An Ode to the CD from CD Baby

Peter Kirn writes:

Can music as a physical object have value and meaning again? For many music enthusiasts, that affection has turned back to the vinyl record, not the CD. (How many artists have we seen lately offering vinyl as the “premium” package for listeners?) At an extreme, there’s Alessandro Cortini’s SuONOIO, an album that has its own accompanying custom synthesizer.

But while we ponder this question, the one that seems the perpetual topic for music conferences and industry pundits, I turn instead to this (tongue-in-cheek) description of CD shipping. Given the record sales for many independent artists, maybe this parody isn’t actually so far-fetched.

If you’ve never ordered a physical CD Baby CD, you may not have seen it before. I can tell you it amused and delighted the person who got it, though (it wasn’t me), so never underestimate the value of caring for your musical customer.

Read More Here:  http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/08/10/an-ode-to-the-cd-by-cd-baby-could-you-really-love-music-buyers-this-much/

By Jez with No comments

Dirty Tricks - Part 2: Snakes and Adders

 In our last post about Nicky Kallongis' book Myspace Music profit Monster we investigated  Myspace as a hosting solution and method for reaching more listeners.  Nicky talked about using Friend Adders as a way of generating more "faans" annd exposure on myspace.

We decided we would give it a go for a short while and report back with our results.  Myspace has some strict rules about using Friend adders - specifically you cannot invite more than 350-400 a day or they will delete your profile.  In practice about 50-75 a day is the safe limit for friend adding.

Additionally some myspace profiles don't accept invitations from bands- or their profiles are private. You can't do anything about this - just move along and look at the next person in the queue.

In order not to jeopardize any of our legitimate accounts we used an alias that i set up to release some jokey Old Skool electro tracks - Trollingforlulz. 

We did a cursory search for myspace friend adders.  When approaching these sites you have to be careful as some of the sites feature adverts which are far from work safe. The biggest Google hit was for Friendfrost - which appeared to be an online repository for people to post their ID's rather than a friend adder per se.

By Jez with No comments

A New Low for Music

This one video has commentators and bloggers split.  The Reclusive Barclay Brothers are gaining lots of publicity by promising to give away £27 to 100 people who listen to their music.  Unfortunately for them, and assuming it's not an internet practical joke, most of the people who've actually heard their single "lonely together" complete with glossy video are commenting on how bad the song is. 

Only time will tell whether this turns out to be a viral scam for a tv show or a genuinely deluded band.  Check out their site and sign up for a chance to be one of the lucky 100 here:  http://www.newlowformusic.com/

By Jez with No comments

Myspace Makeover - Is it Dead or due for Resurrection?

Website redesigns are a bit like haircuts. Chop 6 inches, and people will definitely notice. Trim the bangs and add a few highlights, and some never know the difference.

And so it is with MySpace Music, which overhauled its front door back in September. That was a much-needed facelift that was obvious to users. Now, the group is tweaking and pruning its look.


On Monday, MySpace Music will refresh to encourage more community (through activity streams) and greater discovery. The cleaner look enables easy access to "My Stuff," as well as a consolidated recommendations area.


Check it out below, complete with annotations (supplied by MySpace) to highlight the different areas (a full-size spread here).

Read more here:

http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/081110myspacemakeover

By Jez with No comments

Engineers with Attitude

Billie Ray Martin has been recording some new music in Berlin recently.  She tells all about the trials of tribulations of working with people passing themselves off as professionals in her new article on the Hospital Club website.

It was in the pursuit of this endeavour that I placed two ads on Craigslist Berlin to find a studio and/or sound engineer.

Hear my tale: I’m behind in my vocal recording schedule for various projects, so in addition to recording in my living room, I’m looking for an external studio. Most 'proper' recording studios have either closed or simply aren't worth the money in an era of home recording, where great results can be achieved using your own space and equipment. The ad copy sought a professional home recording set-up, complete with an experienced sound engineer....

She makes an important point about having the right attitude when working or collaborating with artists and how important it is to have a good engineer who can not only work the knobs, but also knows how to make an artist feel at ease with themselves - to get the best performance.

Read more of her article here:

http://www.thehospitalclub.com/socialsite/features/view/10-08-10-engineers-with-attitude

By Jez with 1 comment

Self Promotion tools for (DJ's) (strike) Musicians

Great post over at DJtechtools.com about self promotion tools for DJ's - but it's equally applicable to Musicians / Bands and Producers

One of the dirtiest jobs in the DJ business is marketing and promotion. If you already have a big following, you could probably hire a publicist to do the promo grunt work for you. But how do you get a following without promotion? There’s the catch. While DJing is good work if you can get it, it’s still work. You’ve got to be your own hype man before you hit the big time. Luckily, the wonders of the modern world – technology and outsourcing – have your back. Read on to discover tools and services that will help you spice up your Facebook page, create a personal iPhone app with no coding required, and blast a press release to the music media masses.

Read more including a breakdown of tools here:

http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/08/09/self-promotion-tools-for-djs/#more-7298

By Jez with No comments

Dirty Tricks: Myspace, Monsters and Profit - Part 1

The subtitle of this book is "Easy online marketing strategies to get more fans fast".  I imagine this with a plethora of exclamation marks and ones after the title.

The author, Nicky (the knife) Kalliongis is apparently a respected industry insider. Having been strategist for EMI and Time warners as well as a respected producer for Whitney Houston, Air Supply, Run DMC, Faithless, Hall and Oats and Eros Ramazotti (there's more of those ones and excalamation marks). Now that in itself makes the whole premise of this book somewhat suspect to me - surely this is one of the very dinosaurs blindly struggling through the web 2.0 tar pits?

The book comes across as severely dated and very basic for everyone who's got any familiarity with the web. Some of the marketing actions such as using a newswire service like PR Web strike me as the actions of someone who doesn't really understand the viral buzz they keep talking about.

That the whole marketing plan centres around myspace, a now almost defunct medium is enough to get the alarm bells ringing.

Even when the book was intially released (2008) myspace was already on it's last legs ready for a kindly shotgun in the face care of Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp who took something they didn't understand and made it even worse filling it's pages with advertising and slow clunky loading applications such as Myspace chat and yet more adverts.

By Jez with 1 comment