Could you imagine being a tiny artist with no following, having a big record label come to your door and say "We're going to make you a star but you need to go get some face tats so we can sell you", then your numbers don't work and two months later they are like "Well, it didn't work out. You better go get a 9 to 5 job. Good luck with those face tats"
The 3 Golden Rules: 1 - Never ask a woman her age. 2 - Never ask a man how much they make. 3 - Never ask an indie/new artist why their parents are blue on Wikipedia.
@@ethanmaiville1754having a text be blue on wikipedia means it's hyperlinked; meaning if you click the blue word, you'll be led to another wikipedia page focused on the subject of the word you just clicked. you'd have to be a significant person (whether through business or industry fame; the common denominator being wealthiness) to have a wikipedia page of your own. the average indie artist with an authentic personality and upbringing usually wouldn't have a significant wealthy parent who may very well have helped their child financially in order to be succesful. so basically, if you see that the parents of an indie/self-made artist has their own wikipedia page, that hints at that indie artist actually being privileged and inauthentic as an "individual" artist.
a common theme with these artists is that they’re pumped out checking off every trend of the time, but these labels create their image so “perfectly” that these artists come off as caricatures of their fellow peers in their genre.
@@donotreply7517 you can tell how out of touch these labels are too because who tf really thought that making a lil pump clone would be sustainable lmaooo
@Beach Life that’s why I said, “if I hadn’t been alive 10 years ago.” Since I WAS alive then, I know where he came from. But if I was new to life right now and I saw MGK for the first time, I’d be like, “that guy’s a plant.”
Your just mad your parents are unlikable, if someone gave my kid a job because they thought I was loyal or talented, if be happy. Don't pretend you wouldn't, you're just not likeable.
@@aresjerry - but most cases of nepotism isnt like that tho??? most of the time its rich people paying their kids into prestigious universities (when oftentimes their grades are wayyy below the average) or celebrities using their status to let their relatives into whatever industry they're in, even if that relative's skill level is honestly subpar. more often than not, nepotism isnt about the parents' integrity and loyalty or whatever, its about paying their way to the top 🤷
@l.u.n.e you're preconceived notion that being smart, or there is a value to it is immature. You don't need to be smart to be successful. What do grades have to do with anything except an appeal to authority?
She was 20 at the time not some 40 year old mom. She gives off tumblr 2016 emo girl which i assume is what they going for it honestly seems like she was desperate to be seen. he sniffed her out told her he could make her a star if she did all this shit and of course, dropped her the moment it didn't work.
The guy that "created" baby goth is the epitome of the industry. He said "face tats are cool, so we gave her face tats". It's typical of the music industry to see something happening and then create more of that instead of being original.
Well the thing is…they actually surprisingly weren’t industry plants. Anthony Fantano interviewed the lead singer at one point and she actually cleared things up…and she surprisingly also has a decent (or at least leagues better than Trampstamps) solo career
It isn't just people that are "planted" by major labels. It could be as simple as coming from a wealthy background with connections, yet passing yourself off as independent or self-made.
I’m in my 50s and had been in the music industry for a couple decades. Stuff like this has been going on forever. Nowadays a band with enough money can pay their way onto a big tour anytime. What’s sad is that some of these don’t care about making music they just want to be famous.
I’m an old guy. I stumbled on this video. I am not familiar with Jumex’s music but the fact that he’s got his microphone backwards and pointed at the ceiling says a lot.
@@Ob1tuber it was pointed directly at his face though. I noticed in Don’t Worry Darling, Harry Styles’ mic was pointed at the floor too. I catch it a lot on TV and Movies.
The plant I find absolutely terrifying is Clairo, how she used to act like this simple quirky girl doing some silly music in her bedroom but actually his father is highly connected with huge powerful companies? How can you even fake that and think it is normal
I love how this video clarified the definitions of “industry plant” and made me quickly realize that literally every Kpop group can be considered as industry plants
They’re not industry plants at all. None of the big groups claim to be self made. And anyone that follows KPOP and the industry know they’re not self made.
These KPOP companies literally hold competitions (which are aired on TV) to pick people for their next group and advertise the heck out of their debut. If there is a polar opposite of industry plants it would be the KPOP industry.
