lorde live 2015

Oh dear Lorde, not you too…

9 years ago Liv Carter Comments Off on Oh dear Lorde, not you too…
lorde live 2015
Photo: Dave J Hogan/Getty

A few weeks ago, Lorde split from her manager, Scott Maclachlan, and his company, Saiko Management.

It happens all the time, but for new artists, it often has disastrous consequences for their career. I would hope this won’t be the case for Lorde, but given what she next put out on social media, I have my doubts.

There has never been, nor shall there ever be, an 18-year-old who makes “the best decisions […] each day.” Mainly because there is rarely anyone who does. We all need guidance every now and then, or someone stop protect us from ourselves when we get a little too carried away.

We are too close to our own lives to always see the bigger picture.

This is especially true when trying to navigate through as volatile a career as one in the music industry. As new artists gain fame, they attract more and more yes-people; people who feed the artist’s ego, telling them they’re wonderful and that everything they do is amazing. It takes tremendous strength to not fully buy into all that praise. But most of the time, those yes-people are not really out for the artist’s best interest, but merely for their own.

It is extremely important for an artist to have someone in their corner who will speak the truth, who will say “no” to bad ideas, who will keep an eye on the long-term best interest of the artist rather than the quick wins artists often pursue.

Lorde is immensely talented, there can be no doubt about that. And many artists do well with on their own, because they understand the business side of the music business equally well as the creative.

It appears that Lorde is not (yet) one of those people.

It’s hard not to read this as spectacular arrogance. She did not go from unknown in 2013, to internationally touring Grammy-winning artists solely because of her skill. If she really believes that, she is even more in need of a strong manager than I previously thought.

She was mentored, guided, and brought into the music industry circus with people protecting her interests. These people had connections she didn’t have, and experience she didn’t have. Her talent formed the basis, but their hard (and smart) work did the rest.

For developing artists, I often recommend that they keep control of everything as long as possible. And that is for a number of reasons, including that they’re often not operating at a level where they need to be spending money or giving percentages to a manager. But once the potential for a breakthrough is there, you need to start looking for someone who can start handling the business side of your career.

And it is best if this is an outsider. As anyone who has spent any kind of time working in this industry will tell you, when the wife/husband/father/mother is the manager, you often get nothing but trouble.

I have saved artists ten of thousands of dollars by stopping them from making unwise decisions. It didn’t make me popular in that moment, but when the dust settled, it was clear a bullet had been dodged.

If Scott Maclachlan was no longer the right person to guide Lorde’s career, that’s one thing. But I hope she doesn’t fall victim to one of the many, many people who work their way into an artist’s career because they see a quick path to fortune.

 
 

This article originally appeared on our Herding Cats site.

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

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