I hate to say it, but every time I have an idea or two about how musicians might be able to embrace the web to further their career, it’s always the musicians themselves who write in with the most negative comments. This suggests to me that there is a distinct lack of ideas amongst musicians on how to provide some extremely useful, brilliant and compelling content that will attract the attention of millions of online music fans. I don’t have an answer for that nor do I pretend to know what that looks like. What I do know, is that I have a forum here that is populated by 100′s of thousands people interested in music who visit every week looking for something new, so I’m always going to use it to provide room for discussion and debate.
The current comments are landing on the post of my SXSW Magazine interview where I discuss ideas about the future of online music. Below is a response from me, to someone who wrote asking me to be more specific about my ideas for musicians and how to embrace the web. I challenge the idea that there can be any specific solution. Asking that of me suggests that the writer doesn’t understand that the web is a don’t-ask-permission-just-do-it arena where we all have access to be the biggest digital sandbox on Earth. Please join the conversation here.
In reply to: morris1948
Morris(?)
Let’s start and end with this idea – “Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.” – Brian Eno.
First, my many years discussing music business issues on panels has had nothing to do with either saying “please hire me” or “I know best.” The panels simply provide a forum for new ideas to be floated or discussed. I also don’t have anything to sell to you if you’re a musician. And I made it clear in this essay Dear Musicians Please Be Brilliant Or Get Out of The Way that after this year’s SXSW I would stop appearing on panels that only discussed musicians and the web, as I am not seeing any progress – particularly from the musicians themselves.
So to your point – you ask me to be a “lot more specific.” In all the time that I have been speaking on panels I have noticed some really bad traits that musicians display. One of them, before the internet spoiled things for them, was to sign up for a conference like SXSW and head out as if all the answers and problems for their careers could be answered by paying a lot of money to sit through a panel or two, and then thrust a tape or a CD into the hands of a panelist. That was a useless and expensive strategy of course, but hardly one that would derail a career.
Currently, the bad trait is to ignore the fact that access to the social web, and the Internet at large, created one of the biggest societal breakthroughs in history. It has produced a huge cultural shift in society. It has been embraced by everyone, young and old alike, and the smart ones (who had no need to be trained in any computer skills BTW,) jumped in, literally, and started to play in this huge, zero-barrier-to-entry sandbox, and began challenging brands and institutions by repurposing, remixing, mangling and mashing the available content and creating new works from others content.
Meanwhile, except for a handful of smart thinkers, musicians either stood on the sidelines or simply put a toe in the water. Deciding the water was too cold they opened up a MySpace account and put their videos on YouTube. And then began complaining that people were stealing their music online.
Other creative young people began to work hard and understand the power of the web’s reach and potential. They found gaps in the matrix that could be filled by Creating Something Useful – so we all got the benefits of Flickr, Napster and YouTube, for instance. Lately we have seen the exponential rise of Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare, companies started by one or two individuals who had an idea that was based around helping people communicate and share online. None of the companies or brands that I mention above either asked permission to start something, nor did they ask people to be “more specific” about how they could be helped in using the web to create these useful tools – they just did it!
To get to your point about me and being more specific, I can only say that if you or any musician out there has to ask me that, then you or they have a deep misunderstanding of how the web works, how music fans are using it and also what is required to get the attention of millions of people who are using the web today.
You already note that there are numerous companies online that profess to help musicians gain attention and/or sell their music, and you already subtly nod to the fact that they really don’t work unless the musicians themselves understand that they are all just tools to be applied to a long term strategy for selling their music.
So here’s a few pointers for musicians using the web – 1. Be brilliant. 2. Provide content of all kind that resonates deeply with your fans. 3. Forget the idea of simply putting out a CD. 4. Make something useful. 5. Don’t ask permission. 6. Have a strategy.
Then read this interview with one of the smartest musicians around, Brian Eno. Here’s an excerpt – “The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history’s moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.”
