Promoting your music in the web 2.0 era
Are you a musician or a CEO?
4Apr2008 Filed under: Industry stuff, Making money, Online promotion, Social networks Author: FakesensationsCan you not be both? Amidst all the Myspace Music hyperbole came one phrase from Chris DeWolfe that slightly made me shudder - “This is really a mega-music experience that is transformative in a lot of ways,” he said. “It’s the full 360-degree revenue stream.” 360-degree streams is the buzzword du jour of the major labels, and as a concept it’s a hugely dispiriting development for any artists looking to win a traditional record deal with any of them.
But you’re not, of course. You want to remain in control of your music and your music career. Does that mean you need to stop thinking like a major record label exec?
Let’s put it this way – you have the advantage over Mr EMI or Mr Sony or whoever. Sure, they’ve got the money and the infrastructure and the influence, but you’re one step ahead because you understand how the internet is changing everything while Mr EMI and Mr Sony are only just catching up.
But just because they’re slow and sometimes misguided, doesn’t mean you need to dismiss everything they do. The idea that we should tear down the record labels because they’re of no use to us now is wrong. We can still learn a lot from them. Apply what they know, add your cutting edge knowledge of new web promotion and distribution and technology, and you’re on your way to making a future for you and your music. This is an idea I hope to expand on in the coming days.
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About this blog
This is a blog about how to promote your music successfully in the new internet-driven era. I used to write for the NME, now I work for Last.fm, and also make music as Fakesensations.
Amiri
April 4th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Right on, man. They certainly are just catching on, and this attempt to raid what was ostensibly a home for independent artists shows how desperate they are to maintain their declining market power. And the fact that MySpace is willing to let them shows that MySpace is not really serious about the independent market, though. So where odes that leave the artists on MySpace, who will now have to cut through even more distractions as the majors spam and shill their artists all over the site? It’s looking bad for MySpace, in my opinion.