CD Baby appoints new artist education boss

Breuner is a long-time host of CD Baby’s podcast and a trusted voice in the American music market. He boasts more than 25 years working in the music business, both as a recording artist and an industry professional. He has worked at CD Baby for more than 16 years in roles such as senior vice-president of marketing, among others.

The artist engagement and education team will oversee everything from CD Baby’s DIY Musician blogs, podcast, conference and community, with a focus on emerging artists entering the market.

“We want to be a resourceful guide through an increasingly fractured and complicated landscape,” Breuner said. “By investing in and uniting everything from our blogs, podcast, conference and community, we hope to empower musicians with practical know-how and, hopefully, inspire them to pursue their musical ambitions and achieve success on their terms.

“It’s a really exciting time, but it’s also a time where artists are expected to run their careers like a startup. Gone are the days of an A&R person from a label showing up to a venue to see an ‘unknown’ artist with no audience to potentially sign them. We want to provide the guidance that makes artists feel empowered to create their own breakthrough moments.”

CD Baby president Joel Andrew said: “Kevin has used the DIY Musician podcast and blog, as well as our annual conference, to demystify distribution, monetisation and promotion, and help make success in this automised music economy. Because we’re all artists ourselves, we see our mission as sharing what we know as broadly as possible.

CD Baby has distributed more than a million artists and 9 million songs. The platform has paid out over $1 billion in artist royalties since it was founded in 1998.

The company says its approach to education has always stood out among similar distributors and independent artist services by focusing on empowering emerging, niche and amateur musicians with everything they need to successfully distribute, publish, promote and monetise their music globally.

“Our expert guidance simplifies and streamlines the complexities of global music distribution through tools, partnerships, education, and 20-plus years of community-building and advocacy,” CD Baby said.