oh novice novice getting debuting as an artist she's being transmuted as an artist

amazing yeah there's gonna be a virtual artist debuting under SM this year so let's see let's see how that goes they might do it the way they did the the KDA roll-off for League of Legends where they just have marks and you have to kind of stand like in this Gap like imagine various novice between Chris and Alex I love novice yeah you know me too like yeah like YouTubers

you know what I think in Asia they were always just like that even with like Hatsune Miku oh yeah she opened for Gaga that's what I'm saying that was bizarre I was like no one knew what was going on yeah

that's not her you know like I don't know what I'm looking at but you know what on Brands yeah

um there was that boy group that debuted I think oh my last year with the one member he reacted to another virtue people virtually created group the member reacted to this virtual girl group it was just like some weird like Inception meta mess I've never seen about like he was like well and I'm like not you reacting to the fake the fake we're reacting to the fake girl yeah I don't know there's something about that she's like does it and like honestly like I don't even like look at that like it's weird the weirdest part though was the other members that were real people and then they had to like compete with this AI made like a beautiful and it's like like what I don't know I do I can't she said they made him beautiful but it's true I mean it's yeah like that's what they're trying to do and it's like you have to compete with something that's fake and then like as a fan like who do you do you buy it right AI what or the real guys that is crazy you know what see in America it's so much easier it's only like individual R's like artists like little Michaela it's just her but no she actually has selfies and everyone's I don't know yeah how they knew it like this is I mean that's a little more Innovative and again it's a one-person type of scenario where other people aren't really affected in the whole concept there yeah I don't

but the packaging might be interesting could you imagine you never have to take like we the metadata will be like all the code edgy cool dark yeah yeah virtual yeah Sleek clean character you know like minimalistic yeah it may be like a little like hologram like comes out and it's just like the member oh my God oh my God I would purchase that I would put my mother like you know dance on here

for everyone you know you were saying like you know that's something that you aren't getting into right now but you know there are some people coming up watching this listening to you saying oh my gosh she didn't even know about K-pop or she didn't even know about certain things but she's learned and she's developed herself so well so what kind of advice would you have for anyone coping to do what you're doing today yeah I would kind of just like if you wanted to get into like music or like design and music or just like be interested in what's actually happening in the world I mean keep your eyes open like there's I mean it's harder today it's definitely a lot harder today in real life back then and then back then is literally like only 10 years ago like it's not even like it was like my day like 30. it's literally like moving so fast at any given time where um you know if you're a Creator um or Creator photographer or designer like what's been really helpful and how like I've been finding different artists is honestly like Instagram like make sure you have a portfolio make sure you're putting your work out there like we're gonna consistently find different people based on their individual skill sets so before when I was in school it was like you kind of had to do a little bit of everything like you kind of had to get into different Aesthetics in every single possible way now oh it's very much like you have your own thing where it's like you're really good at this particular aesthetic or you're really good at like typography or you're really good at this and it's like we look for those individual people that can really hone in on the thing that we're looking for um if I'm hiring in I look for somebody that had a little bit of diversity in um their portfolio as far as Credence concerned just because we do work on a roster of all different kinds of artists like we touch hip-hop rap pop country not K-pop because they do their own crating we know this um but yeah like the genres just like are so widespread of like you have to be able to adapt in a way um but yeah if you want to kind of like be freelancer and do your thing like definitely put your stuff out there like get out there um that's something that I didn't really do because I was so internal on it and everything and Instagram and it happened until I was already like halfway in the music of mystery anyway so it was a little bit different for me um but yeah that's how we're looking for certain like individual artists at least you are working with artists and their teams and everything every day so what are some best practices for working most effectively with a creative team just trust that's I think that is a big thing everybody thinks that they're creative sometimes they are you know I'm not saying that they're not um but there's a lot of like you know trust that gets you know brought into the equation and if you don't trust us then it's hard if you have your own opinions and you kind of want to stick to what you know and you are used to or whatever it kind of like it could either be fine or it can like stunt you and we're here to help um and we've been through we have our degrees in design and there are certain ways we do things because that's how it works um I mean granted like creative is very like broad of a thing and you can go very many different ways with it but there are reasons why we make certain decisions to make sure that it's the best that it can be um so I think it's just a little bit of just you know a good collaboration um conversation would be amazing just to be like hey this is what you're looking for this is what we um will bring to the table and this is what we suggest and it's your you know the honesty is also really really key because don't just say yeah because you think that this is all you can have it's really like I don't like any of these options that you're giving me whether that be creative directors or photographers or design columns or whatever like we want to make sure that we're giving you what you need so definitely I'd be honest I mean like in a kind way like you know

