James Moore's Blog, page 88

Why Not Just Your Bands Social Media Pages Matter

My work in the music industry often serves as my inspiration for this blog, and yesterday something came up that I felt sort of forced me to write this piece. If constructing the narrative of your band or project is crucial in the music industry then you need to make sure that your team is contributing to this too. Moreover though, you need to make sure that they aren’t actively detracting from it with their publicly available personal politics. You need to be very careful in this industry, not to not offend people, but to realize what kind of implications your social media posts and the posts of your team members can have. If you have a team member who is posting overtly political or social stuff that doesn’t necessarily jive with your message then maybe it’s time to confront them.

Now – this might come off as a little bit weird since obviously in the music industry things tend to be left leaning. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m certainly not trying to quash conservative views. Rather I am trying to suggest that whatever content you associate yourself with (Not just that which you create) be stuff that won’t make you look bad if someone digs in and does their research on your work. If you’re trying to support progressive politics or social views for example, it’s probably less than ideal to have someone in your network posting about how police shootings are justified, or how Ted Cruz is an American hero. That’s not my own judgment call on those things but merely an example – you need o be aware that your team members are helping contribute to the narrative. Social media is important because it provides a snapshot into the lives of individuals, and if those snapshots don’t reflect favorably on whatever goal you are trying to achieve, then you might find yourself up a river of excrement with no means of locomotion.

I’m not necessarily saying that you need to police the Facebook pages of people you work with, but you do need to be aware of the kind of people they are before bringing them on in any official capacity. Facebook and Twitter have some weird, still undefined ramifications for careers. Sometimes it’s not even a question of moral character as much as it is making sure that these people get how to express themselves in a non-inflammatory way. It’s a hard thing to get a hold of initially, but there comes a point where understanding it is crucial if you want to make sure that your team doesn’t get hurt in the end. Sure, the internet makes life a lot less private and things you once were able to share with only friends can now be seen by the whole world and that can be a hard thing to cope with – but guess what, in the modern music industry you need to be able to deal with it, you can’t just go sharing fiery comments that will impact your art or the art of you friends negatively.

I’m not saying that there is no recovery from this type of thing either by the way. I’ve seen artists post some really screwed up stuff and for better or for worse carry on just fine. Yet, in many cases even just a few inflammatory posts can dramatically impact your career. This is one of those things in music that’s unfortunately biased against conservatives, and there’s nothing I can about that. While there are definitely people who post conservative statuses and still have success, they are few and far between and tend to be fairly careful. Again – this is not an indictment of conservative views as much as it is a gentle warning that overtly-sensitive types might freak out. I know this plays exactly into stereotypes and honestly I find that to be kind of funny. In a screwed up world what else can you do but to laugh at the beautiful absurdity of it all?

I almost feel like there needs to be a sort of social media boot camp to make sure that you don’t accidentally ruin your life with this kind of thing. Every single post that you make on social media has massive potential import. So if, for example, it comes out that someone who is a key member of the team behind your highly political grindcore band not so secretly loves Donald Trump there is going to be a reckoning. Instead you need to try and encourage your team to post easily relatable and friendly stuff that won’t raise too many questions. Your band is a business, and you need to make sure that, like with any business, that the personal politics of those involved isn’t going to accidentally destroy the image and narrative that you have worked so hard to cultivate.

What does this mean for you then? I recommend to most people who are heavy social media users to simply avoid posting about politics outside of the vaguest terms. It’s self censorship to be sure but it also helps to keep everything running smoothly. Given the divisive nature of this election cycle I feel like we are in a similar situation as we were several years ago when people slowly had to learn not to post about religion on social media I think we gradually need to do this with politics, especially as our social lives and work lives continue to intersect. Social media is a beautiful thing but also a scary one and if you’re not ready to keep it under wraps and make sure that it brings your team to the next level it could very well destroy you.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Why Going To Shows Will Help Your Music Career

I was talking to one of the main dudes from MetalSucks, perhaps the most influential metal website on the net, at a show the other day. He said something to me that really resonated, “Just go to shows, that’s the best advice I can give anyone, it’s where we all hang out.” This got me thinking – going to frequently shows is quite honestly the single most important thing to happen to my career. Yeah it’s fun (Though once you start going to 15-20 shows a month the veneer starts to fade) but it also serves as a valuable networking opportunity. You’re not just schmoozing, you’re at a bar with a bunch of potential friends and allies.

