I started this blog last year hoping to provide a mixture of posts ranging from music to marketing and business. It’s turned out that most of what I’ve written about recently has discussed the latter. The reason for that is not because I’ve stop listening and discovering new and exciting music. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s very possible that I’m now surrounded by more music than ever before.
Continue reading to the end of the post to learn how you can earn $100 by telling me what topics to write about in the future.
Back In the Day
In college I spent the majority of my time in sight reading classes, vocal lessons and musical theory lectures. I remember being in a seminar on Gregorian Chant one semester that started at 8:30 am in the fucking morning, but I loved music in all forms, so I happily suffered through it.
In my spare time I would head down to the library on campus and research renditions of German, Italian and French art songs that I needed to perform later in the year for a grade. At night I’d faithfully find myself in rehearsal studios where I practiced alongside pianists, string sections and other vocalists until our noses bled [literally]…all in the name of art.
Attention Span of a Squirrel
I chat with classical musicians as much as possible to remind me of a time when the music I discovered was made by dead white men many moons ago. However, nothing quite compensates for the quixotic, short sighted way in which I discover music today.
To be honest if a song doesn’t catch my attention in the first ten seconds, I’m likely to press the forward button or download the next track. After all, music has become a second job for me. Not in the way that you think, but a passionate hobby that supplements my income to match that of my primary job [marketing computer hardware].
For those who miss the purely musical content, here are a few places that the music I discover now currently appears.
Fairtilizer
You see that sexy little yellow widget with my logo on the right side of this page? You can blame that damn thing for snatching the majority of the music related posts that used to appear on this blog. Don’t be too mad however, because the company that designs the platform has hired me to help market their phenomenal service throughout North America.
When I needed a place to host all of the music that I had received from artists, publicists and labels I turned to them for assistance. Turns out that the Fairtilizer team is chock full of brilliant techies and O.G. music industry heads. I immediately felt at home and started evangelizing the service to everyone I came across. Although their current user base is primarily European, they are poised to make a huge splash on America when they re-launch [with a different name] in the next six months.
Keep your eyes peeled for more information about this game changing audio hosting and distribution service, but until then, check my recent interviews with the following artists:
The Sunshine Factory, Jonny Rose, 100 Akres, Black Sunn, Ghettosocks, Conspiracy Worldwide Radio, Cheasleauen, RJD2, Tha Boogie, Penguin Prison, Princeton Record Exchange and Calvin Harris.
Stay Thirsty
This online music review magazine approached me last summer to conduct in depth interviews with upcoming artists in the urban arena. The beautifully designed posts function as my release for discussing the daily lives of the most interesting musicians, singers and songwriters on the planet. Although I have strayed away from my initial assignment [urban music] I still manage to expose a great deal of commonality between all genres.
My favorite interview of last year was with British soul singer Alice Russell. To read my interviews with Das Racist, Chin Chin, Bottle Up and Go, Bamboo Shoots, The Angel and Peter Hadar, head on over to my Interview page.
Virgin.com
When Greg Rose, the editor of Virgin.com reached out to me in February I couldn’t say no. Although my plate was already full of music related work, I decided that Virgin was a brand too powerful to pass up. You can view my articles on Jet Horns and Tine Tempah here. Stay tuned for brand new reviews of Tobacco’s, “Maniac Meat” and The Do’s, “A Mouth Full”.
Here is where you come in…
As I get ready for the redesign of eleetmusic.com, I’d like to ask my loyal readers their opinion. Which music related content is most important to you? Is it the new music industry landscape, interviews with artists, album reviews or something altogether different? Let me have it in the comments section of this post and I will return the favor by presenting the best idea for the way forward with $100 of cold hard cash.
Thanks again for your continued support and I look forward to your comments!
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Artists have to focus on making music. However, in order to sustain, artists are forced to spend a lot of time in marketing through social networks, websites, blogs. The latter could be a new job, 'media consultant'. In which way could such a media consultant make money, assuming that 1 media consultant has a fulltime job supporting 10 or 20 projects?
I'd be very interested to read your thoughts on what bands are doing with their blogs, twitter feeds, and other social sites. I can't really think of any writers who focus on that piece of a band's work.
Hope that helps!
I would love to see your thoughts on a few artists that have established successful and lucrative web presences. The posts would analyze the different tools and strategies they utilized to establish these presences; what worked, and what was a waste of time for them?
Possibly interview style? Maybe case study style?
Topics include any/all of these:
WordPress plugins
Facebook fan page apps
blog topics
e-mail newsletter service & strategies
tweeting
iLike plays
MySpace layouts/promo strategies
blog pitching
message board involvement
online store downloads (iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, Bandcamp)
Reverbnation widgets
P.S. How is the promo going for Fairtilizer in the states? I spoke with Olivier on Skype a while back about doing the same thing, but it never panned out.
It seems to me that the most successful blogs are the ones that solve peoples' problems. I wager that most of your readers are musicians. The existential crisis facing all musicians at this moment in time, when it seems everybody on the internet is in a band, is how to get heard above the noise. I'd like to see more articles that offer useful suggestions that I can implement myself, right away. There are plenty of promo gurus explaining what to do and why on a theoretical level, but I don't see a lot of people laying out in clear detail what they tried and what the results were. Since you're not implementing “on the ground” strategies with bands that often (that I know of), spotlighting other bands that are doing things right would be a fine substitute. If your readers can see how Band X uses Twitter, and Band Y organizes their internet radio campaign, and Band Z devotes four hours a week to finding non-exclusive music libraries to submit their music to, an overall strategy starts to emerge. Writing about other musicians also attracts their fans to your blog and increases your readership.
So, to summarize:
1. Clear, empirical, even scientific experiments and examples
2. Useful conclusions and easily implemented how-to's
Hope it helps!
Hey Kevin!
Musicians have to accept that there is a business side to the art of music and marketing is the driver. I agree that focusing on marketing with real band insight is extremely helpful.
We may end up with a community of artists who are serious enough to 'do' and to learn and help each other.
Rock Hard! Rock Sexy!
-The Deacon
MamasDirtyLilSecret.com
I feel like this post represents what many bloggers/writers/consultants/marketers on the music business side of things are asking, myself included. I'm in Nashville and consult with artists all the time. I want to help, provide value, and be a part of the solution. Here is where my thoughts have been.
1) We all agree there is a lot of talk and little action.
2) Labels are struggling and artists are on their own.
3) Artists want to focus on music. Music business folks want to help them.
4) The industry structure for this to happen productively has fallen apart, been democratized, and decentralized.
5) Surprise! Bands are little businesses. Those without good products and plans go out of business.
CONCLUSION: Pick your top 3 favorite artists needing help and become their CEO. Take them as far as they can go. See your blog as the log of the journey. If done right, this should:
-Create tons of great content (leave the promotional material to the artists)
-Teach and entertain your readers
-Prove your expertise
-Show artists paths through the clutter that could work for them
-Create a model for other music business folks to follow
-Create a growing community of like-minded folks
Imagine how many worthy artists/bands would be able to reach new levels if all of us on the marketing/business side stopped telling and started showing. I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone reading this.
Those actually trying to do the work need help with better methods. The music industry is ours to re-shape! They are listening and nothing is stopping us. Let's do it right this time.
I liked Jeff Dolan's post, I Don't think I have much new to add over what most of the commenters already said, maybe some of it comes down to teaching basic, basic, basic business practice, really getting the core fundamentals understood, and how important they really have become.