Throw Back Thursday - Video Edition

Throw Back Thursday - Video Edition: Marvelous 3 "Freak Of The Week"

Been a fan of Butch Walker for years...I could have posted something even earlier than this, but didn't feel the need to throw back that far this week...

Eight Days A Week - May 19th, 2015

Every week I will add 8 new songs to this playlist which I have heard for the first time during the week. These songs can be from any genre and era. My goal is to hear at least one new song a day and then give everyone else an opportunity to hear them!

*Please note: I started compiling these lists weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to sharing them, so some of the songs may not seem as 'new' as they did to me a couple weeks ago...will be posting more regularly to try and catch up. 

Eight Days A Week Episode 8 by Eight Days A Week on Mixcloud

What business are you in?

A couple weeks ago, in an encore presentation of the CBC radio program “Under The Influence” Terry O’Reilly shared the following;

“One of the fundamental aspects of marketing is that a company has to know what business it's in.

That may sound like a laughable exercise. But it's not.

Apple is not in the computer business. It is in the empowerment business.

Nike is not in the sneakers business. It is in the personal goals business.

Molson is not in the beer business. It is in the party business.”

Apple is one of the most profitable companies in the world. Consumers aren’t attracted to Apple because of their products and gizmos. There are less expensive options out there. People are attracted to what Apple stands for. Their products empower their users.

People are attracted to Nike not because of the shoes, but because they are pulled to the philosophy of Just Do It - whether that pertains to getting fit, or popping the big question, or leaving a bad job or starting your own business. 80% of Nikes are not worn by people who work out.

I have spent a lot of time sitting down and helping musician learn the business side of what they are trying to do. When having these discussions I try and get a good sense of what the artists is trying to achieve, what their goals are and how they plan on going about reaching said goals. It’s different for every artist and that impacts how they conduct their business. That being said, one question I have never asked is if the artist knows what business they are in.

I think it is safe to say, if asked “What business are you in?’ most aspiring musicians will they are in the music business or music industry. According to Encyclopedia.com the music industry is:

“The music industry involves the production, distribution, and sale of music in a variety of forms as well as the promotion of live musical performance.” 

Does this definition say anything about the musician? Sure it mentions live musical performances, but not the performance itself. The music industry is about the promotion of said performances. The music industry revolves around a product. Whether it’s a song, and album or a concert…those are all products that the music industry is promoting. Musicians play an important role in the creation of those products but that wasn’t included in the definition of the what the music industry on Encyclopedia.com

A musician could say that they are in the song writing business, but that only represents a portion of what they do (or want to be doing) and even within that the level varies from one song writer to the next. Some musicians write songs which they perform themselves, while other musicians write songs that other people perform. Some musicians write songs for movies, televisions shows and other types of soundtracks while others write jingles for commercials. When it comes to song writing there are very distinct song writing roles and each one has its own business that is a part of another bigger business.

One could argue that musicians are in the Entertainment Business. The majority of the activities musicians are in, whether as a whole or contributing to another aspect within the music industry, they are all part of the Entertainment Business. Listening to music, going to concerts, watching music videos are all forms of entertainment that musicians provide for consumers to consume. The challenge with musicians saying they’re in the Entertainment Business is that it’s very vague. If someone was to ask you what type of business you were in and you said Entertainment, they don’t know if that means you’re a rock star or a clown that performs at children’s parties. Both roles are in the business of entertaining.

So as an aspiring musician, what kind of business are you in? To answer this question you have to ask “Why?”

Why do people buy Apple? Because their products are empowering. 

Why do people buy Nike? Because their shoes help empower people to reach their goals.

So...

Why do people listen to music?

Why do people go to concerts?

Why do people like music?

Why do people like YOUR music?

Music has the power to connect with people on an emotional level. Music connects people to feelings, places, people, and memories. Music inspires creativity, drives action and even connects us to each other. Every aspect of what an artist does has the ability to connect and stimulate an emotional reaction. Simply saying you are in the music industry doesn’t reflect what you as a musician are working at achieving. Song-writing, performing, even the various promotional activities to market music when done properly should stimulate an emotional reaction. That is the business we are in.

The business of connecting with and emotionally stimulating people through music!

So...if you're an artist and you agree with the above statement indicating what business you are in...what are you doing and how are you connecting with your target audience. Does what you are doing now align with the business you are in? 

