Next Big Sound is a music analytics site that allows artists, managers, labels and the public to see who’s listening to and interacting with bands online.

Alex, I caught your interview on Gaebler. It seems like the site was in its early stages at the time. What’s changed with Next Big Sound since then?

That interview was conducted roughly a year ago and things have changed quite a bit! Our old site let anyone play the role of a record mogul and “sign” bands to their own fantasy record label. We then awarded points based on the number of people that signed a band after you to reward those who were able to spot the best talent before anyone else.

After a little less than a year we decided that we no longer had an interest in fighting to become an online streaming music destination site. However, the high-level idea of the initial site still got us very excited - how does a band become famous? How does a band go from 50 plays a day online to headlining a nationwide tour? We decided to change directions in June of this year to a more encompassing site. We now measure the growth and popularity of roughly half a million artists across the major web sites where people are already engaging with these artists.

I’ll re-ask a question from the interview, then: who are your main competitors, and how do you compete against them?

There are definitely a handful of people working in this area but fortunately we were early out of the gate with our public launch in August. To be honest we are focusing much more on building out what we hear from our users than what our competition is doing. I’m on the phone with regular early users of NBS every single day. Everything we are doing is so new, hell the list of band’s on Twitter a year ago was about a page long.

Can you describe some of the challenges you’ve faced with NBS so far?

Beyond the traditional startup challenges of being taken seriously, raising capital, and hiring a competent team we are struggling with the massive scale we are working on. We are quickly approaching half a billion data points. That’s in less than 6 months and we haven’t even released the YouTube integration.

Another challenge was dealing with media, which I’d learned first hand in college when I ran the biggest student group at Northwestern. We had a huge budget to book and produce acts like Kanye West, Counting Crows, Flight of the Conchords etc. and I was frequently interviewed for all the college publications. I quickly learned that after an hour-long interview they would take the stupidest thing you said and make that the center of the piece. When you’re words are published immediately to your peers, and they make fun of every quote in the article, you learn to think carefully about what you say and how you want to come across.

In your mind, what are the most important conversations within the music industry taking place online, and where are they taking place?

I’ve been living in this space for about a year so have kind of figured out how I like to keep up with things. I read Digital Music News every morning. Someone sent me a dashboard that The Orchard made on Netvibes that provides a great overview that I also skim each morning. I subscribe to dozens of industry blogs; Lefsetz, Music Think Tank, Hypebot, Derek Sivers, The New Rockstar Philosophy and of course Way Cool Jnr!

I appreciated the personal touch when you called me to verify my account. Do you take this approach for every account on the site?

Yeah, sorry again I called at 7am Australia time! I thought it was 9am. I suck at figuring out time zones.

Hundreds of artists have now verified accounts so I can’t call every single one, but I do try to touch base with as many as possible.

How did you decide upon this tactic?

It was never a tactic in the business plan, we aren’t that smart. We actually only built the verified accounts program after it was heavily requested. I saw all these requests coming in from individuals with their contact info and often they would ask a question or say how much time NBS has been saving them. I started calling a few and it led to very interesting and insightful conversations. People are all super surprised that someone from a website actually called them!

It’s all part of being close with our users. The industry is changing every week and people want to get a handle on how they can maintain their livelihood and thrive in the new world. We haven’t released our premium paid features so it’s hard to say its impact on us financially but it’s not about that at this point. I love talking to managers, bands and labels about the challenges they face and how we can help them.

Stepping away from the site - how do you find new music?

I use Hype Machine and We Are Hunted all the time. I subscribe to blogs like Crazed Hits and Kings of A&R.

I’ve fallen back in love with Tuesdays because I stream all the new releases on Lala each week (you can stream any song once in it’s entirety) and I read the reviews on All Music Guide. I then buy the albums I need to listen to over and over again.

It’s awesome plugging new artists into our system and tracking their rise.

Do you have a daily routine?

When I’m not on the road I like to wake up at 7 or 8 and read all the industry news over breakfast. If I’m feeling motivated I’ll go for a run through on one of the beautiful trails out here in Boulder, CO. Then I’ll usually head down to the office for calls, meetings and work late into the night.

How often do you get the chance to listen to new music through the site?

We blast music all day and night. Well we just launched a verified accounts program that allows artists and industry folk to verify the profiles for their artists. I get all those requests so I try to listen to as many as I can. I can’t wait for us to build our own fastest-rising charts from the data we are collecting, but we have a lot of work to do before we get there.

Get in touch with Alex via email or Twitter, and go try out Next Big Sound for yourself.