One thing I haven’t talked about nearly enough is what I like to call organic networking. That is to say – you don’t just message your Facebook friends when you need stuff from them, but also just to check on them. Cultivating personal relationships is key and one thing that computers haven’t been able to take from us is the importance of having personal relationships that work on a physical level. If you’re just some keyboard warrior then few people are really going to be interested in working with you. There needs to be some sort of physical manifestation to make your relationship ‘real’. There have been countless people over the years who I’ve had a weird relationship with online but who I immediately was able to hit it off with at a show. Again – if all the important industry folks are going there you might as well dedicate your time to it as well.

Simply put – I genuinely believe that we haven’t sufficiently evolved as a species to be able to really view people we only know on the internet, or even on the phone as real. As we might respect their autonomy it’s so much easier to dismiss a Facebook friend than someone who you see regularly. That’s part of why going to shows is so important, it allows people to see you in what nerds affectionately call ‘meatspace’ and what makes real, valuable networking (NOT just tagging thirty people in a Facebook status) possible. Going to shows allows your brand to profit whilst you fund someone elses nightmarish tour.

There’s a right and a wrong way to do it too. Just because you see someone from a famous blog or label or whatever doesn’t mean you should immediately go talk to them, and certainly doesn’t mean you should ask them for anything. If you DO want talk to an industry figure what you should start of by doing is thanking them for everything they do. After all – it’s people like them who help to make this whole thing possible. I can guarantee you that they don’t get nearly enough appreciation either. They will love any sort of praise you decide to lavish upon them, and you need to take advantage of that (But be careful not to brown nose) if you want to make them into a regular buddy. As I have said repeatedly in these columns – these people are impossibly busy and we need to respect that. They probably do want to be your friend, they just don’t want another leech on them.

Live shows are great because they teach you about your scene too. They help you to figure out who the hip bands to play with are – not just which groups you should put on your bills because they were featured on a cool blog. It gives you a sense for the organic power of the music. Live shows give you a much better idea of the concrete realities of the local scene and that has a major long term impact for your band. Furthermore it gives you a chance to interface directly with these bands. They are a lot more likely to want to deal with you face to face about a potential show than via Facebook message. In other words – it is only going to help give you more opportunities to grow your brand.

As I’ve no doubt discussed before, this is a key step in becoming ‘that guy’. There are people who will go to a show just because there’s a person in the band who they happen to be buddies with. They never have to have bothered listening to the music, they just care about what you, not the band, represent. The best part is that shows are easy to make friends at – so becoming someone who people just want to hang out with is not that hard. It allows you to immerse yourself in a world that far too many musicians ignore. While I understand that maybe you have work and a girlfriend, you need to consider the time investment that comes from live music to be a key part of your bands growth because even if you’re not in a band now, going to shows can help in the long term.

So yeah – there are fun, cheap and effective ways to boost word of mouth about your band in an organic way. In other words – all of the most important things to be looking at whilst promoting your band. So follow the advice of that wise MetalSucks writer – go to shows. Like he said, that is where we all hang out. Hell – that makes for pretty much all of my social interaction on any given day. Everyone does it – the people who really want it go to hundreds in a given year – if you’re no ready to make that sacrifice it might be time to give up and go home.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

The post Why Going To Shows Will Help Your Music Career appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Iconography – What It Means For Your Indie Band

Rock and roll would be nothing without its distinct iconography. Hell, that’s actually true of popular music in general. If you look at some of the most significant and iconic bands of all time they have all been defined by having a distinct look, a look that fits into their narrative and that on at least a few occasions allowed them to shape culture as a whole. There’s a lot to be learned here for independent musicians, not just about the power of a look, but also having a distinctive iconography that is wholly your own. I know this is a topic we’ve touched on before, but it certainly bears repeating, especially in an increasingly bland and overcrowded music industry.

Just take perhaps the single most iconic figure in rock and roll history – Lemmy Kilmeister. This is a man who started wearing Nazi memorabilia because he thought it looked cool and caught minimal flak for it. Lemmy Kilmeister managed to be so cool that even literally actually Hitler couldn’t take away from the brand that he wanted to create for himself. I mean yeah, some of that came from biker culture, but even the bikers had to put up with a lot more accusations of neo-nazi leanings that Lemmy ever did. (And unlike Lemmy they didn’t exactly deny them) I’m not saying that your band should be trying to reclaim the swastika or anything silly like that, merely that having a distinct iconography is an incredibly powerful thing. It can take something affiliated with some of the most demented ideologies ever and turn it into something that defines your group.