Since there is so much blubber hanging out in thriftstore suit cases in the backs of vans, or garages, or hallways, you OREGON musicians may as well have some archived at the University of Oregon Music Library…free of charge! see this facebook note, and if you can’t bring yourself to stick a disc or two in an envelope and mail it, I’m sure if you stopped by the new U of O White Stage Building Library and Learning Commons and dropped it off with the fabulous librarians there telling them that you would like to have your disc shipped off to the UO Douglas Listening room, they would be most happy to oblige. In fact, Why don’t you drop off two discs..one for the Portland UO Library to lend, and one for the UO Library to lend. Come on folks, isn’t your goal to get your music in the ears of potential fans who will then come to your shows, and possibly buy your merch? This is one way to do so. And by the way Mr. Allen, I believe you had mentioned you were going to send your entire catalog to the UO Library….don’t you have some blubber hanging about?
here’s the link to my facebook note:
http://www.facebook.com/StacyDeHart?v=app_2347471856&ref=profile#!/note.php?note_id=157831479154
and the address where you can send your discs if you don’t drop them off at White Stag.:
University of Oregon Knight Library
February 21st, 2010 at 10:53 amMusic Services Department
1299 University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Attention Leslie Bennett
Hi there,
I think your pointers apply to being a musician in general, not just to using the web.
1. Be brilliant.
- Put some effort into it.
2. Provide content of all kind that resonates deeply with your fans.
- Make a complete package
3. Forget the idea of simply putting out a CD.
- It’s just part of the package
4. Make something useful.
- People want your music to do something for them.
5. Don’t ask permission.
- Be bold
6. Have a strategy.
- And don’t be so pigheaded that you can’t ask other people to help you figure out how to do it.
I would like to add, “7. Be Patient.” It takes time to get results. I have heard from various sources that it takes a musical act two years just to get to the stage where the public begins to know who they are.
– Sean
February 21st, 2010 at 11:31 amI totally agree with what your saying and bet most negative comments probably come from people who skimmed it looking for a one link answer. hopefully people start to look around and see whats really at their fingertips.
–
February 21st, 2010 at 12:38 pmJeremy
I’ll add #8 but need help whittling it down to size. Considering we are almost 2 months into the second decade of the 21st Century, I am always amazed & saddened by young artists that continue to embrace a model that is so dead as to be laughable when it’s the approach they expect to energize. I refer to the sign me/tour me/manufacture me mindset wherein the big-bad record label sucks but should also do the very things that has created the big-bad reputation in the first place. Dave is right, musicians are not doing much and many are falling backwards to the older approaches when confronted with one simple fact: this is a hell of a lot of work, with no “me time” and no guarantee of breaking through, big or small.
Can we bold face #7? Patience is a virtue and is also way beyond necessary. It will keep you sane. My #8: FORGET THE 20TH CENTURY.
February 21st, 2010 at 12:57 pm[...] LINK [...]
February 21st, 2010 at 1:13 pmSean, yes I like your extensions of those points…
February 21st, 2010 at 1:20 pmI have a couple of thoughts about this:
1. A lot of musicians get into music either just to make music, or because they did dream of getting signed to a label. So you are asking them to change their expectations of what a music career is all about. I’m not sure many of them can or will.
2. I usually start my discussions by saying that most musicians won’t make a living in music, so find some other way to make money and then do music for self-expression, community, and creativity.
In essence I am saying that maybe the conversation doesn’t always have to be about the monetization of music. If I tell people there is no money in music and don’t expect to see any, then that clears out those who want to make money as either artists or as business people. Then those who are left are doing it because they are passionate about it.
Of course, some people will make money in music. And I have talented musician friends who I want to be able to make music full-time. But if I set realistic expectations, maybe you and I will run into fewer people of the sort that you write about in your blog.
To musicians I say, “Let me tell you all the reasons not to make music your career and then if you still want to do it knowing the sacrifices you may face, then I will applaud your decision.”
February 21st, 2010 at 6:07 pmThe biggest challenge today’s new indie kids face is understanding how the people who might be their fans actually consume the media and interact with it.
I sell retro vinyl, CDs and related ephemera. My “audience” for freaky 60s & 70s sounds by Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Goblin, and others buy a lot of this stuff at cinema conventions. They’re a lot like me–I know this and cater to it.
Indie bands who get hip to the fact that their potential audience is probably a lot like THEM can help shape what they do in getting the music out–new indie bands, how do YOU consume music? Take a lesson from the members of your own band and let that guide you in the earliest days til you learn what you want to know about the finer points of surviving the game.
February 21st, 2010 at 10:24 pm