Every artist ever is an industry plant from Elvis to Katy Perry it’s just that they actually had something interesting about them and they weren’t necessarily forced in a shady way.
The babygoth one sounds sad, despite what that guy said she DID have personality and creativity. It just wasn't going along with mainstream trends so they made her change :(
@@fairy6126 "made her", she sold herself completely and did it by her own choice. From trying to make pop to hiding her family and showing boob on OF...
They didn't make her do anything, she was an adult who went along with everything they asked her to do like an idiot and now she failed. Could've easily said no but she chose to chase fame rather than have a real job
The most successful industry plant imo is JLo. Her most popular songs each have some sort of controversy like plagiarism, stealing songs or keeping demo vocals and playing it up as hers. Being aligned with Tony Motolla and later Diddy helped her a lot. The fact that she's made it this far and gets celebrated as a 'legend' still fascinates me.
In 2004, there was an industry plant in the UK so blatant that some questioned if it was actually done as money laundering. That being the group 3 Of A Kind and their song Babycakes, which got to Number 1 despite no prior promotion, the group featured in the video having had nothing to do with the song, and the actual song's producer stating that it was simply an old demo she didn't think much of but got played on pirate radio. To this day it's the only Number 1 single I am aware of that was a group's only release.
What happened to Baby Goth is actually so fucking sad. Hearing that a young artist gave into that type of pressure and went to the lengths of hiding her own family and getting permanent face tattoos just to "look good when she walks into the office" is fucking heartbreaking. *EDIT: People keep leaving comments about how she deserved it like that's gonna get them any attention. I'm not responding to your bitter ass so keep throwing those comments into the void*
@@brianbadonde9251 It's true, I want you to know every bad decision you've ever made and regret I am personally laughing at you for, and nobody should ever feel any sympathy for you and if you don't like it boohoo
The way that guy talked about baby goth, and i assume the way others talked about the artists is so heart breaking. Turning art, into a money making ploy
Nothing is worse than the Trampstamps... Truly an insane progression, and perfectly embodies an industry plant with some of the biggest backlash from the communities they attempted to emulate
I used to be really good friends with Bria, and I watched her sing on instagram for years. After she started getting big, she kinda dropped her friends, and didn’t talk to us ever again after years of friendship 😕
People really underestimate what people will do for money. If you took 100 random people offered them 20 million dollars a piece to move away and cut contact with everyone they currently know. Most of them would do it and a lot of them would probably do it, would do it for far less and the ones that didn't have a number, that just wasn't it. Her old relationships were a liability to her new image and the wealth she could potentially earn.
@@tsdobbi I don't understand why people say this like its a bad thing, If you didn't take the 20 million dollars and move away you'd be an idiot, and people who are really your friends and family would literally want you to take the deal, if my best friend was offered that deal id support him taking it dude would be fucking set for life and can do whatever he wants for his future id be a selfish asshole if I told him to not take the money because "omg id miss you so much though"
@@TheodoreHoesevelt you don't even know me. Maybe try to reflect on yourself to see why you felt the need to say something like this to a complete stranger. 🤷🏻♀️
Industry plants aren't bad to me as long as they are talented. Lying about being independent is the only corny thing about it. Some artist don't claim to NOT be with a label or agency. They just drop. Nothing wrong with that. If the music good it doesn't matter.
Billie Ellish SWEARSSSS she had no help, yet her mother is a vocal coach for many singers, and even made music, and her dad is in many movies and shows. Deep family ties in Hollywood.
Empty corporate notes and words isn't music and why art is dead. I don't think you get it yet but this whole scheme and industry just milks money from kids who go 100% into any fad they are told
@TheSkyrux holy $hit are you that dumb? Don't answer I know you are. Did you just learn that from your word-a-day calendar. You do comprehend that the "gatekeeper" are the one who cherry picking these controllable losers and blocking out talented artists but you generations sellouts can't even play instruments. It's not like musicians have been singing about this exact problem since the 70s
Baby Goth is from my area (DFW). She was never a part of our scene whatsoever. I heard her sing live twice and it was REALLY bad. There’s so many artists from here that deserved it more than she did.