Eight Days A Week (a little late...)

I know when I first started my little project of releasing a playlist of the new songs I heard during the week I indicated that my goal was to post a new group of 8 songs once a week...obviously it's been more than a week since my last Eight Days A Week post. I do have a genuine legit excuse as to why it took me so long to post another batch of songs.

Some of the songs featured in this Eight Days A Week 'episode' are so new that they aren't yet available on Spotify or Rdio. I actually put this list together close to 2 weeks ago and have been waiting to see if the tracks that weren't on Spotify and Rdio would get added into their systems. Unfortunately some of these tracks are from album that have yet to have been released, so they have yet to have been made available. Not wanting to deprive you any longer, I decided to post the Mixcloud version for you to listen to.

We also got some great feedback. A concern was brought forward in regards to posting a new batch of eight songs every week. With new songs being posted on a regular basis, some songs or even whole 'episodes' could be missed. We felt this was a genuine concern, so on both Spotify and Rdio we've created a second playlist simply called Eight Days A Week Archive. When we put together a new batch of eight songs, the previous batch will get moved to this play list. This way you are less likely to miss an 'episode' and it also creates an opportunity for you to re-listen to songs we featured. The links to the playlists are below. Let us know what you think. Feel free to follow them or share them with your friends and get them to follow!

Eight Days A Week Archive - Spotify

Eight Days A Week Archive - Rdio

Eight Days A Week Episode 5 by Eight Days A Week on Mixcloud

CBC Searchlight - Round 2

Congrats to Carrie Day and Whale And The Wolf for making it to Round 2 of the CBC Searchlight competition! Thanks to everyone who voted. Please make sure to vote for them again! (voting links below)

CBC's SEARCHLIGHT competition allows you to vote for 10 artists per day, per region. If you're having a hard time deciding who to vote for, here are two suggestions... 

Whale And The Wolf - Do It Loud CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Carrie Day - Heart So Weary CLICK HERE TO VOTE

You can make more off streaming sites...if you actually try...

Something that I've never really understood are free previews. I recently got a free preview of Sirius Satellite in my vehicle. Obviously I enjoyed the new listening options in my vehicle, but I only found out about the preview because I accidentally hit the Satellite button on my stereo. A similar thing recently happened with free previews of some specialty channels. Again, I only found out about the free preview because I accidentally entered in the wrong channel when trying to change the channel. Again, a happy accident...but why does discovering these free previews always seem to happen by accident? The whole point of free preview is to entice you into watching or listening and potentially influence you into wanting to keep the channel or satellite service once the preview is done. But how are you supposed to know about the preview if they don't promote it. Sure maybe they sent out a mailer, but who reads those? I have seen some commercials promoting the free preview of the channel...but surprisingly those commercials were on that channel. If you're going to make something available for someone to watch or listen to, you need to let them know that the option is there for them to take advantage of. 

It is fairly common knowledge that artists don’t make much from people listening to their music on streaming sites like Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, etc. Thanks to media attention drawn to this fact by artists like Taylor Swift, the general public is also now aware of how little artists get paid when someone listens to their track via streaming site. Has this stopped the general public from streaming music? No. Streaming sites are becoming more and more popular. They have become a major component within the music industry.

Alan Cross recently posted an article about streaming sites and talked about how you can’t compare paid downloads to streaming royalties because they are two completely different things. He also addressed some common myths and pointed out that the industry, more specifically the labels also played a major role in the low payouts. (Click here to see the full article)

But I believe there is one other factor impacting how much is paid out to artists that wasn't touched on. Artists don't promote that their music is available to be listened to on these streaming sites. Yes the payout per listen is fairly low, but it is still more than nothing. So why don’t artists promote that their music can be heard on these sites? For whatever reason, I can’t remember ever seeing an artists promoting the fact that their music is available for streaming on any of the streaming sites. Sure I’ve seen links to Soundcloud and Bandcamp shared and posted, but rarely have I seen a “Listen to me on Spotify” post with a link. I asked a couple artists why they don’t promote that their on Spotify and all of them had the same response “Well…we don’t make much off there so why would we?”

