We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
Everyone is buzzing over what Thom Yorke's recent declaration of Radiohead not making an album anytime soon means. Does it mean free doesn't work? Does it mean they are giving up? No, it means that the album is becoming obsolete. In the past discussed before something that most electronic groups have been doing for a while (and we all know Radiohead loves them some electronic music), that you need to stay in the news cycle by releasing small bursts of music often. As well, we talked about how trannie looking rockers Forever The Sickest Kids will be releasing 3 EPs over the next year instead of a formal album and why this was smart. To further elaborate what you often see with dance groups these days is every month they either put out a remix, a DJ mix, or an original track or 4 which keeps them in the fast paced blog news cycle. Just watch Hype Machine for a few months and you will see all the big artists whether it is MSTRKRFT, The Hood Internet, or The Bloody Beetroots who put out one more more tracks every month, keeping themselves in on everyones radar and generating more publicity with each release.
These days if you takes 2 years between releases this is what me might call 700 blog years. Meaning you have been out of the new cycle for an eternity. There is so much music being pushed on fans and the process of making a record is so painstaking it makes all the more sense to just make small releases. The benefits work in profit margin, publicity and giving you fans a steady diet of music that they appreciate. In the coming years we will see what have been happening over the last decade. Groups will follow Radioheads lead as they always do and start making smaller releases more often. Get with the times because they already changed.
If you are our Twitter follower you may have gotten fed up with our duplicate posts and lots of other annoying things in the stream. We now have everything solved and have found a way to make everyone happy!
- Our Musformation twitter just posts when we write a post to this blog. If we edit an old post for something aside from spelling grammar mistakes it also goes in to the stream as long as there is a relevant update. No more duplicate posts and no more updates every time we add an apostrophe.
- Our Musformationcom twitter has the same information as the Musformation one but with a whole lot more. There you can see our aggregation and links to lots of other cool articles you may like from other great music industry resources. It is also where we have @ conversations to keep them out of the Musformation feed.
- In the next few weeks we will have Twitter and RSS feeds aimed at more specific subjects on our site coming your way. Please let us know if you have any suggestions.
- You can now get daily mailing list updates from us by entering your email on the right side down below all those flashing ads. Thanks for the support and let us know if we can improve these things in any way.
Do you feel left out of the school yard chatter not having read mind warrior Chris Anderson's new book Free? If so You can simply watch this 54 minute video and learn all of the thing that have been floating around his brain. Enjoy!
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Ultragrrrl to star in MTV reality show 'Downtown Girls'
- Facebook Grew Twice As Fast As Twitter In July
- Bill Ward Musical Clash With Tony Iommi Is Why He's No Longer in Heaven and Hell
Rick Rubin is one of the most enigmatic producers of our time. Much talk goes around about his ways in producer circles. Many people are appalled by the fact that he leaves his engineers alone in the studio and doesn't even show up most days. A new book will explore this and many other parts of his production which is bound to get audio nerd boners risen across the land. Check out the details here or go pre-order Rick Rubin In The Studio here .
The world is sighing is unified "hmph" over the latest attempt to get the world to care about audio quality. An article on Cnet is claiming this odd alliance will try to improve the audio chain from files, to players, to reproduction. With a new study stating that people do or don't care about audio quality the first task they will have is getting people to care. The second problem is how to do it in a convenient way that is cheap. Even if people do care about hearing the subtleties of their music better it is doubtful that they will pay much for it. We will see if this team of great minds (minus that retard Carly Fiorina who used to run HP) can change the industry and help us to never hear cymbals that sound like gremlins chattering again. Read up!
In this new series we will examine what on earth record labels do or even used to do before they started cutting employees down to make up for their flimsy business model. In order to educate everyone as to what the labels responsibilities usually were and how you can fill them in the future, we will now explain what they do and how you can fill the void.Tour support it's that thing every band seems to desperately want from a record label and one of the reasons everyone wants to sign with one. When I think of my days helping doing tour support at an indie label I think of headaches from inhaling Sharpie ink writing "Live @ ___ 8/12/09 with Cocaine Blowout, Death Panels, and Shark Jam" at the bottom of a poster that had the bands latest album cover on it. We would then stuff these into a large envelope and mail it to the venue and any cool indie mom and pop record store or coffee house that we thought might hang them up. Follow me to the jump and I will explain to you what else goes in to the term tour support and how you can do it yourself.