I saw Smilez live in 2019 opening for Lil Pump and Lil Skies (back then he was going by the name Jack Bruno) Before the show while we were waiting in line, some woman was handing out Green drawstring bags that had his name on them, trying to do some promo, I asked her who she was, and she said she was his manager and started talking about him for a couple mins to me to promote his set. I was a bit interested to see his performance, and at first it seemed like he might have some charisma, but it became clear he was fucken drunk lol and put on a really sloppy performance that the crowd was not into. By the end of his set, nobody wanted to hear his last couple songs and were really over it.
I saw him open for Juice WRLD and Cordae back in 2018 or so, he was off some kinda substance and I yelled “who the fuck are you” and he stared me down 💀 funniest part is I genuinely didn’t know who he was, cuz the openers were Lil Mosey and some other rap duo who’s name I’ve forgotten, but both those acts were on the lineup before the show. Jack Bruno wasn’t. I’d bet bread that he paid to open for the tour last second.
@@kingal7832 good for you, but his come up is very strange how he went from the classmates to working on yeezus and with mike dean, kanye, t.i. In like 2 years
Rebecca Black seems very wholesome in comparison to most of these stories. At least she was doing her own autotune pop fluff thing! I always think of the evolution of Poppy when I think about plants.
Are you calling Rebecca Black an industry plant? She's not even close. The guy who did her song ran a company where rich parents could pay for their kids to live out their pop star fantasy with their own song and music video. It wasn't industry backed, it wasn't supposed to do well, it was just a fun experience for kids that went sideways.
Thats the choice she made, no one forced her. Might be hard getting a normal job now though. They can remove that trash off your face with lazers anyways lol
Rihanna is probably the most famous example of an industry plant. She didn’t do music, didn’t sing, but someone with Jay Z, while he was president at Def Jam in need of new artists, spotted her on a beach and liked her look. They gave her vocal training, dance training, artist development and put her out. As recently as her third album-based on an old NPR doc I listened to on her-every song, vocal melody, beat, fashion choice, video concept, single, album concept … was chosen, created, and put together by the label and producers and songwriters. She was as much of a puppet that has ever existed in the music industry. The main songwriter who did her songs even made all the specific vocal inflections on the demo that Rihanna would mimic-Ester Dean, who also kind of sounds like her btw Not hating, just stating the facts. I’m sure this is more common than people know. It’s basically not much different than an A&R developing local band or solo act in the past: signing them, getting them studio time, helping them “come out” in hopes that they catch on. That’s just how the business works. It’s just in the case of someone like Rihanna, it appears that having a “look” was the main priority. Jay also probably had insight on how to build an someone into a singer by being married to Beyoncé, who didn’t appear to have a lot of natural talent based on her earlier performing clips, but DID have the drive to get the professional coaching and development to work on her act.
"Beyoncé, who didn’t appear to have a lot of natural talent based on her earlier performing clips," Beyonce literally was the STAR of Destiny's Child. So, I'll have to disagree with you, saying she doesn't have a lot of natural talent. Please sksksk.
Just about 100% of rap groups are industry plants... you'd be harder pressed to find ONE that isn't... Wu-Tang Clan??? One of the only ones I can think of right now. EVERY rap group HAS to be an industry plant as none of them have any musical talent and need help with EVERYTHING, they can't make the tracks, can't record, can't do anything but say "bix nood" into a microphone... and a lot of the time they have problems with that. There is footage of DMX in a studio pissed off that the producer is asking him to actually do lines to HIS song, he's like... "BUT WHY YOU CAN'T JUST PIECE TOGETHER THE ONES I DID EARLIER????"
My story is more complicated , but I’ll tell u anything u wanna know, I’ve been doing music for a long time, many ups and downs one thing thats never died is my passion for music and my work ethic. Right now I’m self producing (in pro tools) writing, engineering an album, directing, editing, coloring my own videos. Just wanted to paint more of the picture
As someone who wrote a lot of music and played a lot of shows when I was in late high school… this shit could have happened to any of us.. only difference was we were a group..we didn’t have the tools to make music alone..I can’t imagine the pressure of doing that shit all alone and how much easier it is to get taken advantage of..
