Music Without Labels Looking for Daily Indie Music Bloggers

We’re willing to pay an existing daily blogger $50 a week to allow us to post their blogs on our website, http://www.MusicWithoutLabels.com We’re looking for blogs relevant to indie music news. We will take care of posting the blogs on our site, we just want permission to post them. So for daily bloggers, nothing will change except for an extra weekly $50. Depending on the quality of the blogs we will negotiate prices. Our company develops online tools for independent artists that include free promotion and MANY MANY other things. To learn more about us, watch our About us vid. Currently it is not the best quality, so it only exists on our myspace page. http://myspace.com/beatplay HD quality will be coming very soon to our site. There is also information about us on our forums. If you are interested, please reply to me at Dante@musicwithoutlabels.com, or reply to this post. Thanks!

Radiohead Sets Another Example by Saying Good Riddance to the Album

Okay, so the traditional album is dead - Get over it. The album died when the physical product of a CD, cassette, etc. lost prominence and importance amongst the average consumer. This may make the true music fanatic question the artistic integrity of a musician - Singles? I want a body of work. But what does this really mean?  The album, for all practical matters, is just a figment of our imagination - created by the limited amount of storage space on a CD and an industry standard set by hegemonic major labels. Most albums contain a few hits and the rest acts as almost a filler. There are definitely albums that can be considered an entire piece of work, take Dark Side of the Moon for example, but these albums are few and far between. Today, consumers seek out something from artists that couldn’t be produced at such scale before the advent of the internet: content and lots of it.  

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We're All Sales People. What's Your Style?

You may not identify yourself as a salesperson, but rest assured you’re doing some selling. Whether it’s selling tickets, selling downloads or selling your drummer on the idea that he needs to start taking showers - you are in the business of selling.

The approach that you take says a lot about how you view the world. What you believe about yourself, your product and the people who you are selling to, will determine your level of fulfillment and success.

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Artist Positioning... The next generation of Artist Development

Here’s the problem… traditional artist development addresses neither. An artist’s identity is normally decided or molded by some guy in a suit who’s met the artist 1-3 times. How can an artist connect with a fan if they aren’t comfortable in their own skin? The skin isn’t even their’s. And, everyone knows it isn’t immediate. How many horror stories have you heard about a band being in a “development” deal for two years? Only to be eventually shelved because their A&R rep got fired.

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The Culture of Underground Hip-Hop

It has been my observation that artist do not want to pay producers or the creator of the music for their time, work, and creativity. It seems to be the same with churches, imo. Clergy oftentimes criticize musicians for seeing a “music ministry” as a gig. What is interesting to me is the apparent hipocrisy of the artists. They pay the hair stylist, the graphic designer, the mastering engineer and even they want to get paid for their show performances. Yet, they don’t want to pay the music producer. Any thoughts?

Maybe this isn’t just a “black” thing. Maybe it’s commonplace throught the entire music industry. Or maybe it’s neither; maybe it’s just me. 

When Your Funds Are Low - Employ Your Fans For Cheap Volunteer Labor

Everyone is horrified there is going to be no money in the music industry. If there is no money then it is impossible for record labels to employ people to work hard for your band to get you more exposure. While we personally think there will be plenty of money to go around - what do you do if you are one of the 99% of bands who don’t have the power of a label to push them? It is actually more simple than you think. Below I will tell you how to start a fan based movement to give you the power of a record label and improve bonding with your fans.

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Defending Your Image

Your best asset in creating a favorable image is to realize that your public and private personas are very much intertwined. Transparency is something that is difficult, but required if you are to become an independent artist today.

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The Joy of Songwriting

Ah ha!! This morning I realized that writing a song is very much like cooking! Perhaps I thought of it because in the car on the way home from dropping my son at daycamp I heard on NPR a review of a movie about Julia Childs. When I got home I set to work sketching out a new song and it came to me that I’m engaged in “The Joy of Songwriting”!

So, that’s the premise—here’s the connection. A delicious meal evolves through a set series of lovingly tended stages. My songs emerge through a comparable process. I hope the results are delicious!

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How Do You Obtain Your Fans?

This past weekend ended up being a pretty interesting experience for my band and I. We gained some new fans in some pretty interesting ways….

Us banditos were supposed to shoot a music video last weekend but that unfortunately fell through (and our drummer lost his job in the process!).

SO - To lift our spirits, we decided to jam out & write some new material. After about an hour into our practice session, we get a knock at the door. First thought - Shit, the cops.

We did not hear the knock, but our buddy hanging out in the next room over did hear it and answered the door. Next thing we know, some gigantic drunk man with long hair barrels in yelling “YES!! I FINALLY FOUND THE MUSIC!!!”

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American Idol Take 2 or another take.

After all the media from last week about American Idol and whether it was fixed or if Paula is coming back, I was asked by a few people to repost and recycle this blog from earlier in the year. This was written right before the beginning of last season, but I think it still relevant.

“Are you the next American Idol?”

Realistically? Nope. Not a freaking chance.

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5 Online Marketing Essentials for Musicians

With so much noise and confusion in the world of online marketing I thought it might be useful to lay out some basic starting points to form the foundation of a successful campaign. Here are 5 things that, in my opinion, are essential to maximum online exposure.

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Five reasons you will fail in the music business

These are five of the top reasons why you will fail at a music career. It may sound like it is coming off a little harsh. That’s because it is.

Too many musicians put too much energy and effort into talking about why things have not happened or why things are not working for them. Everyone has reasons, justifications and rationale to explain why they are failing, yet these same artists do not take the steps to problem solve, change direction, learn, educate or empower themselves with the knowledge and the tools to change the path.

Egos are a sensitive thing and musicians, as well as other artists, are very sensitive. Add stubbornness and delusions of grandeur to ego and you get a failure trifecta. The music industry has changed. It is not what it was twenty five years ago and, hell, it is vastly different than what it was even five years ago.

It’s the musician’s responsibility to learn the industry and the changes that are currently happening. Then formulate a clear understanding of what has to happen in order to ensure success. You must have problem solving skills. You must have the tools and patience to do the drudge work. You must watch for mistakes and missteps just as you watch for opportunities and new avenues. It is crucial to make corrections to keep yourself on the path to success.

Here are five of the top reasons or excuses for failure that I hear all too often. I’ve listed the reasons why they are bad and a way to look at them in a different light.

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When I’m Mobile and Radio Paradise launch first-ever mobile internet radio website

New York, NY – July 31, 2009… Mobile web design and development concern When I’m Mobile, and leading internet radio station Radio Paradise, have joined together to launch Radio Paradise Mobile on July 6, 2009. The first internet radio station website designed for a mobile phone web browser, the site is fully optimized for all mobile devices. When I’m Mobile principle Jonathan Thaler says that “The Radio Paradise Mobile website is highly interactive and preserves almost all the functionality of the main website, enhancing and spreading Radio Paradise’s community focus”.

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Five Ways to Create an Engaging Artist/Musician iPhone App

Yesterday, I posted an analysis on 10 iPhone artist/musician applications and their content strategies. After analyzing my findings and thinking about what is currently available in the music app world, I came up with five content strategy suggestions for musicians, marketers, app developers, and labels to create more engaging and value-oriented artist/musician apps. Each of these strategies offers some sort of value to the music fan that will always keep them coming back and may one day create a valuable revenue stream for some artists. 

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