The term “unsigned” has historically been used by the music business as an almost derogatory remark to denote artists and bands who haven’t yet signed to a label, be the label independent or major. Almost as if to say that the band isn’t “good enough” to be offered a record deal or that since they haven’t signed a deal, they have not yet reached “success”. There are a number of things wrong with this.
Firstly, there are many great bands and artists without record deals playing superb music on local scenes and circuits around the world. Playing smaller and more intimate gigs, they are the lifeblood of local scenes and perform a important cultural role. Moreover, the internet has served to make a lot more music open to discover by a lot more people, and we realise there is a wealth of talent out there untapped by record labels. Being signed to a label is by no means a necessary measure of an artist’s talent or their capacity to create great music.
Secondly, there are a number significant benefits to the independence associated with being unsigned, and it is possible to enjoy a successful career in music without signing to a Record Label.
If the online music industry had a holy book, Andrew Dubber´s free eBook “20 things you must know about music online” would be it – it is the absolute must read for any artist who wants to make headway in the sometimes treacherous and often bedazzling online music business. Actually, it is a holy book; it expounds 20 undying and immutable truths which should guide your online music strategy; though shall not, on pain of eternal damnation, question 20 things! Ok, perhaps this is going a tad to far . The truths are not immutable, because like reality the music industry is everchanging, but it does provide some pretty sound guidelines. Containing sound insights crammed with useful tips and strategies it is a great resource to get potent advice and information about how to best utilize the possibilities now available to aspiring musicians in the advent of the web 2.0 (or 3.0?) era.
One of the great dynamics of the digital music age is word of mouth. The sheer inter-connectivity of the internet and the ease of which information flows from people to people makes the spread of opinion from one person to another far easier than even before. Be in viral emails, the domino effect of bloggers picking up on what others are writing, a tweet or a trivial conversation on a messaging service – information, and opinions, spread almost without effort.
Today we want to talk about one way in which word of mouth is being used, albeit quite surreptitiously, to organise and filter music. We want to talk about the AudioScrobbler, and what it means to scrobble. Before proceeding, lets dispense with the “word of mouth” label and call it “recommendation”, since the communicating is not actually done through speech (how old fashioned!). “Scrobbling” in itself is quite straightforward. When you scrobble music on services like Last FM, the information about what artists you are listening to is transferred to the Last FM database. Now what does this have to do with Recommending? Well, the clever chaps at Last FM can use this data in quite cunning ways. By using all the collected scrobble data, they can get a pretty detailed understanding of peoples listening tastes. They can create personalized radio stations, recommend playlists by other users, and chose the tracks which, by looking at what other people listen to, there is every chance that you will like.
The dynamics of this way of profiling music tastes lends well to music discovery. It helps artists because their music will be played to people who have similar listening tastes to people who listen to it already, their fans. Also, by enabling people to view and exchange playlists with other users who share their tastes, it can invoke curiosity about bands on their play list which they haven’t heard. Overall, the Audio Scrobbler is an archetypal example of how the digital music environment is using collective wisdom of individual taste to better how people can engage and consume new music.
A little while back we wrote an article about the so called “music like water” debate. The idea behind “music like water” is that instead of paying a per unit price to purchase music, listeners instead pay a fixed price to stream music from an existing library. For some, this set up signals the future of the music consumption. For some, the reinstatement or a centralised distribution/consumption oligopoly. However, these fears should be allayed, for there are some great streaming services now on the market, such as Spotify, Last FM, Deezer, Lala, Napster which are determined to keep their library open and diverse.
From a listener perspective, streaming services have some distinct up-sides. Subscription based services generally allow streaming of unlimited amounts of music until the subscription expires – this makes the music they listen to “feel free” even though the artists are earning money from their music. Advertising based services work in the same way, though you might have to put up with advertising in between songs or some banners here and there. This “feeling free” aspect is quite in tune with how many listeners would prefer to engage with music, and may well dissuade them from not paying for their music – which is great for artists. Though pay out structures vary between services, artists usually receive money based on the percentage of times their music has been played relative to total plays.
Streaming services provide a viable option to those who would like to listen to music for a fixed cost or don’t mind advertising. Streaming services which are similar to radio in that they decide what track comes next (e.g. Last FM) lend themselves well to music discovery, whereas click-to-play services (e.g. Spotify), allow people to chose exactly which track they want to play. All in all, providing the mechanism is in place to make sure artists receive their share from the revenues, and that streaming libraries remain open and accessible, streaming services provide a good balance to the per-unit structure many of us are accustomed to.
