UK music have today called for a new cabinet committee for the music industry. Awesome - as I've said many times, the industry is changing, and the acceptance of that, and the desire to support an industry that makes is worth £5billion a year to our economy, is crucial.
However, it's one specific aspect of Feargal Sharkey's new proposals that I want to focus on. Licenses for small venues to put on gigs. He's described the necessity for pubs, and smaller clubs and venues to have a license to put gigs on as "a huge bureaucratic burden to place on those pubs and artists". I agree.
To say music needs a live scene is stating the bloomin' obvious. However, perhaps the need for this grass roots level, places where people can play to 50 people in a pub, is something that's not been debated enough. Obviously our focus here is on the promotion of music, and I'd love to be writing an article right now on how finding small gigs to go and meet new people and play your music to is a great way of building fans and even contacts. But I'm not writing that article, because I know how hard it can be. I live near Norwich in the United Kingdom. We have a few venues here, the UEA, Waterfront, and Arts Centre being the main ones. They're fantastic, but I know from experience that they aren't cheap or easy to book, and that for unsigned bands it's almost impossible to get a gig there. I'd love to say there were more venues smothered around my city that made a live scene for small and unsigned artists possible, but yet again, I can't.
"That first step is what is part of the process of what ends up with people being able to stand on a stage at Wembley in front of ninety thousand people." Sharkey goes on. This summarises it nicely for me. I think we need to make it easy for the owners of pubs, clubs, even places that could double up as a venue, if music is to continue to breed talent from a garage band level. Playing to small crowds can be great publicity, a great moneymaker and indeed just great fun! Anything that can make this more common surely can't be a bad thing?
Music Matters, as you've probably heard, is a new initiative encouraging people to enjoy music legally. The Music Matters logo is already being displayed on the sites of HMV, Tesco, and many more, in order to show the legitimacy of the downloads they supply, and that the money they pay is filtering through to the artists.
There's also a string of videos, reminding people of the inspiration drawn from music, and of the legal ways to listen to it.
These videos are set to be shown in schools as well as spread around online.
I find it absolutely sickening that there is a fresh wave of download sites which look legitimate, and claim to be legitimate, charging for downloads when they are not in any way official, or providing musicians with an income. These sites need to be tackled, and by the look of it Music Matters is taking that into consideration.
When you start debating what music is really worth, things can get really sticky, especially downloads, people can struggle to put a value on something that isn't even tangible, let alone something that can vary in quality so much. A stream of facts from the BPI have shown that 12-19 year olds are paying for music a lot less than they used to, and that 30-40 year olds are putting the most money back into the music industry through actual sales of music. Well, it makes sense doesn't it? Can we expect a 14 year old with no income to save up the pocket money from Granny in order to download an album, when it's always going to be there online for them to take for free, no matter what preventative measures are attempted? Well, no, I don't think we can. However, getting kids to understand that work goes into music, and that it's important to support it where they can, really should be high on the agenda.
Indeed, I hope that this scheme is taking that approach, but a little part of me cannot help but desperately hope that the authorities behind this aren't clinging to the old music model of having to part with £10 in a shop or online when you want to hear an album. Don't get me wrong, this is fine, hell, I do it myself most of the time! But what I'm trying to say is that music has been changed by the internet, whether we cling to the old methods of buying it or not. And I wonder if perhaps we should be educating on alternatives, and new ways to show your support, than trying to reinforce the old school.
I put it to you that buying a CD, released on a major label, does not actually line the pockets of the artist more than a few pence a time. Now I know a big label provide huge promotion, and the part they play means they need to take a big percentage of the cash. However, the internet is changing the way we can promote music too, and the role of a major label may even be dying a death. Now, consider downloading an album for free. SHOCKING hey? Well consider doing it through a small label, that small label is allowing people to take the album for either a donation of the consumers choice, or for absolutely zip, just an email address. So say 10,000 people take it for free, the label has their email addresses, another 10,000 pay a fee, job done. Of the 10,000 that didn't pay, 5,000 enjoyed the album, and 2,000 enjoyed it enough to buy merchandise, recommend it to friends, or see the artist touring. The email addresses they've left allow the label to tell them how they can do all of this, and with a little bit of effort and clever thinking, the money can be recuperated.