Nick, you mentioned that you targeted music bloggers to vote in the AIR Awards. Why?

The AIR Awards aren’t a popularity contest; nominated artists are shortlisted when they appear in the AIR Charts but then judged on artistic and career achievement. We know that there’s a lot of widely read Australian bloggers and I can only imagine how much music they get in their inboxes. They’re more likely to have their finger on the pulse than traditional media and they’re in a great position to vote intelligently, with perspective and a good overarching view of independent music in our country.

We also recognised that there’s a bunch of Australian blogs that are quite influential (i know dozens of industry reps that check in on Who The Hell on a daily basis). Blogs are a valuable avenue for media coverage for indie artists and as an organisation that represents independent labels and musicians, it’d be downright stupid of us not to engage them.

That said, we’re not ignoring traditional media, we also asked a lot of broadcast and print media to vote, as well as retailers, AIR members and broad spectrum of people working throughout the Australian industry.

Why did you ignore label blogs?

We did invite AIR member labels to vote, just approached them as AIR members rather than bloggers.

How many label blogs do you know of in Aus?

If you check out Dew Process, Elefant Traks, Spunk, Head Records, Love and Mercy, Popboomerang and Future Classic you’ll see that they present their news in blog format and often use a blogging platform. A lot of labels blur the lines between blog and website.

Not many label websites in Australia go the extra mile of including extra non-musical content just because they think their adoring public will dig it… (They ain’t Matablogs or Sub-Pop yet). Maybe they don’t feel it’s their place. Room 40 is an exception but I suspect that’s because Lawrence English who runs the label is an artist too.

Anyway, doesn’t a record label just sell music? Isn’t that personal touch meant to be the domain of the artist? There’s some cracking artist blogs out there and I imagine a lot of them are set up at the behest of management and labels. Most fans have an attachment to the artist, not the label. I’m not sure that many Australian labels have reached the cult status of say, a Warp Records, Kitsune or Epitaph.

I’m a big fan of EMI’s The In Sound, particularly their A&R dropbox. What a great way to find new music, what a great way for a label (especially a major) to stop looking like a monolith and start engaging with the music community! I do wonder how much music is delivered to them through the dropbox though… do people use it, do thousands of people use it?

You used our top 25 list of Australian music blogs as a starting point. Which other sites took your fancy outside of that list? Would you mind sharing your findings with us?

Just had a look at your top 25 again. You’ve almost got me covered!

I Am Faux Pas is one of the most entertaining and attractive blogs I’ve seen. Silence Is A Rhythm too, A-Reminder (even though it’s not Australian anymore), Cyclic Defrost (sort of a website more than a blog though innit?) and Twelve Major Chords… all fantastic.

Of those not in the top 25, the Home and Hosed blog is great and I like to read anything that Clem Bastow writes or posts. Besides that, I spend a bit of time reading music biz, marketing and tech blogs. Again though, there aren’t many of them based in Australia. Those blogs are my first stop when finding news regarding online activity and industry developments that may effect the independent sector.

You wrote that you pay more heed to recommendations appearing in a favorite blog than you do the printed music press. Why is this?

I tend to like music that doesn’t get much coverage in the mainstream press. It’s not meant to be a reflection on the quality of journalism in my local broadsheet, in fact I used to read music reviews in magazines and newspapers vociferously. These days though, I’ll rarely find a review of my favorite niche artists in EG (The Age’s Entertainment Guide), it’s not that they’ve changed, I have.

It’s also a fact that the web is a better platform for music criticism. Read a review, listen to the song and watch the clip. In a very short space of time you can read a review, decide whether you like the music and (importantly) decide if you agree with the reviewer. If you like the reviewer you’ll return to them for more recommendations in the future.

Do you think there are any gaps or weaknesses in the Australian music blog community?

More industry specific music tech and music marketing blogs would be fantastic in Australia.

Also though, I’d love a really good blog about the Melbourne music community/scene (that’s where I live). I want regular pictures, reviews, discussion, issues, funny stuff, issues facing music in Melbourne. (Brisbane’s got Before Holywood which is great) If anyone wants to start a Melbourne version, I’ll contribute for you! If you don’t want to start one then I’ll try and set one up myself.

It occurs to me that there’s a great opportunity for Australian street press publications (Inpress, Beat, the Brag, Drum etc) to maintain their own blogs and fill that local scene blog niche, it seems such an easy fit, they’ve already got most of the content prepared on a weekly basis.

What’s thrilling your ears this week, and why?