Here’s the challenging thing about setting up your own iconography – it has to be dangerous enough that people think it’s cool but it also has to make sense as part of a larger whole. That’s part of why Judas Priest have been able to cultivate a leather clad image with extreme success. The look comes from 70s gay BDSM culture which at the time was extremely forbidden (Homosexuality was entirely illegal in England until midway through the 80s). At the same time though – given the latent homoeroticism of their music, it fits into something that could only be described as ‘cool’. Judas Priest is another example of a band who took something that objectively most people would think were too far gone and were able to appropriate it into something greater.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to go and find something from Pol Pot’s regime that you think looks kind of cool and try to use that for your work. In fact I would strongly advise against that. You don’t need to offend people to be badass, in fact, most of the most badass people never tried to offend. Instead though you can look at a band like XII Boar who have been able to do something truly special by taking the imange of a boar’s head and infusing it into almost every aspect of their visual aesthetic. This has made them an easily (Or even instantly) recognizable act on the UK rock scene. They have managed to take something that they thought looked kind of cool and make it the centerpiece for their entire band. It even defines some of their lyrics! At the end of the day – this is really what every single one of us should be thinking about and trying to do.

The more you think about it, the more you realize that every distinctive artist for the last hundred and fifty years has been able to cultivate a distinct iconography that matters almost as much as the artist themselves. From Liszt and his piano theatrics to Beyonce’s ties to black power. We are reaching a point in our cultural history where the marketing matters perhaps even more than the art itself. People have gone from being sick of marketing to having fallen in love with it – a sort of Stockholm Syndrome for the modern human condition. These are the things that we need to embrace if we want any sort of real success in the twenty first century.

What resonates though about every single aesthetic I’ve discussed in this piece is that you can see none of them were meant to be a gimmick. Even KISS, arguably the most gimmicky band of all time were sure to play it to the hilt lending their bubblegum rock sound some authenticity. In other words – the iconography you use needs to be an extension on who you are as an artist. It needs to reflect your influences and your interests. You might go through a few before you figure out what fits, but when you find the core idea that you are going to want to base your career off of your gut will know, and it will tell you.

We are a visual species, we need stuff to be able to latch on to with our eyes before anything else because that is our primary way of interacting with the universe. If you’re not immediately identifying yourself for potential fans with a distinct imagery then you are quite literally kissing dollar bills goodbye. If you want to be the kind of rock and roller who people talk about in bars for years to come you need to be the kind of person who draws public attention and who gets people talking about your image alone. You need to get with it or fade into obscurity.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

The post Iconography – What It Means For Your Indie Band appeared first on Independent Music Promotions.

Music Videos And Your Band

Ahh music videos – perhaps the best way to present your work to your fans in an audiovisual format. Sure, they probably won’t make you any money, but many seem to think that they are crucial for helping to get your name out there and they can sure as hell be fun to film. Even if only a small percentage of your fans take the time to check them out, those fans will be grateful. If your video is truly great there is no telling where it could take you. People long for cross-media products and videos are a great way to do this and to get your fans to engage with your music on a much more personal level.

Now – regular readers will know that the first question that I have to tie into this is “Where does a music video fit into the narrative?” This is a lot more important than you might think. While yes there are a lot of generic ideas for videos that work, IE: a metal band playing in a warehouse, a rapper surrounded by attractive women and drugs, a rock band playing a sold out show, something more unorthodox might help to communicate who you are more effectively. That being said – if you want to show your allegiance to a particular genre, sometimes it’s best just to do something fairly normal and fill it up with the appropriate symbolism. This can help to prove who you are and might even garner a few new fans.

How does one get a music video to garner new fans though? In my experience the only way to do that, and not just pander to your old fans (Not that they couldn’t use some pandering to) is to create a video that is simply outrageous. Odds are someone isn’t going to click on the video of a band they don’t know for the same reason they probably won’t click on any other suggested streaming link – people don’t care until you make them care. In a world where we are all inundated by content the only way to make non-fans care about your music video is to make it over the top, hilarious, or just really powerful. You need to get people talking about the music video as a sort of cultural event rather than as just your latest video.

To use an obvious example look at the Thriller music video. For many people born after 1990 or so this was one of their first exposures to Michael Jackson’s body of work. Why? Because it represents so much more than Michael Jackson, it shows us the entire broad and beautiful scope of his artistry. At the same time – it had a massive production value and a big name director behind them. That being said – the Thriller video has made Michael Jackson and his estate millions of dollars over the years because it has sustained a very real interest in his work. It cements his travails in a specific place in time and still wins the hearts of the youth.

Obviously not every music video can be that way, and you would be remiss in trying to do that with all of your music videos. Asides from, y’know, budget concerns, your fans definitely do want stuff that looks familiar every now and again. It’s nice to have variety in videos, if you have a party hearty clip then maybe you should balance it out with one where the band are medieval warriors (Probably my go to since I’m a nerd) or maybe a low budget video in a space that looks cool. Just look at all the metal bands that have been able to do awesome, simple videos in forests, there are badass budget video options out there. The point being – you need to be careful in plotting out your video in advance in terms of look and execution, otherwise you could very well end up with something that limits your narrative.

