How To Win The Algorithm, Even If You Hate It - Dylan Gossett (Live Performance)

Dylan Gossett’s conclusion is that creators should choose the hard, earned creative work rather than chase viral shortcuts, because easy wins are forgettable [47:25]. He qualifies that: “Coal” might never have happened if he had chosen a different TikTok angle [16:45].

Key points

• Dylan wrote most of “Coal” in about 25 minutes while working at Circuit of the Americas and feeling stuck in a low personal period [04:13]. The hook line “pressure makes diamonds” came first, and he built the song around that line instead of starting with the chorus [04:30]. He later heard the song from a friend and got a voice memo that became the basis for releasing it [05:43].
• He says “Coal” did better than 99% of money-backed, multi-songwriter songs, so raw entry access still matters [57:06]. Billboard Top 10 share shifted from 2020 to 2023: country rose from 7% to 27% while rap fell from 34% to 17% [21:09]. He expects rap and country to rotate again, so that chart shift is market context rather than a permanent business model [21:14].
• Dylan says the hardest part is maintaining success after a viral moment, because many artists get one pushed song and then cannot sell shows a year later [28:47]. Stadium shows already cost fans a four-figure day, while smaller artists can attract the same audience more cheaply [26:54]. He frames audience capture as creators chasing what they think listeners want, then reserving resentment when the audience no longer accepts the distorted act they produced [1:18:00]. Criticism capture is the opposite trap: becoming inoffensive or aggressively combative to prevent expected backlash instead of making the intended work [1:18:54].
• Dylan refused to use AI to finish a personal essay because he feared the idea would become fixed and he would always know he did not own the final shaping [45:15]. He marks the AI line as artistic or sentimental work, where human effort and emotion are the point, while accepting technology for mundane tasks [49:19]. He says the artist must decide whether something is being made as music or whether some other machine is making the core for him [1:01:13].

Step by step how to

1. Start with a strong line or gibberish melody, then turn consonants and vowels into usable words [33:42].
2. Build the song around that line and delay the main hook until the second chorus [15:38].
3. Record a simple laptop demo, but remaster if the levels do not blend with other music [12:58].
4. Post the song only a few times, as Dylan did with “Coal” [19:58].
5. Focus on growing live ticket sales rather than chasing viral clips [25:10].