How Working in Music During College Rewired My Brain
a field report from someone deep in the field
An account by Raquel Hilton — Strategic Partnership and Social Media Rep for °1824 - Universal Music Group // self-claimed personality hire
Okay, so imagine juggling a dozen ceramic plates, on fire (obviously). Add an awesome EDM background track, and you may find yourself in a live re-enactment of what the past year has felt like, being a hybrid rep while finishing my senior year of college.
Stop, okay, I know that was dramatic, but the point is: to succeed and keep up, I’ve had to adapt fast. Somewhere in the middle of all the learning, deliverables, and a hullabaloo of tasks, the way I experience some of my favorite things started looking completely different to me (in a good way, I promise).
So here are the most valuable shifts. In my habits. In my mindset. In how I try to navigate this industry now.
Nothing you consume is purely entertainment anymore.
Not to be dramatic, but this was the most obvious place to start. Everything you encounter becomes a case study. Your conversations with strangers become surveys, fans you see in line become data points, and (drumroll) your FYP becomes your textbook.
Without realizing, you start dissecting instead of just watching, and questions like:
Why did that piece of content do so well? Editing, subject, format?
Why are people engaging?
What about the delivery resonated so deeply that you could reproduce or take inspiration from it?
When you are marketing something as ubiquitous as music to a market as fast-paced as 18–24, what stops your own scroll matters, and not just to you, but to your entire team.
(Read this article about how attention is the ultimate strategic currency…)
Same goes for listening to music.
It’s not the craziest thing to imagine that when you are on the other side (maybe you were given loose marketing direction or asked to come up with an event, social ideas, rebrand, etc.), you start listening differently. With luck, the joy the project gives you can inform and inspire how you approach it. But to build an artist’s world in a way that actually resonates with fans, you have to understand every layer of what’s going on.
Which means putting on a little detective hat underneath the °1824 hat and…
Reading the lyrics, but like, frfr
Getting to know the artist (wiki, social media stalk, fan pages, basically a few meters away from parasocial if you have time)
Investigating the community: Reddit, fan articles, comment sections
Sound: comparing what existed before and what has changed now
Fun fact: you may also find yourself caring about which exact label an artist is signed to, which I also did not see coming. Each label has its own flavor, its own work ethic, its own values that artists share at least tangentially. Maybe it's not the biggest deal. But I know me and my homies check the album credits more than we like to admit, and we're always hunting for new signings/artists to promote.
College students are a humbling target audience.
As a member of this fabulous demographic, I can say this, and no one can get mad at me 😛!! Unfortunately, we are just a touch busy. We don’t necessarily want to come to things, watch things all the way through, or go out of our way to engage with media online. Not everyone is extroverted, and not everyone is thinking about music all the time (Raquel sheds a single tear, continues typing).
These challenges are all the more reason to make things so obviously worth people’s while.
Design events that are creative and clearly intended to captivate. That sound like so much fun, you want to skip your way there and invite everyone you see on the way.
Create content that actually adds something. Most importantly, create memories and new opportunities for fun, for your sweet downtrodden collegiate audience. Because if something sounds genuinely fun and like it is going to create a good memory, people will make time for it. That, my friends, is the name of the game.
Leave intimidation at the door.
Still working on this myself, but the peers I have seen do really great work and accomplish amazing things, simply do not let fear and failure stop them.
If they have never done it before, they muster the courage and go for it.
If it is a hard conversation, they swallow the lump in their throat and have it.
If it is a scary one-on-one meeting, they sign up and save the worrying for when the Zoom invite comes in.
And then… they do it again and again until it’s somehow not scary anymore.
I saw them leave their intimidation at the door, and now they are in the room. And I hope this inspires more people to do the same.
Comparison AKA item #1 in the list of top 5 things joy hates to see coming.
One of my bosses had to tell me this, and it’s a sentiment I believe everyone should hear at least once:
You are you, a product of your unique lived experiences and irreplaceable perspective
Your work and contributions are your own. Be proud of the fingerprint only you could have left on them.
Your limits should be determined by yourself and what you are actually capable of
Your coworkers might be doing seriously insane things. Working for incredible people, getting awesome opportunities, and living a life that, at times, utterly gobsmacks you. You should let that inspire you and remind you that you can accomplish anything.
What you can’t do is let that become the measuring stick for yourself. Push yourself to your own best, not your idea of someone else’s best. Maybe you are not there yet. Maybe in a week you will be. But if you are constantly trying to reach somebody else’s version of the best, you will never figure out what your best even looks like.
Creativity is a renewable resource.
Sometimes you are ideating for three different projects at once, and you hit a wall. Nothing in your brain except the words on the screen. This is okay. Trust the well of creative juice will refill.
Come back to things, revisit
Let ideas simmer (wonder why creativity is related to juice)
Take a break and let yourself get reinspired by actual life, conversations, things you pause and notice this time around that you usually don’t
Brain tidbit: research on the default mode network suggests that mind wandering and unstructured thinking are actually when creative connections get made. So taking a break isn’t always being lazy; sometimes it’s what your brain needs to restart.
Rapid fire:
Thoughts on meeting artists? Everyone was a normal person at some point. Whoever you might be in awe of right now was just a regular human before all of it, and honestly, probably still is when the lights go off. Find your zen and stay professional—who knows? Maybe you will work together one day. (Advice based on speculation and this really good Grammy week article).
Does posting get easier? No 🧡. The anxiety of pressing send on a post never fully goes away. Someone, please study why posting on Instagram is the most stressful platform, especially when it is not your own account. Maybe this is just me…
Yes, it is genuinely hard staying funny on a corporate account. #commenthowmanytimesyoulaughed #thankyouforclearingthisjokewes
Yes, I have sent my bosses texts that said things like “thoughts on 🧐 vs 🤨” and “thoughts on me including [insert a bad word] because it’s in the song title???”
Hope you took something from what I spent the past year unlearning, relearning, and exploring for the first time. If you work in music or you are just about to enter this world and wanted someone to be honest with you, hi!
I don’t think I’ve figured anything out completely. But I do think I’ve learned a thing or two about paying attention to what works and the art of digging authenticity out of every day.
Photo: Raquel Hilton looking back at the best culture marketing & content strategy team #ever!
This was SO good and also made me giggle lol. You make a great point about listening to music a different way when you’re on the other side of it. It seems like while it might commodify the music listening experience a bit, you also gain a deeper understanding of it!