As per the financial viability of a music video I personally am torn. While they definitely can help to make your brand look a lot more professional, they also cost a lot of money to make and promote. Sure you can do something for a low budget, but more often than not, unless you really know what you’re doing you’re just going to make yourselves look stupid. For any decent music video with decent promotion you need to be aware that you are probably going to be going at least $1500 in the hole – that’s a pretty big financial commitment for something that doesn’t generate much direct income outside of the paltry amount that YouTube pays for ad revenue.

There’s a reason that even fairly major groups like Yob have yet to make a real music video seven albums and sixteen years into their career. They often don’t make financial sense – especially given the demographic of an independent music fanbase. You need to realize that in an industry where we all are scraping pennies, the money to make videos is rarely available. Even if you can do it – are you sure that that money wouldn’t be better invested in a more reliable income source like merchandise or Facebook advertisements? There’s a lot of challenges associated with music videos that I think far too few of us really take into consideration before diving in.

Does this mean you should avoid making a music video? Not at all – you simply need to be aware of the implications. Music videos are a tricky thing – it’s hard to get labels to fund them and most musicians certainly don’t have the money or connections. This is one of those times where reaching out to your local scene is important because you will almost certainly find people who would be willing to do this kind of thing for free. Music videos are tricky and there’s a reason fewer independent bands than ever are doing them these days – but if you can execute properly they can be an effective tool in growing your brand name.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Rihanna turns in a near classic with ANTI

Meanwhile, in another part of the pop stratosphere, RiRi season has begun. The eighth album from Rihanna, ANTI, arrived quietly in late January. There was more written about the nauseating album cover with a Chloe Mitchell poem printed in braille. The music’s pretty good, too.

ANTI opens with “Consideration,” a loose neck-swiveler that sets the tone for the album’s first half. It’s nice to hear Rihanna give the assist to SZA, a sister-in-arms and a singer equally deserving to reach the same heights. Their voices move around each other in an uneven orbit. SZA bellowing beautifully bent notes. Rihanna soaring in an upward swing.

A soft muted organ clambers on “James Joint,” a loosie before things get serious. “Kiss It Better” chisels through the speakers. I can picture Rihanna walking down a black staircase in black heels and black skirt to the opening. Fireworks sparkle in the background as stunted Eighties rock ballad lead guitar burrows into your head. Rihanna sings about a relationship where the bad gets swept under the bed. Emotion pumps from her voice no how many times it’s processed and layered.

The first single, “Work,” has made its way across the oceans with two different videos and a saucy performance on the BRIT Awards. Love the song. Though, I barely know what Rihanna’s singing, or if she’s singing anything in any language. Not sure, but it gets catchier as time goes on. It’s one of her best singles. Drake is usually good for a guest verse and here he gives the necessary phrases. “Work” is their third single together following “Take Care” and “What’s My Name?”

“Woo” reminds me of the Bjork song “Pluto” off Homogenic. Rihanna sings against a coarse electronic tremble that does not let up the entire song. I’d love to hear her move more in this direction. Maybe let Trent Reznor put her voice through the greater. Then, just when you think it can’t any more vicious, Rihanna screams, “I don’t mean to really luh you / I don’t mean to really care about you no more.”

Next, on “Needed Me,” she gets cold with an ex-lover over a simple beat and an expanding wah-wah. When Rihanna sing, it’s in a downward spiral. “Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage? / fuck your white horse and your carriage.” Somewhere an ex is crying in his beer in a dark bar. “Yeah, I Said It” resets the tone. The breath of Rihanna’s vocals cloud both speakers in daydream tripping fantasy.

Then comes the curveball: a painfully straight-forward version of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” off 2015’s Currents. Retitled here as, “Same Ol’ Mistakes,” this version is so similar I wonder if Rihanna didn’t just kareoke over the instrumental version of the original. The band gets production credits, so who knows. The song’s decent enough so, fine, but somehow, it’s even longer than the original.

Coupled with the next song, “Never Ending,” the album begins to drag a little. The final few songs are big syrupy ballads. Her vocals soar to such great, soul-baring heights and while, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not my mug of wine.

ANTI is an almost-classic from Rihanna. From song-to-song it dips and crashes through many different styles, some all her own, some borrowed. It’s been billed as a break from form for the Barbadian singer and it mostly is, but the second half of the album plays it safe. I long for her powerful voice to find its way into the very outer extensions of where R&B can go. But, I’ll keep listening until then.

