bySaabye Label Staff
bySaabye is a 2024 styled artist brand founded by Saabye in 2023. Saabye; singer, composer, producer, and disrupted spirited serial entrepreneur since always! The year 2024 shows a golden opportunity to unveil bySaabye’s ambitious plans to go all in, all alone, 100% independently with a substantial catalogue of modern pop songs, recordings, and LIVE shows and so much more.
However, to launch a label at such a scale and ambitions, without getting lost in dreams, do ask for a number of employees; songwriter, music producer, creative director, visual artist, PR-& marketing among others. Even so, Saabye very quickly realised that the best persons to hire was effectively… himself! In the distinct roles. That at least to start with.
Let’s dive into the eight employed by the brand, bySaabye’s staff:
THE SONGWRITER
There could clearly be no music brand such as bySaabye without a songwriter, so he has to be Staff #1. A 360-degree composer of modern 2024 styled pop songs, songs that could secure a string of potential hits – as without a constant flow of new original songs, there would be little to work with. Copyright and ownership are in ways the single most important thing in modern music, potential hits are incredible hard to come by, and there is a never-ending demand for them in the music business – there would be no music biz if there were no new (hit) songs. It’s obvious that new songs secure the life and blood of the business of music on a global scale.
The songwriter at bySaabye is allocated by ‘the bySaabye manifest’ one hour once a week, to come up with enough musical ideas for two new songs. Written in the same musical key, he will compose ideas for verses, choruses, bridges, and other odd bits for the two songs. Obviously, this hour does not include lyric writing and any form of production, only a simple piano and topline vocal recording. 1 hour! isn’t it great? Totally a fault of his own, he wrote himself the book ‘the Art Of Songwriting in the Streaming Age’ out of boredom during the first 6 weeks of the first Corona Lockdown to understand how he himself wrote songs, because frankly he had no idea, now he does. After the 60 minutes (or less), approximately fifteen odd ideas are shipped via Mac AirDrop to the studio computers for the producer to take over.
THE PRODUCER
Staff #2 is essential the music producer; the one who takes the musical ideas from the songwriter and throw two thirds of them out the window. To start with he listens and keep only the best of the best. If the producer doesn’t get it, can’t hear good things in the musical ideas on the very first listen, chances are that fans will neither, so they are flung – and so within 10 minutes he will have selected two verses, two choruses and a couple of additional parts that shortly will become the two songs of the week.
The producer is both forward thinking and idealistic, works at an amazingly fast pace, as he only has four hours, according to the bySaabye Manifest, to complete each song, so no time to beat about the bush or going in circles. These four hours include arrangements, lyric writing, recording vocals and mixing the song to master… a master recording that can be send to radio, be officially released and/or used on socials. He usually spread these 8 hours over two half days to be able to ‘sleep’ on it. He will then, only when happy, send the two new songs to the founder & creative director, and to the A&R person.
FOUNDER / CEO / CREATIVE DIRECTOR
The founder & creative director, Staff #3, with his natural entrepreneurial and visionary spirit, couldn’t believe his luck when Saabye – the very reason that the brand bySaabye got founded – started looking back and began regretting a bit the many years he had kept doing everyone else’s music-homework and so blatantly had forgot to do his own. That it took Saabye himself an entire generation to figure this out, did not come as surprise to the founder & creative director, so he quickly stepped in and laid out a precise plan for an eventual enduring and very possible success and to create a music brand around the visions of Saabye.
First step was to identify any assets that could be brought in; copyrights of songs: an obvious number one, thanks to the amble catalogue of songs composed by the songwriter and coupled with the ownership of the master recordings provided by the producer – something between 50 to 100 new songs to put in from the very beginning and then with the prospected two new songs a week in average the catalogue would grow with 70 to 90 new original songs a year. So far so good, and then add to this: LIVE formats in forms of concerts and shows, the artworks, books, and eventual merchandise, all the dreams of Saabye.
SAABYE
Saabye (himself) is Staff #4, he is the very reason the bySaabye brand is build. A fun-loving, creative soul, both easy going and grounded, his job is to be ‘an inspiration for all’, the all-around king of the space, and occupied with his solo-live show, a 90 minute musical stand-up show where he mixes anecdotes from his rather eventful life in his quest for international pop stardom, something he never sat out to do, and he largely failed to fully materialise, until now of cause! And his lifelong experience and profound love of pop music. And of his songs sung by his alter-ego Stian.
STIAN
Releasing 2024 styled pop singles and wanna be hits, would be difficult without a front facing poster boy, Staff #5 Stian is the eventual popstar of the future. Effectively the alter-ego of Saabye, a childish 25 year (he thinks) oldish over-the-top youth, who gets up when it gets dark, hits the town, and struggles to return home before dawn. He keeps all entertained and is tied down, as the only bySaabye staff member, to a lifelong non-negotiable unreasonable notoriously hard-nosed music-business contract. Not that he minds, without these songs he sings and performs he would remain largely anonymous, and life would be dull, even though the A&R guy is always on his back for being too extravagant.
THE A&R
The A&R, Staff #6, is a natural poser, and happy to take most of the credit for the success of Stian and the bySaabye brand, he is also blessed with a highly persuasive attitude toward the ‘boss’ who eventually pays the bills. He understands trends and he got a great ear for potential hits and see when the time is right for them. Although the music biz, as remembered by most from the 60’s and up, it has turned itself upside down in the past decade – the role of record companies is still very valid in ways, in large parts because they hold the rights to the songs and the recordings from past times. All large record companies are massive corporate entities with bank accosts to match. A&R sit between the artist and the board, the owners and the shareholders, trying to keep the artists happy knowing very well that the smallest piece of the cake comes their way; people outside the music business would be very surprised to know how little the artists and songwriters actual share of the profits are. The A&R also makes sure that the visual artist keeps current and in track with Saabye’s visions.
THE VISUAL ARTIST
Music is in many ways much more than only the music. Visuals plays a huge part in branding the artist and the brand, so Staff #7 is the all-important in-house visual designer; an artful creative that works uniquely from a gut-feeling, self-taught to the bone, he goes about it with ease, and cheekily doesn’t listen to advice, he is also in charge of the art department and coming merchandise. Working with the brightest of colours and coolest of shapes for the visual aspect of the bySaabye brand.
THE ANALYST
In 2024 we live in a world that is massively data-driven; obsessive with all data Staff #8 is the analyst: a professional, tactical and very fast learning analytical individual, clearly thinking differently to both the founder & creative director and A&R, but duly reports back to the two, with influxes of new trends, both tech- and contractual dropping weekly. When waking up he opens his beloved iPad in bed and browses the internet for fresh news of everything from NFT’s (that now seems like a bad idea), blockchain, Web3 all the way to new contract formats, who is replacing who in the international music industry etc. and he analyses it all.