I'm aware that I've gone off on a tangent somewhat, but my point is that yes, music DOES matter, and people should understand a need to support artists, but maybe it's time we give something new a try?
Okay so maybe it's not that mad... However, Mailing Lists, as I have mentioned before, can be a fantastic tool for any band, artist, DJ or label.
I've recently changed from free mailing list providers, which are great for when you're just starting, to paid providers, which have a lot more features for your mailing pleasure.
Having trawled the net looking for a Mailing List Provider on the cheap, I realised it wasn't going to happen, and started to worry that I was going to have to spend a lot to get a decent service. People were trying to charge me £30 a month for a service with a lot of limits and not that many features. Now I don't want to sound like a salesman, but stubling upon the guys at "Your Mailing List Provider" was an absolute godsend.
They have all the features you could ever need, you can have separate groups (perfect for press, radio, fans etc), you can track the success of your newsletters, you can send HTML or text based emails. What more could you ask for? Their packages are tiered really well, and you can upgrade or downgrade any time, so you're only paying for the emails you're sending. It's basically really, really good.
I probably do sound like a salesman here, but I spent so long looking to find these guys, that I'd hate for you to go through the same ordeal. So, if you're looking, look no further: Your Mailing List Provider
You don't need me to tell you that the world of social networking has changed over the last few years. I used to use Myspace to contact people for organising gigs, talking about their music, getting demos, getting feedback. Recently I sent a ton of messages to people on myspace trying to set stuff up, people who I thought might be interested in something I had to offer, people who's music I enjoyed, all sorts. I haven't had a reply from a single one of them. Okay maybe people just didn't like what I had to say (it wouldn't be the first time). Or perhaps it's the genre of music, maybe Electronic music provides other outlets for people's tunes so they don't really bother with myspace. Or maybe, just maybe, Myspace as a social networking/music resource is slowly wilting.
Please vote! Tweet, and retweet, comment with your opinions, and post to your Facebook profiles (or Myspace, if you want to be ironic) and lets get a definitive answer as to whether other platforms have overtaken myspace as the home of music networking online.
So, in light of my slightly bitter post not so many days ago, which I wrote as a response to being accused of spamming on Soundcloud. I thought it time to discuss the power of mail, this time not mail on social networking sites, but mailing lists built from your online presence.
One of the most successful things I ever did during my running of a previous record label was to set up a mailing list. We started with a little tiny box in the corner of the website saying "if you'd like to stay updated...blah, blah blah". A few people noticed it, and signed up, but a mailing list containing all of 12 email addresses isn't exactly going to bring a huge amount of traffic when you send a newsletter, so I decided to offer an incentive for people giving me their email addresses. It's simple really, and I'm certainly not claiming to have invented this idea - every time we had an E.P in the pipeline, we'd release a track for free a couple of weeks in advance, all the punters had to do to consume this tasty download was put an email address in a subscribe box. Not just simple, but fair, and more importantly, targeted. We got the email addresses of people who are interested in the genres we specialised in, they got a free track.
Free tracks is just the start. As you grow as an artist you'll be able to collect email addresses from downloads, from CD sales, from Merch sales. I went to a Cribs gig recently, as we queued to enter somebody was giving a way free Cribs comic strips, what did you have to give them in return? Yup, an email address. Quirky, persuasive, fun and useful. Not many refused.
Now for that sticky, sticky subject. Spam. I'm gonna leave this paragraph short. If I get an email address from some random company trying to sell me watches or insurance, I ignore it, and yeah, it annoys me. If I get an email from a band, or a music magazine, or a label, I read it. I'm probably there for a reason! And the chances are I'll be interested. It only benefits you to have relevant email addresses anyway, so don't go offering metal fans free chocolate bars for email addresses so you can send them info on your latest leftfield electronica project, everyone will be happy.