 

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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What I Learned About Music Licensing After Dedicating A Month To It

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks learning about music licensing for a friend I’m helping on a project. For the uninitiated, music licensing is the process of getting the rights, campaign, and tools together in order to get placements for your songs in commercials, TV shows, movies and other forms of art with an aural component. It’s been a pretty interesting experience for a variety of reasons – but mostly because before the beginning of the month I didn’t really know what music licensing was. Since then I have learned quite a bit, spent countless hours pouring over articles and have gotten to explore what it means to engage in this potentially highly lucrative segment of the music industry.

The first step to getting your music licensed is to register with ASCAP or SESAC, though from what I understand ASCAP is generally preferred. Now this is a pretty easy process that takes almost no time and sixty bucks or so to set up. That being said – it does take time for ASCAP to get everything together on their end – so don’t go expecting money right away. You can’t really circumvent ASCAP either, for legal reasons I don’t really want to go into right now (Partially because I’m not sure I fully understand them) Long story short, if your music isn’t registered with ASCAP then you simply aren’t going to be able to get set up with anyone for music licensing and expect to be paid for it. This is of course problematic.

So how do you get your music out there to be licensed? Well that’s something ASCAP doesn’t do for you. Instead you need to go out and pound the pavement as it were. I found in my own research that there is no real tried and true method so I took on what I like to think of as a hybrid approach. There are two real ways that music licensing gets done. You can either work with an agent or you can work with a a database. Both can be successful and have their own unique sets of advantages and disadvantages ideally you should be reaching out to both in order to maximize the potential revenue streams from music licensing.

The reasons you would want to reach out to both should be obvious. While getting in with a music licensing specialist can be difficult, they probably have much better relationships with a music supervisor than someone running a database. That being said – the databases are useful, especially because with sites like Audiosparx independent programs reach out to them because they don’t want to be bothered with dealing with a licensing agent. Databases are highly searchable too, meaning its important that you take the time to insert your tags properly, and the can help provide surprise chunks of income every now and then. Many of these sites are good for getting your music in commercials in foreign countries. A friend of mine used this technique to make a few hundred bucks getting a placement in a car commercial in India!

One thing that I can’t emphasize enough is the importance of having non exclusive licensing contracts with all of these people. A non exclusive contract means that you get to maintain all the rights to your music and license a single song in multiple places While an exclusive license can turn into more money unless you get the attention of a major licensor then that’s simply not going to be worth it in the long run. Beyond the general paranoia that I have about giving away rights to music I work with I think that non exclusive licenses have become the industry standard for a reason. They allow all sides of a licensing deal the maximum amount of freedom. If someone is really insisting on an exclusive license then make sure that the payday is worth it.

Now, you might be wondering – how do these music licensing people make their money? This is actually one of the simplest parts of the equation. Once you end up with a licensing deal the people who licensed the music for you usually end up taking a cut, leaving you with anything from 35 to 75% depending on who you licensed the song through. So yes – much like with anything else in this industry you get gouged, but a single theme song placement, or scoring a jingle for a commercial can translate into regular revenue for months, or even years at a time. If that’s not helpful for your music career then I don’t know what is. You need to be aware though that sites that say they will give you the whole payment in exchange for an upfront payment are almost all scams. I feel like this should be obvious by know, but I still bump into people who have lost lots of money in recent months due to this.

This doesn’t mean that the world of licensing is guaranteed money. The amount of bands who can generate real income off of it is very small, as with any other source of income in music. That being said – it’s certainly something you shouldn’t ignore. Even if it only translates into a single $1500 check every couple of years, that’s still a pretty big deal – that money can be used to fund a tour, a new run of shirts or even just pay your rent for a month or two. Don’t think that you’re too extreme or weird for licensing either, even Goatwhore managed to get a fairly major placement in the TV show Elementary. You need to make sure that someone in your band or at your label has taken care of this, it’s not a fun process, and with some of the more involved databases it can actually be a bit of a nightmare, but in the end, it might actually have some of the best return on time investment since once everything is registered you can just sit around and hope the money trickles in.

We talk a lot on this blog about how you have to diversify your sources of income if you want to really get anywhere in this industry and I feel like there is no better way to do that then to dig in with stuff like this. Music licensing is key for the independent musician because it’s one of the few places where there is a dedicated infrastructure that will guarantee them at least some sort of payment. Sure most of it will only be like 50 dollar payouts for a Youtube channel in Uzbekistan, but even that is better than nothing. Get on it, and ride the bull – it might just be worth it.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Kanye Gives Tutorial on How NOT to Release an Album

 

Over the years, since appearing in a pink Polo and a backpack with sunglasses like shutter blinds, Kanye West has taught us all a lot about where hip-hop can go and what fame can do to a man. With the release of his seventh album, The Life of Pablo, Mr. West has offered another lesson. This time it’s on how not to release your new batch of material. It’s a lesson that musicians should take note of.