I think it’s because raw personality is pretty hard to sell to a group of people, people have to be *attracted* to a personality and a character, not sold one. but selling a *manufactured identity* is easy, anyone who can play the role can have their identity sold to a specific subset of people. like take chappell roan (who got dropped by her lable before rise and fall of a midwest princess), her personality arguably shines through her music and that’s why a lot of people are attracted to her, yes, she did benefit from virality, but her fans stuck after because of her personality. went on a bit of a tangent at the end but I hope you got what I mean 😭
My take on the definition of industry plant is that if an artists' presence is more greatly attributed to the label rather than their true popularity, than they are a plant. Of course an artist can move in and out of this definition as their label support and true support changes over time.
While I agree that the quality of the music matters most at the end of the day, the biggest problem I have with industry plants is that so many mediocre "artists" are propped up by these labels and marketed so heavily that they end up taking opportunity from real, authentic, better artists who remain underground and never see mainstream success. I guess daddy's money will always speak louder than fresh ideas.
Because at the end of the day they don't want genuine artists taking ACTUAL risks and challenging things. They want puppets. Puppets they can mold into whatever they want, even if that's to have them play the part of a risk-taking, boundary-pushing, groundbreaking artist...so long as you only push the boundaries they are ok with.
You forgot the king of industry plants, or more likely you're far too young to know who they are. This is also going to make me sound super old considering that I know who they are, but the industry plants I am referring to was a Dance-pop, R&B, New Jack Swing, Funk, Hip Hop duo by the name of, "Milli Vanilli". Their whole aesthetic was constructed by the label, but the biggest problem was that they actually had no musical talent & were in fact just lip syncing songs created by actually talented song writers with good voices. They were exposed during a concert when they're music they were lip-syncing to started to skip. It was a pretty huge controversy with in the music industry back then & they went from some of the biggest stars to shunned frauds whom were essentially forced into exile. Does anyone else recall Milli Vanilli? Or am I just the oldest fart amongst the crowd here?
I was working in a recording studio in 2013 and Jack from Smilez came in for a few days with his band Raw Fabrics recording their album. Seemed like a guy just having fun and trying to get his indie rock band off the ground, he was ripping some guitar solos and I remember them having a cool sound and knowing their way around the gear. It's so wild to see this video after not hearing about this guy for 10 years!!!
Ice Spice gives me "Industry Plant" energy, but she's so charismatic that I don't really mind it; her music isn't that bad either. She's got potential, and she also seems like a very chill and sweet person 😭❤️
I don’t think she is an industry plant(could be wrong.) I DO think that weekend she went to meet Drake it changed the entire trajectory of her career from one-hit-wonder to future superstar!
@@justofon agreed, people that listen to her or something like glorilla are people that loot Target and Ulta stores and contribute nothing of value to society /rant
From what I remember reading it's a play on the Mexican drink and him being half Jewish half Latino . Not sure if that's entirely true tho but that's what I read somewhere back in like 2020 when I stumbled across his music he has a song called drugs that's pretty good
@@aaroncarter8471 I just Googled him. I literally can’t believe I am admitting to this since I literally just heard of him for the first time and have no interest in finding out what his music is like. BUT, he is just a white kid from the countryside of Illinois named Mark. He isnt Jewish at all and frankly, I doubt he is even Mexican but clearly has an ethnically ambiguous appearance so idk. He named himself after the drink, Jumex ( which is pronounced Humex). As far as the jew/mex thing, its pretty low hanging fruit where jokes are concerned and my friends and I made the same ones 20+ years ago in high school while drinking the stuff by the gallon.
Garbage was my favorite industry plant. Basically a bunch of producers, they hired a singer, and they made a fortune. Lorde is another, she responded to an ad and they told her how to look and what to do.
I think what differentiates these artists is that the music actually had real substance and personality to it. Shirley Manson may have been a randomish hire, but she could still sing and be her authentic self
I love both, but are they really plants? It's normal for A&R people scouting you to tell you how to look and sound. I know this first hand, the dude even convinced us to change the structure of a song so it would be more poppy. I think it can appear that an artist is a plant when really they are just agreeing to whatever the label is telling them to do.
holy shit that guy. i still remember how he faked a live stream to proof he actually have a twin brother, sitting on the both sides of a couch and cutting the video to make it look like theres two of them
These "plants" are made to look and sound terrible on purpose. That way the real industry plants can make it in no issue by comparison. Its no wonder they all look over the top.
i had said sum abt him bein a wannabe punk once n he decided to join my ig lives and harass me n get all pissed for no reason. ntm a guy ik was connected to him n he jus wasnt a nice person at all
It honestly all comes down to good music and actual talent. That's the only thing that will give an artist longevity. They need to be made for this. Cash grabs will just continue to come and go. It's ok for a talented artist to get help from labels and market executives in order to stand out or be more marketable. But if the music isn't good. It will eventually fail.
