WAIM Podcast #075: Michael Gilbride of MAD Records

Michael Gilbride spent several years in the financial trenches as a bond trader. Armed with a finance degree and a penchant for capitalism, Michael saw trading as a way to build a life of prosperity and financial security. However, during the entirety of his schooling and his early career his passion for music was always there, calling out. After several years in the bond game, Michael took his amassed savings and poured it into his musical career. Very quickly, he learned what a steep hill it was that he was trying to climb.As Michael learned more and more about the machinations of the music business in the streaming era he found himself throwing good money after bad to promote himself to playlist curators and tastemakers. Michael invested heavily in social media ads to drive plays. While he found some success with these ads, he was only able to sustain a high level of streams by doling out large amounts of cash for these ad buys. Any money that he made from streaming income was then diverted right back to more ad buys to maintain these streams. Eventually, Michael realized that the whole system was what he refers to as “a scam”.Instead of throwing his hands up in defeat, Michael set out to build something new to help fight against this system. Thus, MAD Records was born.MAD is a record label that takes none of the revenue away from artists. Nor does MAD own any of the rights of the music that they distribute. Instead of earning revenue off of the music itself, MAD is set up as an educational institution as well as a record label. This business plan affords MAD the chance to work with a variety of artists that represent a wide range of genres, backgrounds, and ages. Thus far, the breakout star from MAD’s early efforts is a 67 year old woman from the UK who has been making music with her sister for nearly half a century. Michael and I dive through a few of the ins and outs of today’s music business but we manage to keep it from getting too inside baseball. We discuss how the current musical landscape has nothing to do with artistic merit, and you’ll learn firsthand just how lonely the life of an independent creator can be in an age when we can, and often have, to do it all on our own. This is a fascinating conversation with an ambitious and interesting dude doing his very best to improve our musical ecosystem. It’s a helluva task, but Michael Gilbride seems ready for the job. Cheers,Matty C Get full access to What Am I Making at whatamimaking.substack.com/subscribe