From the moment the cow jumped over the Jumpman, The Life of Pablo has been a botched delivery. Since the very tip of 2015, when West dropped the singles “Only One,” “FourFiveSeconds,” and “All Day,” it was clear that Yeezy season was upon us. The leaves were starting to turn black gold. He performed on award shows, runways, festivals,  gave a few rants, shadowboxed with Paul McCartney. He had a title for number seven: So Help Me God. Then that became SWISH, or, SWiSH, or, maybe just Swish, we won’t ever know.

This past New Year’s Eve West let slip out into the world the spasmodic, fucking-goofy track, “FACTS.” Something was near. Then came the tweet revealing a release date of February 11, a Thursday. Not the usual day for new releases, but that hardly matters online. The title changed again to Waves. He shared a picture of a handwritten tracklist of 10 songs. Kylie was there. Then that blew up to 18 songs a few nights before. Who knows how many times he ended up polishing “Wolves.” Oh, and the title changed again to its current state (or is it?).

February 11 came. West held back-to-back listening parties at Madison Square Garden while debuting his new fashion line with animatronic models. The Kardashians and the Jenners were there in white feathered robes. Shit, Lamar Odom even came out to play. But, there was nothing online, no stream, no payment plan offered. There was a broken link on KanyeWest.com and tweets about still being in the studio. Chance the Rapper apparently held up the final mastering or maybe he was thrown under the bus. You set this date, Kanye! What are you doing? This was your schedule. We would’ve waited until it was right.

Nights later West performed on Saturday Night Live spewing some inaudibles about the album being available online right now. “Right now! Aaaagggggrggrrggghhgrh!” It wasn’t. The next day he offered it on his website, but only in thirty-second previews. The full stream was available only to Tidal subscribers. Personally, I’m against streaming music. That just wasn’t gonna happen.

Week and a half later and it’s still unclear how this album can be widely purchased and which version it will be. Kanye’s saying it’ll only be available on Tidal. The whole thing has been one Kanye Thunderclap of Confusion for such a long build-up to what was an inevitable album. The 18-track version that has been circulated feels overstuffed and maybe the original 10-track version might’ve been a more succinct listening experience. I’m reserving my review here, but that thing is bloated.

So, bands, musicians, artists take note. If you and your band go through the long haul gruel of creating a cohesive unit of songs to be played as an Album, it should be delivered with authority. Don’t be like this season’s Yeezus. Be committed to the final product. Let some mystery build behind it. Know for certain when a song is complete. When music makes it to the Internet today, it travels fast. If you’re not putting the most complete version out there it’ll get thrown in the whirlpool and now people are hearing something incomplete.

The Life of Pablo had huge hype. A handy tool for sales. But given that there was no clear path for purchase and that streaming services through Tidal aren’t counted by Billboard, the album has no official standing of its total output effectively ruining all that built-in hype. That can’t be good for your $53 million debt, fam.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Payola And You – Why Radio Isn’t Working For Independent Artists

If you’re reading this you’re probably, at least to some degree, a ‘music person’ so you probably already know about payola, the practice of labels and promoters paying radio stations to play the music they are tasked with working with. The term gets its name the famous 1959-1960 Congressional Payola Investigations that brought broadcast legends like Dick Clark and Alan Freed under fire. Many musicians optimistically think that today this is no longer the case. I’m here to tell you that, unfortunately its seems like payola is more prevalent than ever.

Now in some situations this manifests itself differently – for example Limp Bizkit rose to popularity through a form of payola where the label said ‘This song has been sponsored by Sony Records’ or something along those lines and got massive airplay. After all – if a song is played enough on the radio it will get popular – that’s the unfortunate reality. Nowadays this is increasingly frowned upon, so many labels try to use independent radio promoters in order to put a layer of separation between themselves and the radio stations in order to help hide their crimes – nevertheless every few years the major labels end up having to pay fines in the seven figure range.

Of course – they still do it – these fines aren’t nearly big enough to turn them off of radio pushes – pushes that help to put food on their tables. In fact – I can almost guarantee you that the major labels budget into their radio campaigns find for payola. Radio folks are desperate for any money that they can get at this point, so the incentive for payola is higher than ever. The thing is – radio people will still have power as long as trade magazines like FMBQ and Billboard still report radio rankings. And while radio play doesn’t really translate into record sales, the perceived popularity given by dominating these charts usually translates into actually popularity elsewhere.

