It can be an exciting milestone to get 1,000 streams on Spotify, and even more amazing to see those numbers continue to climb – 10,000, 100,000, even 1,000,000 streams. And while many artists complain about how little they get paid for streaming, Lance Allen is a great example of how someone who is a true solo act – someone who is both the performer and sole writer and publisher and copyright owner of a song – can make substantial money by using some 21st-century digital elbow grease.
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Allen, known as “The Guitarlancer,” has broken the threshold of well over 100,000,000 streams for his music, most of which is original. But that success hasn’t been automatic, requiring years of sitting at a computer and not being afraid to reach out to people he’ll never meet. He may well be the world’s most-streamed acoustic guitarist, a highly-respected instrumentalist who said that streaming money pays his mortgage and all his bills. Combined with his work as a guitar teacher and as a working musician, Allen enjoys a full-time music career that most would envy.
With a recording degree from Middle Tennessee State University, Allen has recorded with Christian guitar icon Phil Keaggy, written with country star Chris Young, and opened for Australian acoustic guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel. He spoke with American Songwriter between guitar students from his home south of Nashville.
“I started with YouTube in 2006 to showcase some of my lessons,” he said. “Then in about 2008, I heard about this new Internet radio station called Pandora, how it was going to be a new way for people to listen to music, and that they were taking submissions for music. I had put out two CDs at that time so I submitted them. I thought I would never make any money from Pandora, but at least it would be a way to promote my music. In 2012 I joined SoundExchange, which collects royalties for digital radio, and thought maybe I’d get enough for a cup of coffee. About three months later I got a check in the mail from SoundExchange that was more than enough to pay for a trip to Costa Rica. And the money continued to come in as I met certain thresholds.”
“In about 2016 the Spotify editors decided to do this playlist called ‘Acoustic Concentration,’” he said, “and I had no idea what a playlist even was until a student of mine introduced this one to me. It was a playlist created by someone who works for Spotify, and it was the luck of the draw that they included me on it, it was one of the first acoustic guitar playlists. My music popped up on their radar or whatever, and they included one of my songs and that’s when it got started for me. My numbers went up even higher when I started pursuing getting on other peoples’ playlists.”
“I learned there were three styles of playlists: the editorial playlist, user playlist, and a brand playlist, like Starbucks would have a playlist. The one you want to target the most is the user-generated playlist. Because if you’re on a lot of user playlists you might pop up in the editorial area, and your chance of getting pushed on one of those is greater. So I spent about 45 minutes every morning with my cup of coffee and my laptop, and I would pull up Spotify, and I would search for ‘acoustic guitar’ in the search bar, and then scroll down and click on ‘playlist,’ and I could see all the playlists that were public, created by people and by Spotify. I would look to see if there was a name and a photo of the person who owned the playlist associated with each playlist, and then I would tweet the owner of the playlist and say, ‘Please let me introduce you to my music, and if you were to support me on your playlist it would be very helpful.’ I’ve done this with, like, probably 1,000 people.”
As is becoming the custom for so many artists, Allen regularly posts new singles. Even though he recorded several full albums earlier in his career, he said that regular posting of singles keeps his listeners interested and keeps his name in front of the public. “Singles have been great for me. They give me the opportunity to pitch the songs individually on Spotify, and they keep content rolling for the fans who follow me. I’m constantly putting content out. And I’m always thinking about what I can do to continue to grow my music.”
Allen has so far racked up more than 80,000,000 streams on Spotify, 26,000,000 on Pandora, and 1,200,000 on Apple Music, in addition to an unknown number on other platforms, and a number of downloads he isn’t sure about. He also said he hasn’t written off the relevance of the actual physical compact disc, and he still sells those as well. “Right before this Covid stuff hit I was opening for Tommy Emmanuel for two shows in Alabama, and I took a crate of CDs with me and I sold through most all of them, and I didn’t really expect that. It’s like people want to take a memory home with them, so that was really cool.”
He also has recorded with his friend Avery Bright, a Nashville-based string player who has provided arrangements for such acts as U2 and Little Big Town. Allen has also recorded cover songs by a variety of artists, from John Denver to Tears for Fears, for which he purchases a license. And he’s currently working on a Beatles cover project. “That will be music that will last a lifetime,” he said, “because I consider Beatles music to be something that will never die.”
