As some you of may know, Record Union are strong supporters of The Peoples Music Awards - the first and only global unsigned music award. The awards is a great platform for indie artists who want to expand their fan base and get attention from an influential panel of judges, and has the potential to give apsiring artists and bands a real push on the rocky path to fame and notoreity.

On the 17th of April the ceremony of this years awards cycle will be held in London. It´s gearing up to be a killer night with 14 finalists from a range of genres committed to impressing the judges and audience alike with their live performances. If you are around London at that time we strongly urge you to attend - if so, we look forward to catching up with you at the after party! You can find out more about the ceremony and who´s playing here.

Since we wrote about The Peoples Music Awards a few months ago here on the blog we have been excited to see artists on Record Union signing up to next years award cycle. With so much talent on Record Union, we look forward to seeing some strong competition. Though entry for this years awards is closed, you can still register next years awards, its free! Head over to their website for more information.

The BBC technology page wrote an interesting article recently entitled “the net helps music sing new songs”. It is a great article outlining the many ways which the internet is changing music, and how musicians are utilizing the internet to empower themselves.  Discussing the continuing role of major labels, the article points out that “Some would argue that with an international reach and incredibly low entry costs, that the internet itself is the newest “major” label”. This arguement is in fact quite strong, for the many of the key roles that a major record label performs (recording, distribution and marketing) the internet also performs, and with a greater volume of music. Technological developments within music recording and production, coupled with the international reach of the internet has made it easier for musicians to record and “release” their music globally. The internet can be seen as the new “major label” for it enables far more music than ever before to be shared on a global platform,  while simultaneously putting this music in a close proximity to listeners who can discover and enjoy it.

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The music world has changed and continues to do so without anyone really able to accurately predict how the future of music will look like. The good thing is that music is still being enjoyed and celebrated by people all over the world. It wakes people up in the mornings and gets people through their day, it allows people to relax, disconnect and reflect and transcend their environments in spouts of elation; it provides a life narrative and strengthens the self identity of many individuals while moving and uniting people in a common bond of shared experience.

This much has not changed. What has changed is that a large chunk of music which wasn’t available to the masses has now become available. Why be satisfied with mainstream hits when the horizons to discover new music are so broad? The problem for the music industry of 10 years ago is that many have been slow to adapt to these changes. They focus, and still do, on selling a huge volume of a select few artists, whereas those who listen to music these days are able to diversify their taste to such a degree that these select few artists are becoming less attractive (the thing to read here is The Long Tail by Chris Anderson). There is so much more music out there for people to listen to and buy.

It seems that the goals of the services of the new music generation are clear. First, we have to make as much of this glorious but neglected market of unheard “niche” music available to as many people as possible: we need to give it a fair listenership. Second, and perhaps the most challenging, is to make it easy to navigate this new diverse realm; to discover new and clever ways of filtering this world of music based on individual listener preferences. Thirdly, we need to provide a good way to support the artists in this new environment, to give them a way to make money so that they can continue to move us with their music. These are challenges which we at Record Union are determined to face, head on.