Oh Mercy - Privileged Woes: No tricks, no gimmicks, nothing but great songs and great performances. They’re very charming live too. The Go-Betweens of 2009.

Oh Mercy: Pitchfork wielders.

The Nation Blue - Rising Waters: Smart, visceral, raucus and worldclass punk rock… I reckon they’re one of the most underrated bands in Australia.

Also, while I’ve got your attention, Chasm and Vida Sunshyne is (as far as I know) the first non-hip hop focussed album released by Obese Records. It’s dubstep/urban/reggae music and deliciously-produced, I feel like I’m going to play it a lot over summer!

You can read the AIR Independent Music Blog if you want… it’s at the AIR Charts website and features great Australian Independent Music that we’ve stumbled upon and posted.

How do you find new music?

I follow a lot of indie labels on twitter and if I’ve got a spare second, I’ll check out whichever act they’re tweeting about. I also read blogs; usually the name of a band reaches a critical mass where I just can’t ignore them anymore so I check them out. Then there’s good old word of mouth, an enthusiastic “dude, you’ve gotta check this out!” goes a long way.

Also, sometimes I’ll just take a risk, I buy a lot of music so sometimes I feel like going online and looking for some obscure Punk, Electronica or Jazz to buy it just to challenge myself… I’m always looking to remain musically stimulated! eMusic - which I don’t think you can use in Australia anymore - used to be great for that.

You can follow AIR/Nick on Twitter (@ozindies). More about AIR below.

Independent music is estimated to fluctuate between a 25% and 35% market share of Australian music sales. At the same time, independent music makes up approximately 80% of the total number of Australian releases. AIR represents a broader spectrum of genres and niches than major labels and a market share equal to, or more than at least two of the Australian major labels.

While the strength and variety of independent music here is heartening, it remains under-represented at a political level (the major’s 50% representation on PPCA and ARIA boards will effectively veto any decision that suits hundreds of smaller labels over the four majors) and is often neglected and undervalued by media and multi-nationals looking to license independent content. (MySpace music’s launch in Australia without licensing Merlin’s Australian member labels and AIR’s current collective bargaining negotiations with MTV are perfect examples).

It is AIR’s job to improve business conditions for indies through providing advocacy, collective licensing, support, advice, professional development, service provision, business networks and publicity for the independent sector. AIR publishes the Australian Independent Charts (The Jagermeister AIR Charts) and holds the annual Australian Independent Music Awards (The Jagermeister AIR Awards).

Jagermeister: AIR rider-approved.

You can buy Tickets to the Jagermeister AIR Awards at Ticketek. Less than $30 to see Dappled Cities, Bertie Blackman, CW Stoneking, Bridezilla and more… Plus some of the sponsor’s product thrown in as a bonus!

There appears to be a growing trend in the filmmaking world of the Make Us An Ad (or Music Video), Win A Prize style competition. The caveat of course is that you only win a prize if your video is selected, the rest of the entrants (i.e. the losers) don’t get their costs covered, but can sleep soundly knowing that their work and valuable ideas are now the property of some corporate entity. Overlooking the fact that these competitions are judged by people who lack the intelligence to know the value of concept creation (i.e. the importance of sitting down with a client and shaping the concept until both parties feel it is the best concept with which to proceed) it speaks of a deplorably dismissive attitude towards the value of the work of filmmakers.

Paul Rankin.

A friend recently directed me toward one such music video competition, Genero.TV, its point of difference being that there are sixteen songs, each from a different artist, to choose from. However, there remained only a single cash prize of $4,000. (There were some incidental prizes like DVDs, the total value of which is not worth detailing.) This means that fifteen other bands get a free music video, hand-picked from the selection of entries, which becomes a promotional tool (arguably a band’s most useful promotional tool) with no revenue going to the filmmakers, the ones who did all the work. That is to say, while your music video may be good enough to have the honour of Official Video bestowed upon it, it’s not good enough to warrant pay. There’s also every likelihood that the bands will then sell the music videos on iTunes, the revenue from which you’ll never see.

Bend over, assume the position.