Thanks for talking about smilez because for a while there I thought he was being planted by a major label but it just turned out to be rich family. An industry plant or at least someone attempting to plant themselves that you should talk about is ghostluvme, his music is pretty terrible but he seems to have unlimited funding linking up with rappers like Future, Lil Uzi, Trippie Redd, in studio sessions with actually famous people, consistently paying for promo/ads, tried to do some digging myself but I can't find how he's funding this
Rewatcher here! I am glad that you mentioned Progresss. His primary content was exposing industry plants for a bit and it was incredibly entertaining to watch.
So from my understanding an industry plant is a musician that is popular not for have good music but because it was paid to be popular. Prince the singer once said while you may sell a lot of albums it doesn't mean you are a good musician. I believe he was referring to artist and their label pay for the number one spot on the charts. Thanks for the video.
7:03 I gotta disagree. This is a common thing said with industry plants. "Oh if the music is good who cares?" Well this is actually bad for music as a whole. Because what it tells labels is that instead of finding good artists who have a solid foundation of music and help take them to the next level they can just find some bland person and invest money into them to hope they make more money. So therefore instead of artists who have great potential being pushed, we will only have a bunch of artists we will get sick of quickly because they were not here to make good music, but just to return an investment. People complain about the influx of face tattoo SoundCloud artists that occurred from 2015 to mid 2018 and don't realize that saying "who cares as long as the music is good" was the reason a lot of these industry plants got pushed in the first place.
i used to have a jumex fanpage nd we had an active groupchat with his gf she was really nice but he treated her so bad. one time he posted something saying “my ex is a whore” nd we were talking it nd she told us he was doing hard drugs nd talking to girls our age(we were like 12-13 at the time) she also tried to get us to buy his merch im glad we didnt tho lol
I remember back in the day people in my high school were calling lil xan an industry plant and my response was always “nahhh he’s just a lost kid with bad lyrics and a overwhelming drug habit” 😂 look at him now
That kid made me hate modern rap. Just the whole concept. Then I saw him get jumped for talking crap about 2pac, finding out his dad's a crackhead, and his manager caring more about himself than him. Now I feel really bad for him
Many people may not realize it but there are non-rap industry plants too. The biggest example is probably the pop-grunge group The Calling, known for their song “Wherever You Will Go” (which still gets pretty decent play to this day). The lead singer was the son of a record executive and he basically made his band with the aid of a bunch of big record execs. He was even featured on a Santana song once not too long after their one big song blew up, but most releases of that Santana song actually replace him with Chad Kroeger of Nickelback instead.
I want to add in Yungblud to this too, his parents are quite well off and he was also an actor too. Feels a tad disingenuous when he plays up his "punk" persona, at least be honest that you came from a rich family.
@@sophie_drachen I know a kid who went to Yungblud's school - fancy boarding school - and said his persona was so disingenuous considering he was allegedly a snobby asshole who used to make fun of the weird kids
The reason why all the artists you listed career's went south in 2020 is because that's when the whole genre of soundcloud rap died. Probably because of the Death of Juice WRLD, the rise of Drill music and the pandemic.
This video was interesting for me, being from a previous generation where the definitions for "industry plant" was a little bit different. I'm not into any of this music myself that is discussed here, but it is still interesting to learn about.
I think the key to an industry plant isn’t just that they don’t talk about their label, but that they are in some way actively obscuring the degree of backing they have from industry sources.
