Episode

He Went from 40K Listeners to 11 Million and a Coachella Slot in Under a Year as an Indie Artist

Podcast
The New Music Business with Ari Herstand
Published
May 13, 2026
Duration seconds
3068
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://aristake.com/oskar-med-k
Audio
https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/thenewmusicbusiness/e/6a03e43437a1e7308d3bcda4/media.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/the-new-music-business-with-ari-herstand-744039/episodes/he-went-from-40k-listeners-to-11-million-and-a-coachella-slot-in-under-a-year-as-an-indie-artist
Markdown
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Summary

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Oskar Med K, a breakout Norwegian EDM producer. Oskar breaks down the "overnight" success that was actually years in the making—from the days of sending 500 cold emails to labels with no response. In this episode, Ari and Oskar talk about the marketing strategies that helped him scale from 40k monthly listeners to 11 million, why "simple" content often outperforms high-production on TikTok, and the surreal feeling of playing Coachella as his first-ever music festival. https://www.instagram.com/_oskarmedk/ 03:54 – Intro: The Release of Oskar’s Debut Album Feel 05:24 – Albums vs. Singles: Building a Body of Work in the Streaming Era 09:12 – The Remix Story: How Khalid Ended Up on a Remix 12:52 – Behind the Tracks: Songwriting and Collaborating Remotely 17:19 – The Early Grind: From iPad Beats to Music School in Norway 19:00 – From 0 to 1: The "Hustle" of Emailing 500 Record Labels 20:17 – Breaking Through: Finding the Right Label via LabelRadar 25:12 – Marketing Strategy: Simple Content vs. High-Production TikToks 33:42 – Moving to the Stage: Transitioning from Studio Producer to Live Act 40:40 – The Coachella Milestone: Playing Your First-Ever Festival 44:29 – The Future of Music: Addressing the AI Debate and "Making It" Edited and mixed by Ruben Zarate Music by Brassroots District Produced by the team at Ari’s Take Order the THIRD EDITION of How to Make It in the New Music Business: https://book.aristake.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.