But of course there is the one lucky winner who walks away with $4,000. Let’s do the math here: the best music video out of sixteen (not including the unsuccessful entries) deserves only $4,000? If the video is going to beat out the competition, it’s probably going to cost — that old chestnut: you can’t have good, cheap, and fast, only two — so $4,000 might just cover costs. Where’s the actual prize? Let’s assume that one-sixteenth of all music videos are great, and considering that in order to beat out however many other entries, the winning entry must be really great — are we to believe that the going rate for making a really great music video is $4,000? I must have just fallen really fucking far down the rabbit hole because that doesn’t cover much in the way of rent and food. And remember that these competitions are being judged by people who lacked the foresight to see any value in developing a concept with the filmmakers, so they’re probably not great judges on the whole. So, what happens to the other entrants, who, in all likelihood, are more talented and have better ideas than the victor? Well they’ve just wasted a bunch of time and money that they could have spent making something that directly furthers their career, something that they’re truly passionate about, that adds to the world rather than markets to it. And free from the guidelines of the competition, these filmmakers could have been making something that allows them true freedom of artistic expression, because let’s face it, the opportunities for personal artistic expression shrink dramatically when you’re making a film with someone else’s money.

Fan-sourcing music videos: opportunity, or rip-offortunity?

The counter argument is that the filmmakers are gaining “exposure” (a term that should be understood with such sarcasm that the quotation marks should be a mandatory fixture). Sure, maybe for the winner the champagne flows and the lucrative offers come rolling in. Maybe. Probably not. The “exposure” thing doesn’t make sense to me; I’m a subscriber to the Field Of Dreams business model: “if you build it, they will come”, and if you build something great (the kind of one-in-sixteen great) you won’t have to worry about some middleman providing this elusive “exposure”. Instead these style of competitions are unscrupulously peddling the filmmaking equivalent of the Get Rich Quick Scheme — they’ll provide the ready-and-willing recognisable brand (be it commercial or artistic) on which you can piggyback your talent and ability, and fast-track your way to filmmaking stardom. Just like those pyramid schemes, these should be avoided. Working on spec is nothing new, it’s not working for free, it’s the simple exchange of work for scarce opportunity. However, in these competitions there is no guarantee of opportunity — if you win, you receive opportunity but if you don’t, you’ve just done a whole lot of work for free.

But it’s not that much work. Music videos and TVCs, these are just things that one throws together in a weekend, right? Whether or not those who create these competitions understand the amount of work that quality music videos and TVCs demand (they likely don’t) is irrelevant — these competitions push a belief into the public consciousness that filmmaking is a throwaway hobby, something done in one’s downtime from earning money at a “real job”. The idea is that it’s great for the winner and no great loss for the losers, because filmmaking is a cheap and easy pastime, and hey, it’s just another weekend.

Paul Rankin is a Brisbane-based filmmaker. His latest work is ‘Shakeytown’ for Brisbane indie pop band I Heart Hiroshima (embedded below).

This is a guest post by Julian Ensbey.  Julian is a lawyer in London and one of the smartest people I have met.  I am very grateful for his thoughts, which are in response to my past assertion that music has never been better.  Julian puts forward a framework for measuring whether this is true.

The question of whether today’s music is better than that of any particular past era is one of those lazy lines of enquiry that can pad out twenty minutes of conversation between two fans without ever going anywhere.  Just like most conversations about sport (Punter v Sachin? 2006 Storm v 1998 Broncos?), the point of the conversation is ultimately for the participants to show off how much they know, rather than any expectation that the debate will go anywhere.

Punter. Sachin. Who’ll it be?

At least in music though, the question matters. The entire intellectual property law regime that defines the music industry depends on it.  Governments grant musicians a statute-enforced monopoly on the commercial distribution of their music only because the “State” accepts that it provides an “incentive” for the production of better music.

The logic seems simple. If talented musicians can cash in on their talents because they know they are entitled to sue anyone who distributes their music without permission, then in theory, those talented musicians have an incentive to work harder and turn down other careers. They can be confident their labour will be rewarded. The consumer pays a little more at the register, but if it wasn’t for the intellectual property protection, then high quality music would never be made and all of society would be worse off.

Pictured: modern man without music.

Is this hypothesis actually true? Much more than most other areas protected by intellectual property legislation - research into herbicides, design of microconductors - performing music has enormous intrinsic appeal. Many more garages are filled with talentless rock bands than talentless electrical engineers.  Perhaps money is not the key motivation.

It is true that musicians who earn enough to be able to work on their music full time have a big advantage and will, on average, produce more or better music than those who have to keep a day job. But beyond a minimum level of financial security, does more cash for the musicians actually lead to better music?  Would Kanye have thrown it all in to become a merchant banker if his only revenue was from gigs?

Kanye: letting Taylor finish.

The implications of this should be obvious. The debate over intellectual property rights and pirated music becomes redundant if no link can be shown. If there is no benefit to society, the government has no justification for keeping the laws on the books, let alone enforcing them.

