In the past you needed a contract with a record company and promotion, and over time you could earn enough street credit to sell solely on your b(r)and name.

Today you pay a distributor for getting your music public available, but to get heard you still need marketing/promotion to stand out from theist amount of music just waiting to be heard. If you're an already established b(r)and - your way to do well commercially is more likely to happen.

Essentially you are more prone to get a lot of streams/getting A rotation if you're well established. To stay on top you need to publish songs with a certain quality or have a back catalogue that keep your star shining forever.

Does this mean that all good songs are purely written by top 100 artists or their song writer teams?
-It all comes down to taste

I've heard a lot of songs from members of this forum with very high quality, but very few (if any) became hits. I think promotion has been and always will be the keyword.

*Disclaimer - the above post is not me mourning about lack of commercial success*

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