Of course – as I’m sure I’ve touched on before on this blog, radio play isn’t really going to help most independent musicians. Sure being featured in a CMJ showcase is helpful and if you can find a cool DJ who will help get some of your music on alternative or specialty shows that’s certainly awesome – but until you’re making thousands on merchandise sales it probably isn’t going to make sense for you to buy in to the whole radio rigmarole. Sure college radio broke Nirvana, but that was in 1990 – nowadays you would be hard pressed to find kids listening to college radio. So if you’re not expecting to get tens of thousands of plays it’s not likely that you’re going to get that huge a boost from a paid targeted campaign anyway. If you really want to profit off of radio work then you are going to need to focus, for a long time at least, on local specialty stations.

Radio, in America at least, is a very sick and twisted format. ClearChannel – the company that owns the majority of commercial stations in the US (You can see their logo on the bottom of almost any billboard) is perhaps most responsible for this. Their founder Lowry Mays was even quoted as saying, “If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn’t be someone from our company. We’re not in the business of providing news and information. We’re not in the business of providing well researched music. We’re simply in the business of selling our customers products”. With quotes like this in mind I think that you can quickly start to realize why most commercial formats are as good as dead for independent musicians.

With noncommercial radio a payola induced zombie, ClearChannel and other commercial stations a impenetrable juggernaut and college radio run by… college kids I think it’s easy to see that radio isn’t in a great place right now. Then of course there’s internet radio – but even that hasn’t done much outside of podcasting (Which I love) This can also help to generate a more targeted, active interest in your music. I think that nowadays the best thing to do is to get your music on every curation service possible and make sure to have a massive web presence. Radio is a scary place – but if you do have the funds to be successful then by all means go ahead.

I have always thought it was funny that so many of us want to get into the radio when most independent musicians I know grew up hating the stuff they played on the radio. It’s the sort of circular bite-you-in-the-ass catch 22 that reveals the internal hypocrisy of the music industry. Of course I get why they want to be on the radio – hell I want to be on the radio. Yet at this point it seems like it isn’t a realistic option for anyone who isn’t on top of the charts. So what else can we do other than back off and recalibrate our promotional campaigns? Sometimes it’s not a matter of trying harder but rather finding a new path.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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What Your Band Needs To Know At The Merch Stand

Ah the merch stand, where the band desperately hopes to move at least a few bucks worth of product in order to be able to afford getting to their next tour stop. In a world where so many of us are struggling to buy gas to get from venue to venue it’s a hard thing to get people to come to your merch stand – especially in economically disadvantaged areas or places where fans don’t really want to spend that much on music. Yet – I have seen bands who are good at merchandising to move up to double their guarantee worth in merchandise. How do they do it? By having a variety of products available, with both loss leaders as well as products that make your band a lifestyle.

Loss leaders in the music industry are fairy easy to come across – even at the merch stand where traditionally margins are highest for the band. On that comes to mind right away is patches – an item that are notoriously high priced wholesale but that you can rarely charge too much for. That being said – they make for an effective advertisement that your fans will use every day. Other loss leaders that it might be worth investing in are obvious, like free stickers or buttons. As a general rule your loss leaders should be things that will really help to get the band name out there – anything that bears your logo and can be easily disseminated or put in easily accessible places is going to be worth it.

One might even argue that CD’s are an effective loss leader – I think that this kind of depends on the band though. If you’re selling CD’s at five bucks a pop then your fans are going to be much more likely to want to buy an extra one to share with a friend. The counterargument to this is that I have seen some bands make serious change on CD’s. It really depends on what your fans want and the kind of purchasing power you think they have. The best compromise might be to heavily discount your back catalog (Or even include it for free with a purchase of your latest record) in order to entice people to come to your merch stand and at least pick up something.

The real money though is in lifestyle products. I’ve seen some bands, like Yob, pick up huge margins on custom pedals, whereas others sell unique merchandise. For example my clients in Mongolian metal band Tengger Cavalry have tendency to make an absolute killing on custom bracelets and other products made out of Tibetan silver. In France, where smoking is much more prevalent than it is here in the States many bands make a pretty penny selling custom lighters. Womens underwear is another product that I have seen do well across a variety of markets. With all of these products though you need to be careful how they present your band though and make sure they fit into the narrative you are trying to create.

As with anything in the music industry you should be using your merchandise to help cultivate the story of your band and so the products you sell should help reflect that. That’s why stoner metal bands take the time and effort to sell their own bongs – it’s a type of merchandise that is funny to have on your table but also that helps to establish who you are. That’s part of why bands who offer music lessons on the road tend to do so well – it provides a source of revenue but also establishes who the musicians are, approachable dudes who know a lot about music.

Part of why having a lot of these products on your table is important is not so much that they sell but rather that they get the fans interacting with your merch booth. For example – a band who sells a bong probably isn’t going to sell that many on a tour, but they will probably get a few dozen fans a night coming over to the booth just to check it out – and if the merch guy is any good at their job then they will be able to turn that initial interaction into a sale of a smaller ticket item. Stuff like that also gets fans talking – maybe they, nor any of their friends are going to buy that bong but they sure as hell will bring it up next time they are talking about music with their buddies in their favorite bar and as well all know – in the social networking generation word of mouth is crucial.