Yet, there is no precise way to measure if music is getting better.  It is inherently a subjective assessment. Even if a measure existed for a statistical assessment, the number of external variables to control for is vast.

Nonetheless, because the question matters, it is important to try. Even an imprecise measure could inform the debate.

This disclaimer in mind, here is one attempt at how to approach the issue. Arguably, one legitimate measure of the quality of music is how many people go to see live performances.  Possibly it is the only one - radio is too often background noise and record sales numbers are undermined by piracy.

The crowd at your show. The only true measure?

Attendance at live music has risen in recent years. This in itself means little. It may reflect changes in income and lifestyle preferences rather than the quality of music. For example, it seems that the GFC has reversed the trend. A second measure is needed to control for these external variables.

One suitable control might be the live performances of old music - covers bands, opera and classical recitals. More or less, changes in attendance at these performances will be driven by income, lifestyle preferences and recessions, as the underlying performance is about the same. This change in attendance should be a rough measure of the impact of the changes in everything affecting the audience except the quality of the music.

If this holds true, then the percentage increase in attendance at new music, less the percentage increase in attendance at old music, is a rough proxy for the change in quality of music.

A graph of the change in the quality of music shown alongside a graph of changes in revenue would show a measure of the relationship between changes in revenue and changes in quality. If the lines on the graph don’t move together, then the case for copyright looks much weaker. If they track one another, then we should all care a lot more about what a post-piracy revenue model might look like.

Andrew,

After reading your personal blog and a selection of your music articles I think you might like the sounds of Melbourne duo The Peep Tempel.

Matt Hickey briefly wrote about this act last month, however I must admit, I did not provide much information about the band when I sent him the track. http://whothehell.net/archives/6035

The Peep Tempel are working with our small label Arbitrage Records and Loud Noise Entertainment and are set to release their debut 7″.

The duo Blake (Guitars/Vocals) and Steve(Drums/Vocals) are set to drop their 7″ - Thank You Machiavelli at the North Melbourne late night institution The Public Bar on Saturday the 7th of November.

I have included a link to both tracks off the 7″ - Thank You Machiavelli & Down at the Peep Tempel, plus a copy of their current press release, for your eyes and ears.

If you like The Peep Tempel’s take on boisterous indie rock and are interested in some more details, or could recommend other music writers who may appreccaite their sounds please drop me an email.

……..enjoy the tracks.

Adam

Arbitrage Records

Adam then linked directly to mp3s, a press release, the 7″ artwork, a hi-res photo of the band, their MySpace, and a music video on Vimeo (embedded below).

Here’s what I did.

1. Scanned the email. Appreciated the opening sentence about my writing.
2. Noted the reference to Matt Hickey - a friend of mine - and whothehell.net, a site I read regularly.
3. Ignored the mp3s, press release etc, and went to the band’s MySpace.
4. Played a track Adam mentioned - ‘Thank You Machiavelli’.
5. Gave them 30 seconds of my undivided attention.
6. Dug what I heard.
7. Clicked through to the Vimeo link Adam sent.
8. Started downloading the mp3s while the video loaded. Transferred the files from laptop to desktop computer.
9. Watched the video and listened to the tracks a couple of times.
10. Wrote this blog post.

Last month, Nick and I went to Perth for One Movement For Music; he as a panel moderator, and I as a reporter for the One Movement blog, which I’d edited since July.

Nick moderated a panel called “Busting Open Digital Myths“. My highlight of the panel was when Nick asked Simon Wheeler - Director of Digital at The Beggars Group, which consists of indie labels like 4AD, Matador Records and XL Recordings - about Beggars’ approach to online promotion, since they’re widely known and loved for allowing music blogs to repost free mp3s. Footage of Simon’s response is embedded below, as well as a transcription underneath.

Simon Wheeler:

“Everything we do is geared around a particular artist or release. One of the challenges we set ourselves - and it’s not a particularly scalable model - is that every campaign we put together around an artist or release is bespoke. It’s quite a labour-intensive way of working, but I think it’s very important that we try to do the record justice. When you’re working with very original artists making original pieces of work, I feel strongly that the marketing around that has got to be original as well.

There’s no standard practice to what we do. There’s a few common traits that we have. One that started in the US particularly is to make an mp3 available when we have an album coming out.

It’s kind of crazy how the music industry works; we shout and tell everyone about a new record. “It’s really exciting, it’s great, you can hear it on the radio.. oh, but actually, you can’t buy it for two or three months. Is that okay? Can you just not download it off of anywhere? Just wait two or three months, we’ll get it in the shops soon!”