Nothing against Soundcloud or Bandcamp, I think both are great options for artists to reach new audiences, but you don’t make any money when someone listens to your song on either of those sites. Sure Bandcamp gives the option to buy the music and Souncloud has links to iTunes and Google Play, but so do the majority of the Streaming options. The big difference is that when someone listens to your song on one of the streaming services you do get paid. Not much, but more than nothing.

One artist I work with has a track that has over 500 listens on Soundcloud. That may not seem like much when you see artists on Soundcloud with millions of listens, but even if you take 500 and times it by the average rate paid out from streaming sites (which my calculations says is about $0.004) you get  $2.00…again not much, but Soundcloud doesn’t payout when people listen to your music. What if you were one of the lucky artists whose tracks has been listened to over a million times on Soundcloud? Doing the math that works out to $4000. May not seem like much for a million listeners, but compared to being paid $0 for the same amount of listens, suddenly $4000 doesn’t seem that bad…

Some artists have argued “Well, you need a subscription to listen to stuff on Rdio or Spotify”. No you don’t. Having a subscription typically gives the subscriber no commercials, unlimited skips and access to some other features, but for the most part a grand majority of the music on these sights can be listened to if you’re not a member. You even get paid when non-members listen to your music. Not as much as you would if a member listened to it, but still more than nothing.

How else are you going to get someone to listen to your music on one of the Streaming options if you don’t tell people it’s there. Joe General-Public is not going to randomly search words that combined happen to be your band’s name just to see if a band with that name exists on Spotify. Your friends and fans are more likely to assume you are not available on the streaming sites, rather than actually look you up. Most won’t likely think to look you up unless prompted by you to get them too.

What’s even more showing for me, the majority of artists who approach me about helping them with online distribution ask if I can help them get on Spotify, etc and then once I do they don’t promote that they’re music can be heard on those options. Why was it so important for you to get your music on to these sites if you’re not going to promote the fact that it’s available there.

Do not dilute yourself into thinking that maybe your music will come up as a suggestion when someone is listening to similar artists. I recently helped the band Shelbi get their music on Spotify and Rdio. Soon after their music was available, I started listening to them everyday on Spotify first thing every morning. I’ve been doing this for over 6 months now and I have yet to hear a similar artist come up next after their song. The main artists that tend to come up after Shelbi are Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Rhianna and Bruno Mars.

Based on what Shelbi sounds like I assumed I’d get a Buckcherry, AC/DC or GN’R song next, not the current overplayed pop chart topper. At the same time, if I listen to any artist that you would assume is similar to Shelbi, do you think Shelbi has ever came up randomly after their tracks? And if you’re thinking well there’s still a chance my song will pop up randomly, similar to how I randomly bumped into an old college friend, that’s not a realistic option either. It was recently published that there are over 4 million tracks in Spotify’s that have never been played. That’s approximately one fifth or 20% of their library. Sadly I think it’s safe to assume a large portion of these unlistened to tracks are from independent artists.

Streaming sites like Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, etc actually pay artists when people listen to their music through their platform. Sure, it usually a fraction of a cent, but those do add up the more people listen to your music. Why wouldn’t you want to promote that you’re music can be heard online via streaming sites. Let people know your music is available for Streaming, encourage them to listen to your playlist that happens to include some of your own tracks in it or even encourage your friends and fans to create their own playlists and share the link to your track with their friends. 

Suggestions for CBC SEARCHLIGHT

CBC's SEARCHLIGHT competition allows you to vote for 10 artists per day, per region. If you're having a hard time deciding who to vote for, here are some suggestions... 

Two Bears North - Get The Hell Out Of Here CLICK HERE TO VOTE

RAANI - Be Your Friend (featuring Chips) CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Chips - Definition Of A Good Day (featuring HLDN) CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Whale And The Wolf - Do It Loud CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Ashley Weir - You Not Me CLICK HERE TO VOTE

WeUsedToBeFriends - Bored In Heaven CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Carrie Day - Heart So Weary CLICK HERE TO VOTE

The Gibson Block - She Don't Ask Why CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Marystown - Anything For You CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Reindeer - offthemirror CLICK HERE TO VOTE

KickupaFuss - I Don't Need Your Sex CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Okay...so maybe we're suggesting more than 10 artists for you to vote for, but that's okay we will leave it up to you which ones you want to vote for. All we ask is two things...vote and take advantage of the opportunity to vote for 10 artists. And if you're feeling really generous...feel free to share this post and encourage your friends to vote.