8 Of The Best Songs To Sing While Driving

Don’t deny it — some songs bring out your inner karaoke spirit when they come on in the car, forcing you to do nothing but sing along and headbang. Forget about the stares from vehicles in the lane next to you, you’ve got the joy and are feeling the music; if they could only be so lucky! You already have your list of personal favorites, but what are some universally beloved songs that you must sing to in the car?

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MC Till Newsletter

I read this very thought provoking newsletter from rapper MC Till last month about how hip hop needs to grow up, or better said, capitalism needs to grow up. I love what Till had to say, and felt compelled to add to it.

Anyway, here’s MC Till’s excellent newsletter editorial, followed below by my response based on what I’ve seen and experienced in the urban music industry.

Ladies and Gentlemen, MC Till:

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What Makes A Great Electro-Acoustic Guitar

The acoustic guitar is the ideal song-writer’s tool and is often purchased as a first introduction to the amazing world of music. We’ll need to look at how guitars work to understand the differences in the huge variety of guitars. 

There are two popular primary types; acoustic and electric, and then you get something called the Acoustic-Electric. What are the differences? It is not quite a hybrid, as the name would indicate.

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What I Wish (Indie) Musicians Understood

I’ve been working with recording “artists” and musicians most of my adult life. For the past 10 years exclusively I’ve been either managing or developing (or both) artists and bands in the USA and around the world. Since the music industry is going through a major paradigm shift (mainly thanks to digital downloads) it’s always interesting to see how musicians adapt and how their expectations change.

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8 Reasons To Enter A Band Competition

Band contests don’t pay, but can be useful if they fit in your plan to invest in your band.

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Where The Money Went In Recorded Music (And How To Get It Back)

The perceived value of recorded music is free, and always has been! When we pay for music in any format, what are we actually buying?

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Becoming A Six Figure Artist Part 1

What I’m going to show you isn’t for everyone.  It does take some work to set up.  But if you are willing to make a few phone calls, this will allow you to reach more people with your music and make a bigger difference. 

It comes down to three main things:

• Filling your studio
• Filling your gigs
• A magic ingredient that I will tell you about later.

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3 Common Sense Songwriting Tips

Songwriting can brutal for amateurs and even seasoned veterans. There’s the pressure of getting it right the first time. There are the long hours in the studio. There’s the fatigue, the anxiety and of course the pressure to create the song(s) to make or break your career. It’s a tough and thankless task because despite the hours and effort you put in a song’s creation, it may flop — it may flop badly. However, the following three tips will help you hit the mark more often than not.

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10 Things Sun Ra Can Teach Us About Band Leadership

Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, 1914–1993) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his “cosmic philosophy,” prolific musical output, and energetic experimental big-band performances. He widely claimed (and legitimately believed) he was born on Saturn and was over 5,000 years old.

Ra released over 200 albums, many of which were home-recorded to tapes that he copied himself or cut to vinyl in small batches and sold at shows. He pioneered a lot of experimentation with technology in jazz and free jazz starting as early as the 1950s in Chicago. A funny tidbit about Sun Ra is that as he was experimenting with early synthesizer keyboards, electronics and tape delay, he was given one of the first prototypes of the Minimoog by Robert Moog to play around with before it even went on the market.

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Innovation, Our New Job As The Music Industry

I released my first music video, “Rocket to the Moon” today. As a new artist with a low starting fanbase I understood I wouldn’t be able to get much press write up for my music video unless I presented something never seen before. So that’s what I did, I created “The World’s First Portrait Music Video”, and the press followed. It is our new job as the Music Industry to lead innovation.

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What New Artists And Managers Can Learn From The Everly Brothers

Recently a friend who has the advantage of being an astute student of the music business from the outside - the advantage being that he doesn’t have to rely on the music business to make a living – threw out the trial balloon statement that what we should be looking for is the next Everly Brothers.

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How to Increase the Reach of Your Music

Clients on board of Symphonic Distribution have a lot of offerings, but above all, they have choice. Our clients can choose when they want to deliver their content and where they want to deliver it. That choice is not easily found with our competitors, as some won’t even let clients have a direct account on a partner that the distributor is not delivering to (we call that ridiculous).

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What question do YOU have about creating success in today's music industry?

What questions do you have as you pave your path in the music industry?

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Royalty Fraud

From cheating managers and promotors to IRS issues and straight up financial mismanagement, there are many reasons the list of music legends who have lost it all is a long one.  David Acosta, CPA is an expert in helping music artists navigate and protect themselves from the financial downside of the music industry. Here’s what he has to say regarding royalty fraud.

How does royalty fraud happen?

There are many variables when it comes to royalty distribution and the calculation of rates. It is an extremely complex and controversial process.  Not only do rates vary by type (CDs, digital, streaming, television and film, video games) but the calculation of royalties is different for songwriters, publishers and the recording artist. As Courtney Love pointed out in her letter to music artists, “Record companies also reduce royalties by “forgetting” to report sales figures, miscalculating royalties and by preventing artists from auditing record company books.”

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