We're Going Through Changes

This blog is another one I did last year for http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk/ and it was titled “Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes” (I think I was listening to Bowie the day I wrote it). Today I listened to Black Sabbath*, hence the new title J

The music business has changed, totally and utterly changed. The internet is at the heart of it, but has it changed for the better? It’s certainly better for the listener but whether it’s good for bands/artists is a moot point. I’m not decided yet but what I can say with some certainty is that it’s not going to change back to how it was so we’ll just have to make the best of it!

It’s certainly easier to get your songs heard these days; you can post tracks on your website or social media sites such as Myspace (apparently still there, tumbleweed and all), Facebook and Youtube and you can  sell them through iTunes and Amazon or stream them on Spotify. As a listener if you hear about a new band from a friend, on the radio, in a newspaper or magazine or see them on TV then as long as you have a connection to the internet you can be listening to or buying their tunes in minutes!

The world is a totally connected and smaller place now; radio stations stream their shows online and Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and your website give you a worldwide reach and a much bigger potential audience. Devon and Brisbane are 1000s of miles apart physically but online they might as well be next to each other!

So, this all sounds great, what’s the problem? Well, despite it being easy to get music “out there”, I think we need to work a lot harder these days as it’s easy for *everyone* to make their music available. You could have the best tune in the world but how would anyone know?

  

The rate of change is challenging too. A few years ago Myspace was all the rage; a single place to interact with fans, friends, bands, etc., and I used it loads in conjunction with the band’s (both in Too Hot and The Simmertones) website and email mailing list. Myspace is now a lonely, lonely place; I don’t even get spam from it any more!

Facebook is big but it’s not as efficient for bands; your “friends” and “likers” need to be looking for something from you or be online when you post it or it will get missed in the “timeline”, unless of course it’s reposted by everyone.

A Youtube channel where we you can host your videos (or songs with a simple photo attached) is very useful. I set up a channel for The Simmertones a few years ago and it was very successful for the band, particularly with a “video” I put together to accompany the reworking of the Doctor Who theme off the first album. We also made a few proper videos too. If you’d told me a few years back we would have done a music video I would have laughed at you as that was just for signed, bigger bands but….times change!

So, Twitter, hmmm. I was using it for The Simmertones and I can see how it might work for bands but it's very much a "right here, right now" medium, unless of course you get retweeted and/or followed by millions!

This leads us to my last point and what is perhaps the biggest problem for bands these days; all bands, whatever level they’re at. I first wrote “record buying public” rather than “listener” when I was writing this but does that apply anymore? The internet and other technologies have made it so easy for people to get your music for free. Some do it maliciously, knowing that they’re avoiding buying your songs - the songs that you’ve spent money recording, producing, mastering and pressing. Others do it more innocently, thinking that they’re helping you spread the word or that giving a copy to a friend or hosting it on a filesharing ‘site is okay; “It doesn’t hurt, they’re selling loads, what does one copy matter?”

Actually yes, it does matter; it’s our intellectual and artistic property! We want people to hear it, sure, but on our terms. We want to be able to decide when we can afford to give something away for nothing. When we're in the position where we can write it off and recoup costs on a stadium tour or by selling a pile of t-shirts......

Okay, rant over but I hope you get my drift. If we all share music without a thought for the bands and singers then maybe we won’t have those band and singers around. Support them by listening to them legally whenever possible. Share the things the bands want you to share and please, please, please pay for that tune!

* Yep, the proper version of Chnages off Black Sabbath 4, not Ozzy Kelly's sickly remake