Simply put – Merch is important because it can be a very organic way to develop a physical interest in your marketing campaign – something that we don’t get nearly enough of in this day and age. It helps to establish who you are and what your band stands for and provides an effective step forward in this industry. Merchandise should be a consistent and reliable source of income for your band and you should do your best to cultivate it no matter what. Don’t just cultivate it though – make sure it is contributing to the larger narrative and that way you will be able to help bring your entire band, and brand along for the ride.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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How To Look Good In Interviews: A Music Journalists Advice For Musicians

I’m honestly a little surprised with myself that I haven’t written this article sooner, especially considering the number of interviews I conduct on a weekly basis. Understanding how to do a proper interview is a key aspect to any musicians career and whether its in person, on the phone, or written there are some fundamental truths that run across all forms. That being said – there are also some more specific ideas I would like to dole out as we delve into this topic – one that I feel far too many musicians don’t get a decent grasp on until its late in the game. A good interview can rocket you to popularity, a bad one can make people disavow your music forever – which do you want?

The first thing you need to realize when doing an interview is that it puts you directly in control of the narrative. No matter what form we are talking about, your answers are going to shape future questions in the interview and questions in future interviews. You need to make sure that your answers are representing not just you, but how you want people to think of you. The easiest way to do this is to give even smaller questions long and in depth answers that help to show exactly what you stand for. Beyond that – you need to make sure that your answers fit into an overarching narrative of who you are. Once you know what you want to represent even the most curveball question can be turned into an advancement of your specific narrative.

A huge part of this that I don’t think many artists fully understand is that the best interviews are those where the artist rambles on, tells stories, and helps you, the fan to understand what they are all about. If you don’t like doing interviews because ‘it’s all the same questions’ having more interesting answers is going to help to provoke more interesting questions in the future. Yes most interviewers suck, I know this from bitter experience, but there are a few diamonds in the rough. The more you give in interviews, the more diamonds you are going to be able to find. You can help to make your own interviews a more interesting experience for everyone.

In my experience the best interviews are almost a collaborative process – after all they are supposed to emulate a conversation right? If you listen to someone like Terry Gross, or even the excellent interviewers Chuck & Godless over at the Metalsucks Podcast you’ll notice that they reveal parts of themselves in the interviews, expecting the artists to listen to them and feed off of that. The interviewer isn’t the only one who should be doing the work – you need to be giving off even more of yourself, after all, this is about you and while yes it is hard to talk about yourself because so much of our society tells us otherwise, talking about yourself is the entire point of interviews!

Beyond that – as you progress you will find there are three distinct types of interviews, text, phone, and in person (Skype interviews are still pretty rare in my experience) Most people, both artists and journalists dislike text and phone interviews. Yet – if you are warm and personable you can make a text or phone interview enjoyable for both parties. I know this can be hard – especially during major press surges when you have to handle dozens of interviews at a time, or worse have an interview day where you do one fifteen minute phone interview after another. However, if you can maintain a positive persona the journalist, and your fans will appreciate it and want to come to you in he future, helping to generate more positive press. Remember – this is a way for you to directly interface with the people who make this possible, if you’re not doing you best to charm and intrigue them you need to revisit your priorities.

In person interviews are a whole different beast, and an even more important one. In an in person interview, assuming it happens at a concert (As they usually do) I strongly encourage you to give the interviewer a t-shirt. This will help to establish a positive relationship with the writer and encourage them to cover you in the future. Otherwise- if you are given the chance, try and make him feel like ‘one of the guys’. The band who do this and are personable are the ones that journalists love to cover. It pays to be one of those bands since it ensures you will get long term media support. Furthermore, if you can get someone to like you in Santa Cruz you know that not only will you probably get regular coverage in Santa Cruz, but also that he might tell his other journalist friends what’s up and get you coverage elsewhere. Interacting with journalists at shows is one of the few times you as an artist really get a chance to become friends with the tastemakers – and you need to take full advantage of that.

Long story short – I know that interviews are hard, and even seasoned artists can have a hard time. Even super established musicians, like the dudes in Slayer or Anthrax have professed to me that they occasionally have issues with interviews – for no other reason than that sometimes you are worn out and don’t have it in you to really go into detail and make your interview great. This is by no means an exact science and it’s something that can only be mastered with practice. Even if you are face to face with a lazy interviewer who did no research you need to give it you all and realize that all of this is helping to build up your own personal legend.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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