Music

8 musicians with the strongest personal brands

by Jeremy Mersereau

These days, it’s no longer enough to just put your head down and work your way up some corporate ladder, uncaring or unaware of what kind of image you’re projecting to colleagues and your social circle, not to mention the Internet at large.

Unfortunately for all slackers, sluggards, slouches, loafers, loungers, lazybones, goldbrickers, goof-offs, idlers, deadbeats, do-nothings and privacy advocates, to become truly successful in 2015 now requires more than just hard work and moxie. You gotta know how to market yourself 24/7 through social media networks if you’re ever going to have a hope of sweet sweet financial freedom, or, you know, the standard of living your parents had at your age. *In Alec Baldwin voice* “Hard worker? Team player? Who cares! What kind of persona do potential clients imagine when they read your Twitter feed?”

Musicians, like all celebrities, have to engage in way more image management than the average person, and some are way more successful than others. “Writing a hit song is one thing, but successfully leveraging your persona into a palatable image for public consumption? Aye, there’s the rub” – noted marketing luminary Josh “The Prince” Hamlet. Here are 8 of the most successful musicians who’ve managed it, in our professional opinion.