say like okay like this is not what I was looking for but actually this one is going in the right direction of like what I was thinking and then we can kind of like figure out based on you know the feedback that we're getting um yeah I think that that would be very very important to have like just a discussion with us and make sure that we're all on the same page yeah and I think that big understanding is like we're all working for you yeah you know like we're trying to help you and um there's a lot yeah I definitely experienced that a lot where people were kind of fighting against um us um and it's like no like we're on your team here yeah like we're trying to yeah right the big thing that people need to always keep in mind yeah yeah we want we want you to succeed you know like whether that's a personal feeling of being like no we really love you we want to make sure that like you get exactly what you're here for um or on a business level like we want you to succeed

please

you know what I mean so it's like we're not we're not here to like you know know be your enemy of any sort of way you know I mean there are certain opinions and certain artists have had bad experience in with certain labels and you know I can't speak to that I'm not on that side of the label system I don't work in a r i don't really know um how any of that really goes down it's just what I hear you know but yeah at the end of the day it's like we're here to you know help you that's what we want to do and that's why you know we do it for you and and music that's why we're here like anybody that really works in a label is there because they want to be there like they love music and they want to make sure that yeah find out the best that we can awesome so we are a music podcast we clearly have great taste so please recommend us some music what songs are on repeat for you right now what should our listeners listen to okay so um a little bit of a Shameless plug but it's really good and we've been sitting on it for a minute and I'm so glad it's out but everybody should listen to Lottery by lotto because it's a hit and it's a jam and it's I'm so excited that it's finally out there because it's like the perfect pop song that I've heard in a minute um so it's definitely a lottery it's so good um and then obviously Pink Panthers I slice um yes

um Pink Panthers is uh season me um we love a fellow NCT fan yes he is um so so yeah so we stand We Stand Pink Panther um and the K-pop space I've been listening to a lot of XG lately oh yeah they're really fun yeah and I know this is surprising for me because I'm not usually a girl group stand but like I really like XG I think they're fun they're good yeah they're a good groups

like their songs are so laid back yeah

I'm like yeah that's what I was thinking I was like they feel like a boy group a little bit like the way the they're producing their songwriters are a lot of like r b k r b singers and I was like yeah that makes sense yeah yeah so they've been I mean in all their songs are in English so it's super adaptable for like all of your friends that aren't K-pop fans you can be like listen to this and they'll be like I like it and be like well okay Bob's um and then trying to think I mean I recently got back on on the back in bandwagon I looked back in and he just came back from the military

well thank you so much Tony and for hanging out with us today oh yeah thank you I'm so honored to be on the sparga but yes well welcome to the CCTV crew it's nice to have another crew member anything else that um you know anything that came out or any projects before we wrap up um I don't really have much to to plug I guess I mean you can follow me on social media I don't I'm never really on social media at all I'm rarely on there but if you want to follow me um I'm at Tony inaro on everything uh Instagram Twitter thank you everyone for listening and let us know what other aspects of the music industry you'd like to hear about you can join our crew at patreon.com to hang out with us and please comment below or message us at CCTV pops on all social media don't forget to like subscribe and turn on those notifications for our YouTube channel and if you're enjoying the show on a podcast platform please give us a follow rating and a review we do read those thank you until next time that's Chris that's Chan and that's Tonianne and we are CCTV