"But I don't want to fork out on a mailing list host!" No, of course you don't, why would you? Well fortunately you won't have to, at least not to start with. If you have a website, many web hosts, 1 and 1 included, offer newsletter building and sending as a part of their packages. If not, try using something like Reverb Nation, if you don't already. You can embed the code in your own website, myspace, even facebook I think. Look:
Shameless.
Hope this gives some ideas. In summary, I think you just have to know how to collect email addresses, and try and be quirky about how you get them. A list of 2,000 interested fans can increase your sales when it comes to release day, or attendance at your gigs when it comes to touring. Be creative in your promotion as well as your tunes.
Received a particularly angry email about being on Soundcloud.
I use Soundcloud to try and network, it's what it's for. Method Promotion isn't a Record Label, or an Artist, as you'd usually see on Soundcloud, but I really don't see the harm in trying to network with electronic music makers, even if my business does benefit from it (surely so does a label owner, and even a musician you could argue?)
Damon Albarn continued a prolific run of form this spring with the release of the latest album under his Gorillaz project. A week before 'Plastic Beach' was released, having woken up and prized my eyes open just about enough to see my computer screen, I saw the news that the video for 'Stylo', the first single, had been put online. Awesome, a car chase, Bruce Willis, what more do you need? (Ha!)
When I saw the video on that Monday morning, it had 2,000 views. I'd heard the song a few times on the radio, but it wasn't until this listen that it really clicked for me, you know the moment when you realise a song's actually pretty damn good. So, the following day I went back to listen again. I was astounded. The view count had reached 800,000. It was just over 26 hours since the video was put online. I quickly calculated that the aggregated viewing time for Stylo had reached around 7 years in a day. I'd never doubted that Youtube was a big deal in music, I use it all the time, sometimes I even prefer it to opening iTunes (don't ask why, I don't know myself), but these facts and figures really demonstrated just how quickly a sensation can be made in the world of cyberspace.
I know what you're thinking. "Oh so all I have to do is become one of the most successful musicians of the last 20 years, get Bruce Willis to star in my video and I'll be away". I know it's an extreme example, the press were always going to be all over it like a cheap suit, not to mention the amount of fans who would have instantly posted the video to their Facebook pages as soon as they saw it. It would be ridiculous of me to suggest that this kind of reaction could be expected for a new artist trying to get some exposure on Youtube. So that's not really my point...
One of the first things I'd suggest for an artist releasing an E.P or even just a single is to try and get a video made. Having run labels myself, I know for a fact that people are more than willing to make videos for you. It doesn't even have to cost you anything. Film/Art students are great for this, get in touch with some and as if they want to be involved, it works both ways, they get credit and exposure, and you can get a great video for your music. If you can afford to, get one made professionally. Youtube videos have provided me with thousands of hits on my website, and I'm a firm believer that the visual aspect of your music really shouldn't be underestimated. The musician, and the maker of the video can tell their friends, and if it's worth watching, they tell theirs, and...well you don't need me to explain the concept of viral marketing.
Time for an example. Well, again, I know what you're thinking. OK Go! Well, it is a prime example. The infamous treadmill video has almost two million hits, and it really is one of those videos that makes you want to post it to your Facebook. OK Go were a pretty small band. I don't have facts and figures, but I'm sure you can imagine how much this video increased their album sales, radio airplay, and in turn the attendance at their gigs. It proves that you don't need to be a big band, or spend a fortune on a video to get it big, and one well thought out piece of work can make a career. However Ok Go isn't the example I'm about to post. Instead, a FAN MADE video for Thom Yorke's 'Black Swan'. It's not even official, but has almost 300,000 views. There's a similar video for Beck's Timebomb. They've just been made with some clever animation, and a lot of thought and effort. They really will leave you wondering if you know anyone who can animate/produce a video. Which, I suppose, is the aim of this post.
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