So, going against that, we know that fans are passionate about an artist, and they’re very excited about a new album. So to be able to give them something to satiate that demand somewhat has been quite effective. There’s also the purpose of giving people a piece of music to ‘try before they buy’, if you like. We get a lot of love and a lot of coverage in the blog world, because I think our artists are very suited to that world.

We don’t give music blogs free reign, because you’d find that each blog would post a different track from the album, and so ten minutes after you’d publicised the album, people could just go and download the whole album (laughs).

So by making available one chosen, one focus track from a new album - much as you take a track to radio - there’s kind of an unwritten dialogue between us and the bloggers. We don’t tell them to post it, we don’t say they can’t post it; if people post the whole album, we’ll definitely say they can’t do that, and we’ll get it taken down. But they understand that if we post an mp3 to one of our label sites or blogs, then they won’t get any grief from us at all [if they repost it to their blog].

This really helps focus the campaign around a lead track, much as you do when taking a track to radio. There’s no new science here; this is just what the record industry has been doing for decades. We’re just applying that to the digital age.”

I knew that the Matador’s Matablog saw traffic and sales increase after adopting regular mp3 launches, but it was so refreshing to hear Simon’s response. He showed that Beggars Group understand the value in creating a dialogue with music bloggers, as well as giving fans a portable sample of a new album to take with them.

On a national level, contrast Beggars’ approach to what I see each week from major Australian labels, who release key tracks to radio using encrypted software, and who often disable the ability to save the audio file in a portable format.

The Beggars Group music blog strategy filters down to indie labels like Sydney’s Remote Control Records, whose blog regularly reposts promotional downloads from the likes of Matador, XL and 4AD. I interviewed their marketing director, Steve Cross, for Mess+Noise in October.

Simon’s outline above begs further research into how the group measures the return on the free mp3 promotional strategy. We’ll contact him for a guest post in the future, but I’m interested to know how Way Cool Jnr readers interact with label blogs.

Beyond Remote Control, EMI Music have maintained The In Sound From Way Out for over six months now. Though they’ve been shy about giving away too many mp3s just yet - check out the downloads page - their stream of the new Massive Attack EP ‘Splitting The Atom’ brought thousands of new visitors to the blog. (Disclosure: EMI is a Native Digital client)

Australian indie label Speak N Spell recently relaunched their site, which features a blog and free downloads. Sydney’s Difrnt Music are occasionally known to exchange songs for email subscriptions. And Melbourne-based boutique label Hobbledehoy took the unique approach of offering much of their catalogue for free download, in partnership with US provider Gimmesound.

Which other Australian labels see the value in using promotional mp3s to drive music sales and site traffic?

It’s been an amazing year.

Here’s just a brief post to recap the 10 best posts of WCJ’s first 12 months.  These are the posts that have been the most shared, have generated the most comments and direct feedback and my favourites in terms of their usefulness to other people.

Thanks to everyone who has left a comment or sent me an email.

I hope we’ll continue to be useful in the next 12 months.

1. My Favourite Songs and Albums of 2009
2. Music’s Never Been Better
3. The Online Artist Report Card
4. Ten Things We Can Learn From Coldplay’s Email Marketing
5. The Presets ‘Talk Like That’: 2008’s Best Digital Music Campaign?
6. A Conversation with a Major Label
7. The Future of Digital Music
8. The Top 25 Australian Music Blogs Updated
9. How To Get Music Bloggers To Write About You
10. My Thoughts on The Launch of We Are Hunted

Way Cool Jnr hosted a guest post from Andrew McMillen earlier this year on how bands should best utilise their Twitter accounts. You should check that post for some useful tips and cautionary advice, such as “don’t over-follow people,” and “reply to every @mention you receive.” All of that is important Twitter etiquette on which you will be judged and against which your success as a Tweeter measured.

As Andrew said, offering a free download via Twitter is a good way of connecting with those following you, and if you’re famous enough/your content is interesting enough to generate coverage on its own then then this may even attract some new followers. That said, another way to offer that same content and also guarantee your name pops up on new ‘Tweetdecks’ is by ‘charging’ fans a Tweet.

This isn’t revolutionary stuff, but it’s yet to see a mass uptake. I assume it’s because people have limited their outlook on what function those 140 characters can have. Beyond just sending information and updates to previous fans, encouraging people to Tweet back places equal value on what the fan writes to you just as much as what you write to your fans. You could say that you’re getting 280 characters for half the price and with a much broader readership.

So what’s the principle behind it?