There has been much made of the new possibilities that the internet provides for artists and bands. Some have even gone so far as to say now musicians can pretty much “do it themselves”, that is, set up their own online business to market and sell their music successfully. It is an interesting idea, and it will be interesting to see how far an artist could develop going it alone.
It is undeniable that the internet provides a good marketplace for music. The yearly amount of digital downloads is growing exponentially, with more and more people purchasing their music online now than ever. It is quite inexpensive for an artist to sell music straight from their website (digital or otherwise), and services like Record Union are working hard to make sure that it is possible for any aspiring artist to distribute and sell their music on online music stores around the world.
So the market is there, the capacity to distribute and sell is there, what of marketing music and getting new fans? The internet also ranks quite highly on this front as well. When it comes to developing new fans, social networks are a great way to get people talking about your music and joining your mailing list. There are many great services which are designed to introduce people to new music (such as Last FM and iLike). When it comes to getting people to gigs on the weekend, the internet has made this a lot more transparent. But can artists really “do it themselves”?
The question which arises is, do what themselves. Sure, it seems entirely possible for artists to make a nice little sum of money from selling their music online, play packed venues and achieve a level of respect and notoriety. If one believes “1000 true fans strategy” is realistic, then artists can make a nice salary. But mega stardom? Platinum hits? Champagne baths? It is as yet unclear whether the internet can single handedly produce such “successes”, they require some very well tuned marketing machinery which its diversified and comparatively fragmented environment does not support.
However, you must agree, that If the internet can help more artists make a living doing what they love, this itself is a great achievement. It seems likely that the internet will have its own mega stars, but how they will materialise, or whether this will be achieved separately from the old record structure is hard to say. But at the end of the day, its always good music which will prevail, and the internet does give us access to a lot of this!
There has been talk recently about whether the internet is making the “hit” irrelevant. The manufacturing of the “hit” is associated with the times where major Record Labels had an impressive control over consumer behaviour. It was that elusive formula which guaranteed blockbusters, that formula which enabled their marketing departments to create and predict demand for music to an almost scientific certainty.
However, now the ideology of the hit seems to have lost it power. As the story goes, by the year 2000, a new autonomous realm largely outside the record industries control was beginning to take a toll on the hits effectiveness. This new realm was not based around the “cult of the mainstream”, could not be cracked by mass marketing strategies; this new realm was the internet. The internet is the “hits” worst nightmare. The internet has produced far more choice in what music is available. Consumers became less susceptive to the neatly packaged mass marketed mega bands, now able to exercise more freedom in what music they put on their play list. WIthin the internet developed a whole new culture, one of file sharing, ipods, bloggers, myspace, home recording, user recommendations, net hypes, podcasts…No longer satisfied with the limited music available through the tradition channels, music taste, and the identifying process involved, has become far more diversified. What was once the cult of the mainstream has now fragmented to a dazzling array of subgenres each with their own “micro-hits”. These days, the “top 40” has become irrelevant to the new generation of internet savy music fans, who actively engage with music in diverse ways; the cult of the mainstream has become the cult of the “niche”.
So does this signal the end of the “hit”? Yes, well, kind of…its hard to say. The internet music community is growing steadily, as is the digital download market, which is growing exponentially. For many, the authority of the traditional “hit” seems superfluous compared to the massive amount of choice the internet offers listeners. The “hit” will remain in some sense, but it seems likely that the mechanics helping to produce it will have changed to become more in line with the online environment.
Part of the vision of the brave new music industry is a belief in the power of social networks and communities to spread the word and hype new music, as opposed to the traditional channels favoured by the music industry of old (such as radio and TV). These new channels are far more open and inclusive mediums, available to all artists who put the relevant time into networking with similar minded users, and generally don´t cost a penny. An interesting contrast is that whereas the traditional channels rely on key opinion formers at the top spreading the word and guiding opinion, online channels are often driven from the bottom up by the collective wisdom of people who are part of them. Commercial Radio may pride itself on keeping its ear to the ground and feeling the pulse of the present musical zeitgeist, but this doesn’t really compare to the dynamic opinion forming of dedicated music fans on social networks. Besides, on many radio stations one actually has to pay to get airplay – this is not the case on the internet, even with influential music bloggers and podcasts.
