The X-Factor In Music Uncovered Reveals The Anatomy Of Hit Songs

What makes a great song? A catchy melody? Definitely. Killer lyrics? Possibly. But if you really want to know what helped Mark Ronson shift 14 million copies of Uptown Funk in an age where piracy and streaming rule, research suggests you may have to dig a little deeper.

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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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Why It's Important To Develop Your Strengths If You Want To Grow As Musician

Yesterday I saw a great quote:
“Success is achieved by developing your strengths, not by eliminating your weaknesses.”
It’s from Marilyn vos Savant. She’s known for having the highest IQ.

Think about it. It sounds quite logical. Weaknesses can be distracting. Eliminating your weaknesses is like eliminating the weed around a young tree. By eliminating your weaknesses, you eliminate some of the distractions that prevent you to focus on your goal, like growing your career as musician.

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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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Music & Fashion Pt Deux

In our last blog about Music & Fashion, we highlighted how these two elements can come together to make a powerful force in the entertainment and fashion industries. You can take that on and allow yourself as an indie artist to be a part of that force. Today, music artists are setting the latest fashion trends. Consumers are being inspired by what today’s hottest artists are wearing on red carpets, interviews, appearances, concerts, and even on their social media during random outings. Some wardrobe choices are only meant for the stage however, fans are constantly wondering, “What are they wearing? How can I get it?” This blog can go for up & coming fashion moguls as well. You want your clothes to have more exposure in your industry, team up with a great artist to help build that brand. Gain their fans as future customers.

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Meet the digital love-child of MTV and Rolling Stone magazine

My team and I run an indie music blog that we’re turning into a streaming service & indie zine — sort of a digital love-child of MTV and Rolling Stone magazine. We’re doing everything radically different, starting with a financial model that makes digital work for artists (instead of the other way around).

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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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Hey YouTube! 750 indies have signed the Fair Digital Deals Declaration

The 32 pages long YouTube horror story

Some time ago I happened to read the long, horrible contract that YouTube asked indie labels to sign for launching their new premium streaming service. A copy of the leaked contract is here but I guess you won’t go far: their legal patois is unintelligible to a normal human being.

The contract is not only horrible to read: it is also greatly unfair toward indies. So indies promptly replied by taking off content from YouTube (Adele was said to be missing although I was much more concerned about XX and Anna Calvi).

Indies’ next bold move

Now it seems that indies have taken another move toward the Cupertino’s giant: more than 750 of them have signed the Fair Digital Deals Declaration (and notwithstanding the longish hashtag #fairdigitaldeal4artists, they quickly created a buzz on twitter), an initiative launched by the WIN- Worldwide independent network, that represents the interests of independent labels.

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Warner Music Group Collaboration with Shazam Creates Hybrid Record Label

By Zach Rickers

In February of 2014, Warner Music Group and Shazam announced that they would enter into a “strategic collaboration” in which Warner would have access to Shazam’s user data and Shazam would have access to exclusive Warner content.¹  Currently, when a user hears a song that they like, whether it is at a restaurant or on the radio, they can open up the Shazam application on their smartphone and hold the phones microphone to the speaker which will then analyze and identify the song title and artist that the user is listening to.²  Once a song is identified, the app logs data such as the time of day the song was “tagged”, the song being identified, and even where the song was tagged (if the user has location services enabled).³  This is the sort of data that Warner plans to use not only for A&R, but also for marketing and promotion purposes.

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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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New Start-Up Provides Independent Musicians and Labels with One-Stop Solutions

Happy Dog Music is one of a handful of marketing centered music start-ups that are a product of the seismic shift that has taken place in the music industry in the last ten years. Happy Dog Music crafts and implements custom marketing campaigns and provides any other ancillary support clients may need during the course of the agreement. Unlike the typical record label deal, Happy Dog Music clients retain 100% of all rights. Happy Dog Music provides major label support without all of the strings that come attached to a major record deal.

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Post-Show Procedures: 8 Things Every Band Should Do After the Performance

Do you have a post-show plan? Is there a set of procedures that you work on after each performance? Or, does your band simply work on the next upcoming event – the next show, the next rehearsal, time in the studio, etc.?

In almost every professional endeavor, there is some kind of routine or review period to measure performance or follow-up with customers:

• In sports, the coach diligently sits down with the entire team to review footage of the previous game. Team member celebrate successes and most importantly, look for areas of improvement.

• In corporate business, the board of directors and executive staff look over stock performance and make decisions to keep their shareholders satisfied.

• In the arts, performers carefully review each element of the show to see what delighted audiences and what could use work.

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The Complete Musician's Guide to Spotify

Spotify has unveiled one hell of a lot of features for independent artists these past few weeks. To be honest, I had a hard time sifting through what a lot of the new features were, namely; why getting an artist “verified” mattered at all, what the point of playlists were, and what Spotify analytics could do that other types of data couldn’t.

I’ve done my best to put the new Spotify features into laymans terms to help you understand what they do AND how you can get them up and running so your Spotify profile kicks just as much ass as a major label artist. I’ve also included 6 promotional tips at the bottom of the article to help you leverage Spotify’s new artist tools to gain new fans and more plays on the music-streaming service.

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New Website to find live shows to play

Literally was just launched yesterday, working on gaining a user base, what are your thoughts?

www.zaffalu.com