The idea is a fairly straightforward one and not that far removed from what Andrew reported earlier but with a slight twist. Simply, rather than posting direct links to downloads etc on your Twitter account, you request that a fan mention you in a reply tweet in order to get the bonus content (or something similar). Companies like Culture Jam have recently brought a ‘Tweet-to-download’ application to the market, what they call a “new value proposition” that equates tweeting with paying in the form of incidental and fairly effortless exposure.

This is far from a large expectation on the fan’s part, and it will mean that not only will fans be accessing your content through Twitter as before, but that your band will be popping up to all their followers (possibly even multiple times depending on cross-over) and is a simple but effective way of getting attention.

Here are 5 reasons why this is a good avenue for promoting your band:

1. Your name will spread more. If you post a simple link then followers need only click-through to get the content. Some may post courtesy ‘thanks’ tweets, but your content is limited largely to only those that already follow you. While this arrangement will undoubtedly keep your fans happy, there is little reason to suggest it will draw in new followers the above method will.

2. It reaches new fans via a more ‘reliable’ channel. Unscrupulous social-networking musicians have made users wary even of the most genuine Tweeter. Even if you follow Andrew’s advice, it’s still expected that in reaching out to people you are transparently promoting your own work, which makes you something of an unreliable witness. When someone is alerted to you and your online presence via a mention from their friend, it comes from someone they already know and trust, and without the agenda that the band themselves undoubtedly have. This endorsement feels more genuine because IT IS more genuine, and thus is more likely to convert to new followers while reflecting well on you as a band.

3. It’s effortless for the fan. Admittedly, not quite as effortless as simply clicking a link, but if they’re perusing your post then it’s fair to assume they’re already logged in and simply have to hit ‘reply’ to fulfill your requirements.

4. Offers more engagement for the fan. As much as fans like free stuff and new content, they also like to interact with the band and become participants. Promoting exclusives this way encourages fans to contact you directly and makes them incidental marketers of your band in the process.

5. Your name and online presence accrue value. Unless you’re a super obscure indie band then being talked about is actually a good thing. Like all aspects of popular culture, the more you are talked about and recognised, the more purchase and appeal you have. Diplo probably won’t need this strategy since 37, 000 followers says more than a few hundred mentions, but it’s the same principle of value at work (and who knows, maybe he wants those extra followers anyway). Until you wield such a bloated online profile, the ‘tweet-as-pay’ method is a good way of demonstrating to new fans that you are worth paying attention to.

So, next time you want to give away a remix/live recording/free ticket via Twitter, consider adopting this approach and observe the coverage it breeds. If you do try this out - or have already - then please let us know your thoughts on it in the comments section.

I have a forthcoming interview with Dew Process’s digital media manger Carney Nir, who recently ran one of these campaigns with Yves Klein Blue with Culture Jam. I’ll be interested to hear her take on why this is a good way of promoting your band online.

There’s a difference between ‘best of’ and ‘favourite’ lists.  Everyone agrees Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s everyone’s favourite.

Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear will make every ‘best’ list this year.  Their albums were imaginative, technically inspiring, brave and challenging.

But they wouldn’t make my favourite list.  Sure, some of their songs did but their full albums never grabbed my attention and held me.  I didn’t wake up needing to hear them.

This is a music marketing blog mostly.  But the only reason music marketing matters is that it helps people connect with music that changes their lives.  And this is the music that’s changed my life this year.  And I hope that at least some of it changes yours.

Paul Dempsey - Everything Is True

Something For Kate’s ‘Echolalia’ is one of my favourite ever albums.

Paul (SFK’s lead singer) is one of my favourite songwriters.  As soon as I knew this album was coming, I knew it was going to dominate my life for at least a month.  But it went further than that.  It’s still with me most days a full four months after I first heard it.

Animal Collective - ‘My Girls’

I’ll never be able to hear this song and not connect to this year.  That intro is amazing.

Miike Snow

I saw Miike Snow bubble up on We Are Hunted and did nothing because I thought it sounded like it would be bad white rap.  Then Taylor McKnight Tumbld about it and I looked again.  It was really, really good.  That very same day, while I was looking for the new Mos Def album in my shelves, I came across a copy of Miike Snow’s album, still in plastic, amongst a pile of Inertia releases I’d been given (thank you, thank you, thank you Mark Dodds).  I put the record on and then I just played it constantly, all the way through, over and over.  I think it’s ruined relations with our neigbours.  Less hype, but better than Passion Pit’s ‘Manners’.