@@h3avenscent news flash: she just started like 2 years ago and already has collabs with some of the biggest artists. she literally raps about what every other female rapper raps about and some of them have been in the game for a decade with no good collabs. if anyone doesn't know what the term means, its you. :)
When you played that song by Jumex saying it didn’t sound very good I was expecting SO much worse. There was this one guy who went to my highschool who made soundcloud rap songs and they were so genuinely horrendous I guarantee that you could show someone them and tell them it was just a live broadcast of the unedited noises coming from a slaughterhouse or a factory or something. They actually made Lil B sound like a musically enlightened genius by comparison. They had no discernable beat or time signature that I could recognize, no real melody just kindof random musical instrument noises, the lyrics had no bars to be seen they kindof just kept going with no pattern as to where the rhymes would have been if they even existed. Plus the vocals were just soooooo quiet, the mixing couldn’t have been worse. Thats what I though it would be lol.
NOFX really did it on their own fat mike has one of my favourite quotes, "my mom said dont do drugs, so i didnt until i had a succesfull label, after that i thought hey now im success now i can do drugs!"
I read the NOFX autobiography, I hadn’t really known much about them before the book. They have an amazing story about how they became successful and all the crazy shit that happened around them throughout the years
Industry plants aren’t always a bad thing. They usually are, but not always. Linkin Park started out as industry plants, and they meant so much to me when I was a kid. I listened to their music all the time and it really pulled me out of some dark places.
@@kellymcphaul2793 Yeah. They were all members of different bands, and their label specially picked each of them out of those bands (forcing them all to choose between being a member of this new band with industry support, or staying loyal to their old bands - I think that must have caused them a certain amount of guilt). The label then mashed them together in a new band - Linkin Park - and they put a lot of effort and money into promoting them. They had super well produced music videos and released their debut album first, rather than starting out with a single. They played some shows in CA, to see the audience reaction, which was highly positive, and then were put on MTV. However, it’s undeniable that they work super well together and are very talented. They got a lot of criticism when they first came out though. Because they were an industry plant, people said that they weren’t a real band - pop stars for nu metal fans. But I instantly adored them, and didn’t care what people said. I even saw them play live in the early 2000s. And this is one of the rare times where I think the label was right for planting them, and putting the most talented musicians from several bands together into one industry created band. They were obviously were the most talented members of their original bands, and worked well as a team. The label knew how to create a highly talented nu metal band, but they also had a lot of say over their first album, which is probably why they sound very different in their later albums, when they had more creative freedom. And I still think their first two albums were the best ones, though I like their later songs too. They’re still one of my favourite bands, despite being industry plants originally. One of the rare times where the industry plant was a good thing for music. The Beatles were also industry plants. Not many people know that, either.
But think about all of the similar bands, who weren't considered as marketable for whatever reason, and therefore you never heard their music... Industry plants are not all ewually bad, but I would argue the system is inherently bad.
Haha that was a great add for you shirts!😂 I've been watching you since the "The JuiceWRLD tweet" video and it's been great to see you grow!😊 You had your own vibe/flavour in your videos already back in the JuiceWRLD tweet video, but now it seems you've found your own lane/flavour even more in these videos!😄 Keep it up! I've never heard of this dude Smiles, but I'd love it if you would make an in-depth video on him like you said you might and I think other people who watch your videos would like that too. Kind of an interesting industry plant case if it's dad paying for the promotion instead of a label.
I love how their optimal image of a star is to look like chewed up gum stuck under a desk. I don't only blame the industry, I blame the consumers too. People ironically think these people look "cool."
Some other interesting industry plants are Clever, 645ar, and Mario Judah. I also feel like Tom Macdonald has some kind of industry connection he’s hiding
There’s a country singer I think falls in this category. There was this kid named Tucker Betherd in 2016 that got on the radio and opened for major country singers for a bit. Eric church, one of the most popular country singers in the nation, sang a song ‘Homeboy’ written by tuckers dad. Pretty much the only thing I remember was that his dad wrote a big song
Smilez reminds me of a Glam Metal band by the name of White Lace. It was a band that was formed by a dude with rich parents back in the 80s and he tried using his dad's money to be famous and had tv advertisments for white lace gigs, making them seem bigger than they really were similar to what Jered Threatin did.
Wow, Drive A opened for a band I saw live in high school. I liked them enough to buy their album! I had no clue who smilez was before this video but what a crazy genre transition he made
Imagine getting scammed into your dream career and it failing because of the industry itself, and peolle blame YOU fir getting face tats and commiting to a career that could make you millions.
