Ep. 019: Music Export and Trends, State of Heavy Music Now and Keeping It Real with Riku Pääkkönen

Break the Record

English - July 15, 2021 07:00 - 49 minutes - 67.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 2 ratings
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Previous Episode: Ep. 018: The Money Episode: Artist Money Mindset and Abundance Blocks with Lauren Rozwadowski

Next Episode: Ep. 020: Ayahuasca in Healing the Past, Present and Future with Steve Astephen

Riku Pääkkönen is a Finnish music industry veteran who founded the legendary heavy metal label Spinefarm and was involved with the signing and developing of the biggest music exports out of Finland such as Nightwish, Children of Bodom and Blind Channel. Today, Riku is the managing director of Ranka Kustannus, a Finnish record label and music publishing company, and a Board Member of Music Export Finland.

In this episode of Break the Record podcast, Anna and Riku Pääkkönen talk about how artists should be paying more attention to leaving a legacy instead of focusing on new trends and going from one movement to another. Riku also explains the importance of navigating through business conversations with grace and sympathy but, at the same time, saying what needs to be said. Riku exemplifies this situation talking about how he deals with artists – especially new artists – looking to expand their success and be more known by the great public.

In addition, you will hear some recommendations from Riku and Anna about the career in music as a whole. As Anna highlighted in this episode: “It’s a career made for tenacious people.”

Key Highlights

Riku shares a few tactics on how to deliver a message in a business conversation with honesty; How artists from smaller territories can have an advantage in the early stages or their development, and how to approach building an international career; It’s really important to have a vision when working with music, and it’s a career model for tenacious people; You need to build trust to succeed; How new artists are going from one movement to another without getting deep into any of them (not leaving a blueprint); Riku explains that young artists need one great track and then go from there; More artists should be thinking about keeping integrity and leaving a legacy;

Powerful Quotes by Riku and Anna

“I hate being fake and this is something that there is too much in the business. By being honest, you save a lot of time.” – Riku Pääkkönen

“When artists have a strong vision about what they are doing, they will know better at the end of the day.” – Riku Pääkkönen “It’s not a short game, even though you may have some quick wins along the way, or you may have some quick losses along the way, this is really an industry for tenacious people.” – Anna Turunen