Alberta Cross - ‘Broken Side of Time’

This was sent to me by Asho - the man behind the Way Cool Jnr name - and one of the people whose taste in music I most trust.  I heard 10 seconds of this record and I knew I loved it.  I am still in the thick of it, playing it over and over.  It’s like Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket, but heavier.  Brilliant.

Jonathan Boulet - ‘Community Service Announcement’

I heard Triple J playing this one morning in the car and it just blew me away.  I had to go to JPlay when I got home and track it down.  It’s one of those singles from an unsigned artist that makes you scratch your head and say - “how did you do that?”.  An A&R guy I know dissected this song for me recently.  He said the most amazing part was at the end, where Boulet makes you think the song’s about to end on that coda - and then kicks back in all over again.  I bought the album on the strength of that song.  The album’s not like the song, but it’s still really good.

Ellie Gould - ‘Starry Eyed‘

After telling the aforementioned A&R person how much I liked the Florence and the Machine singles, they suggested I’d like Ellie Goulding even more.  They were right.  Such a great piece of electronic pop.  Sounds better to my ears than anything La Roux or Little Boots has written.

Grizzly Bear - ‘Two Weeks’

Enough’s been said about this song.  It’s perfect.

Something I’ve never quite figured out is why people don’t think this sounds exactly like ‘Gone’ off Kanye West’s ‘Late Registration.  Listen:

Yeasayer - ‘Tightrope’

From the ‘Dark Was Night’ compilation, by far the standout in an amazing field (Bon Iver, Cat Power, Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine, My Morning Jacket).

Phoenix - ‘Lisztomania’

Such a return to form for one of my favourite bands.

Neko Case - ‘People Gotta Lotta Nerve’ + Wild Light - ‘California On My Mind’

These two came to me on the same morning via the epic: TSURURADIO Presents… An Extremely Premature Most Awesomest Tsururific Albums Of 2009 Mixtape!!!

I love both these songs.  Short, perfect pieces of pop.

Drake - ‘Best I Ever Had’

As a mixtape obsessive, my greatest challenge this year has been to create a mixtape that’s good for lifting weights at the gym.  The first one I did had The Decemberists on it.  I soon discovered they are the worst workout music possible.  Fortunately, Drake’s ‘Best I Ever Had’ landed in my ears via my Twitter feed.  It’s simultaneously the best and worst film clip of all time, directed by Kanye, of course.

‘Best I Ever Had’ changed the whole direction of my gymixtapes which now look like this:

Jonski & Alex - ‘Riceboy Sleeps’

Sometimes music serves a practical purpose and ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ has been my late night album.  One of the defining things about this year has been how hard I’ve been working and this album (alongside 808s and Heartbreak) has pushed me through many hours of late-nights and early mornings.

Passion Pit - ‘Manners’

This album leaked so heavily through the blog-world that by the time I got it, it felt slightly overplayed.  It’s entirely my fault, I had these songs spinning so frequently for so many weeks.  It’s the most inspiring and uplifiting album I’ve heard in a long time and as the US was putting it on for summer, I was getting used to my first ever Adelaide winter.

What has been your favourite song or album this year?

We do not recommend Sing365.

According to Hitwise, these are the top 10 ‘Music’ sites in Australia for July 2009.

1. MetroLyrics
2. Ultimate Guitar Archive
3. Last FM
4. A-Z Lyrics Universe
5. ninemsn Music
6. Sing365.com
7. LyricsMode.com
8. Take40
9. Lyrics007.com
10. inthemix.com.au

Source: Hitwise Australia - www.hitwise.com.au*

Five Reactions

1. Are MetroLyrics paying royalties to publishers?  The content of the most popular music site in Australia (and 5 of the top 10 sites) is strictly owned by the publisher.  Are publishers aware of this?
2. Last.FM, I love you.  This list is dominated by shitty, ugly, cheap sites and yet you (and In The Mix) stand alone as true, community driven, music loving sites.
3. People looking for music online are looking for lyrics (5 of the top 10 sites) - not music.
4. NineMSN Music.  Why is the 5th most popular music site in Australia never talked about, referenced, discussed, loved or hated in any of the conversations I have about music online?  Are all the people obsessing about Hype Machine, Pitchfork and NME missing the point?
5. Bravo In The Mix.  A true Australian music community that clearly matters to a lot of people.

In Detail

*These rankings are based on market share of visits to websites in these industries by Australian Internet Users.  MySpace isn’t included because its categorised as a social networking site.  According to Hitwise:

“The ‘Music’ category “features all sites that are primarily concerned with music. Record companies, music download sites, music stores, band sites, fan sites and information about the playing of instruments are examples of such sites.”