You're absolutely right about reaching people the way they want it, not the way we want it. My point was about how difficult it is to say just what you sound like. Someone who attempts to create something unique and personal can't easily turn around and put it into a pre-existing catagory.

This is why we need the intermediaries- the producers and programmers and A&R and all the functionaries that the industry relies on to place music. The difference is, we can't afford to pay them.

New structures are emerging that can perform this "filtering" function. I know at least one net radio station, Whole Wheat Radio, whose playlist is determined both by the listeners and the owners, and the quality there is consistantly excellent. I'm sure there are many others.

On a personal level, most of the new music I hear about is through friends who know my general tastes and preferences. I can easily imagine a review site that serves the same purpose- a music fan whose tastes happen to agree with mine, and who likes to talk about music.

I think we need to encourage this sort of thing. Let listeners decide what fits into their "playlist", and get them talk about why they love this music. It takes talent and ability to do this in an entertaining way, but probably for every musician trying to make something happen, there is a listener who would like to share their discoveries with the world.

Finding out who you sound like is as simple as asking people who like your music. Another approach is to find out what artists THEY are also listening to and liking.

Most of the digital music sites already indicate the most popular tracks that people are buying or requesting. We've been talking with the Virgin folks about creating an indie artist subset to their site which would do this as well. There's plenty of data for the major artists but right now the numbers are so small for indie artists, it's hard to get a useful "most popular" or even recommended list based on the user info. However, we're talking about using our award nominees to help start the recommended lists and keep the quality new releases and best sellers/most requested lists up as well as offering up recommendations from artists who have found success in our awards process. I think that could turn into a very cool thing for everyone. It's only in discussion phase, but these types of things are happening with many if not all the digital sites.

The reality is that indies will never "take over" the industry though. There will always be companies with large budgets who can offer a certain rock star dream to someone that doing the indie way just never will. Sure, an indie artist now and then might break through with a hit that takes off.. it happens now as well.. but the star making machine that creates the household names will likely neve be recreated in the indie artist format without big media companies helping out. And once they do, those folks stop being indie artists.

First, you gotta be good. But think of what it means to be a singer-songwriter alone. It takes a LOT of energy to write, re-write, record. Just being a songwriter.

If you had even just ONE person helping with marketing, you could MORE than double your effort if the person is full-time. But how could you pay a person like that? S/he would have to come to the table with another income source.

How could you pay such a person? Seriously, what kind of deal? Man, that would be hard to figure out.

1. Fame and the "Rock Star Dream" which is only offered and served via the major label/corporate system. Too many people dream of it for us to ignore it and pretend it's not a valid pursuit.

2. Making an actual living doing what you love, without the fame, but with the ability to do it your way and approach it without having to compromise your artistic vision.

We don't pretend there isn't a great appeal to being a star and having a million people love your music. We have a small percentage of our membership who have the talent, the marketability and the stamina to pursue that type of success with a chance of making it happen. I wish everyone could have that fame if that's what they desired, but even if 100% of our members were 100% qualified, there's only a very tiny number of slots to find that success. We try to educate and nurture folks about the facts and realities of pursuing the major label dream.

For the other 98%, we work very hard to offer a pathway to a human scale success story. We work to find ways for people to get extra gigs, a few more fans for their music, better ways to create that music and a community to nurture and inspire them through the process. Both sides exist in the real world. Most people start off only believing the first exists. It's "Rock Star" or nothing. My hope is that for those who just don't have "Rock Star" talent, musical ability or marketability or just random good luck it often requires, they will then take a look at other ways to make the music they want, in the way they want, and possibly either make a living from it or at least find ways to make that life and pursuit easier and more effective.

The major labels are not all evil. The machines of major corporations are inhuman because they force most of the human factors out of the process. When you're selling items in the millions, you can't effective deal with humans on an individual basis. It's like the old quote "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." And so it is with major corporations.

If any of us where put in the middle of a major corporate music company, we'd either adjust to that scenario, or be quickly drummed out. I've worked on both sides of that fence, I really understand it very well. So, there's definite benefits to going corporate and trying to become a rock star. And there are huge downsides. The same can be said doing it the indie way. There are lots of freedoms you'll never get in the corporate life, but you're not likely going to get the limo treatment with movie stars/starlets hanging off your arms and the big mansion in the Hollywood.

Because I have spent my dues in Corporate America and as a starving artist I think it allows me to respect the plusses and minuses on both sides. And there are just as many evil people in the indie community as there are in any major label system. I always get tired of the black and white hatred many have for the "system" when we know that most of them would jump at a chance to be in the middle of it all. (And before anyone even tries it, I don't care to hear "Not me.. I would never sell out to the major labels if they came to me with a million bucks and offered to make me and my music famous." It's easy to say that when it's never going to happen for you.. but not when it's a reality facing you.

I've been called worse than an enigma, but if you read everything I've written as a collection in the last 7 years, I think I have been consistent.

Good answer about genres- just asking people who you remind them of, or what genre they'd put you in is a good way to go. I usually get "Tom Petty" and I'm OK with that.

Interesting coincidence that today I posted some thoughts about the differences between indie and major label music on my site just before I came here and read the last several posts in this discussion. If anyone wants to weigh in there, I'd be delighted to hear from you-

http://tippytoe.multicasttech.com/somewhereoutwest/paper.html

Jeff

I think it's still a great idea

Ande

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Ande Rasmussen
AndeRasmussen@aol.com
http://www.AndeRasmussen.com
http://songramp.com/ande
http://www.soundclick.com/anders
http://www.MySpace.com/anders

I'm still at around 20 sponsors, but these are people who are truly interested in what I'm doing in my studio.

I still haven't launched any particular campaign to increase sponsorship. I did create a bumper-sticker at Cafe Press! But the last conversation I had with an audience member after a show convinced me that it's got to be a real soft sell. This woman was enthusiastic about our music (it was a blues gig) and she was interested in the studio and what I was doing there, but the instant I mentioned that I was running on sponsorships her guard went up. And this was someone for whom $20 would have been a small tip for lunch. Go figure.

ande

quote:

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Originally posted by DukeWill:
Jeff, IMO, $20 doesn't seem like a sponsorship. If you're serious about it, I'd say make it $200 and find some serious contributors. Sell your dream. Plus, also go with the $20 in your hip pocket as a fall-back and call those 'contributors'. And give them a CD or something as a thank you. Some thoughts I've had on doing the same.

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The other thing about this idea is they got a lot of feedback from the kids about how they helped the kids who were involved in bands to look at promoting their own music in small homegrown ways instead of just dreaming about the major label deal.