The internet is designed for exploring, and there are many great environments for exploring new music which are available to all artists, not just those with a large marketing budget and a major label behind them. Services like Last.Fm, iLike, MySpace, Imeem, Twitter, You Tube (and many more) provide an invaluable resource to all artists serious about developing a solid fan base, both local and global. Beyond this, there are also a huge number of networks and services driven by music lovers on a local level, organising and promoting concerts and blogging to the world about their local music scene for the sheer joy of it. What is also exciting is that the new generation of listeners will be completely adept at navigating this new autonomous user generated environment, so it looks like the potential of the online music environment is just coming to fruition. The same is new for the new generation of musicians.
This clip is a trailer for a film created in 2006 called “Before the music dies”. A documentary, it gives provocative insights into the music industry as it is today. It tells the story a music industry split in two – “the homogenous corporate product which is spoon fed to consumers, and the diverse independent music that finds devoted fans online and at clubs across the country”. The film features engaging interviews with artists, music industry insiders, critics and fans who all tell of their own unique experiences of two aspects of an industry which are fundamentally at odds. It brings out well the contrasting ideologies of the mainstream and the independent, and hints towards the political rammifications of both outlooks. The film comes highly recommended. Find out more about the film, or purchase it at www.beforethemusicdies.com.
That’s right folks, just give it away! Don´t try and make money from music sales, make it available to everyone, for free! Or…don’t.
It is quite worrying when self proclaimed marketing gurus encourage musicians to not focus on trying to make money from their music itself (as this is a silly thing to do) but to solely focus on alternative revenue streams. This post is not criticising the wisdom of giving free samples away, this is the oldest trick in the book and a great way to introduce people to your music; but making things other than your music your primary revenue stream seems quite defeatist. The arguments for giving your music away free are understandable - putting a price on your music will drive potential fans away (since music is now free), people dont want to pay for music anymore (especially not yours), music is free like it should be! Get with it! - but these arguments are by no means conclusive.
The alternatives presented to not selling your actual music are to sell aspects of your music which cannot be “copied”, which is pretty much not to sell your music at all, but yourself. Get people to pay to be your fans and sell them stuff which non fans dont get, like behind the scenes pictures, interviews, limited edition merchandise, exclusive song releases etc. Fair enough, these revenue streams should be considered, but
Has music been devalued? This is an interesting question, because on the face of it is seems counter intuitive and almost nonsensical. Let´s expand the question and see if we can make any sense of it.
Beginning from the understanding that music is intrinsically valuable, it is quite clear that music can never be valueless. Music is valuable, because, well, its music! Music moves people, it affects people’s emotions, it communicates feelings, perspectives, and ideas. Even bad music does this, in one way or another. With this said, no matter what external measure one puts on music, for example its price on a capitalist market, it does not really need this measure in order to have value in itself. One could rant about the fact that there is too much free music, mp3s, illegal downloading and the access to music is too overwhelming – but this doesn’t, or shouldn’t, affect the capacity of value a piece of music has to its listener.
So when people are talking about how music has been devalued, they must be referring to its economic value. Now it is undeniable that the changing music environment is making it more difficult to extract economic value from music; the traditional market value of music is becoming redefined. Now the only people who really deserve sympathy in this instance are the artists; those who dedicate their life to creating music deserve to make a living from it. Artists are primary, those actors who have exercised their dominant position and used artists music to make themselves rich, with only a superficial concern for the artists themselves, deserve no sympathy at all. On the other hand, one should lend sympathy to those who truly wish to support artists and help them continue to develop their music; those who believed in music for the sake of music. However, it is an encouraging thought that these people are probably the ones who were smart enough to adapt to the changing environment, and are now directing their efforts to finding new ways for artists to make money.
So no, music has not been devalued. We are entering a new era where those who support the artists must find new ways for them to earn a livelihood from their creations. Rather than see this new environment as an obstacle, it would be wiser to see it as an opportunity.
The term “unsigned” has historically been used by the music business as an almost derogatory remark to denote artists and bands who haven’t yet signed to a label, be the label independent or major. Almost as if to say that the band isn’t “good enough” to be offered a record deal or that since they haven’t signed a deal, they have not yet reached “success”. There are a number of things wrong with this.