Most bands understand that they should be recording themselves. The amazing perspective you get from a song when you hear it back loud and clear through speakers is much different than you can ever gain any other way. Even if you are going to a producer later, every producer loves a good quality demo that they can hear what you have clearly.
The thing that many people don't realize is the better quality you make this demo, the better you can hear where to take the song yourself and the easier it is for your producer to bring your song to be the best it can be. As a producer it astounds me how much better the songs are from bands who record themselves compared to those who don't. As well, the bands that do more detailed recordings - going past just recording themselves playing a song live by doing numerous overdubs and putting down every idea possible to hear how they sound come in with consistently better then the bands who do not. This makes it easy for me to hear what needs to improve and get great ideas on how to execute them.
While Garageband is a great tool and I do believe you can do much of what I am talking about in it, it is amazing how much it helps a bands creativity when they learn how to use a "real" DAW. Follow me to the jump and I will make some suggestions on what you can do to get started improving your recording quality and what you should strive to do when demoing out your material.
The thing that many people don't realize is the better quality you make this demo, the better you can hear where to take the song yourself and the easier it is for your producer to bring your song to be the best it can be. As a producer it astounds me how much better the songs are from bands who record themselves compared to those who don't. As well, the bands that do more detailed recordings - going past just recording themselves playing a song live by doing numerous overdubs and putting down every idea possible to hear how they sound come in with consistently better then the bands who do not. This makes it easy for me to hear what needs to improve and get great ideas on how to execute them.
While Garageband is a great tool and I do believe you can do much of what I am talking about in it, it is amazing how much it helps a bands creativity when they learn how to use a "real" DAW. Follow me to the jump and I will make some suggestions on what you can do to get started improving your recording quality and what you should strive to do when demoing out your material.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Funding Flow Continues at OurStage... $3 Million Latest
- Unfortunately the death of the sound track is not upon us and its life isn't because Radiobro and Bon Iver are swooping down to save it
- SoundExchange Reveals Public Radio Webcasting Accord...
- The Verve has broken up... again
- New Andrew W.K. album? Time to party hard?
- No Whitesnake reunion - Your Aunt's spandex are very sad since they though they were going to get out of the house
Ugh, bad news. Yesterday, we told you about Myspace launching a new email service where you could get your own @myspace.com address. We discovered a few things that are major bum outs (note: these are my own experiments and basing them on sending messages between a few accounts for the past 24 hours, they may change some of this).
ghost town site.
- If you already had set up a Myspace away message it doesn't work on your Myspace email. Just regular messages. This means you would have to actually sign in to myspace to get your mail since it won't bounce back with your away message. LAME!
- If you have your preferences setup to receive notifications of new messages it doesn't send them to you when you receive a new email. So you also have no idea whether you have received an email or not
- I tried to setup Myspace to send email to the Mac Mail app and Thunderbird and had no luck
- I checked my mail on the iPhone and Androiud App and it does show up there so for those of you who regularly check your Myspace in this way you are safe.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
Jet Singer Collapses Twice on Stage in London - on a normal day has-beens passing out would be no news
The 10th Annual Gathering Of The Juggalos: Remembered - Shaggy two dope won the best incest campfire story for the 8th year in a row
Matador Records Co-Owner Gerard Cosloy's House Burns Down
Bon Iver's Side Project Volcano Choir Release Song - don't worry no auto-tune
Man Arrested for Punching Police Horse After Lollapalooza-- THIS IS HOW SLOW THE SUMMER NEWS IS RIGHT NOW! Pitchfork is posting this garbage!
We got a strong reaction to our article on using Hype Machine to find blogs who will write about your music. One thing we got a lot of messages saying was this:
"Easier said then done. Most bloggers don't listen to their inboxes."
Thankfully Todd and I live in Brooklyn where there is 3 billion music blogs here and we are friends with many people who run some popular music blogs. Here was some insight I got back:
"Easier said then done. Most bloggers don't listen to their inboxes."
Thankfully Todd and I live in Brooklyn where there is 3 billion music blogs here and we are friends with many people who run some popular music blogs. Here was some insight I got back:
- Everyone we talked to said they listen to 90% of what is sent to them. If there is something in the email that turns their stomach like it being a genre they don't care about, the press release/email is too cheesy, the picture of the band looks terrible or something else really rubs them wrong they won't even listen.
- Most blogs don't write back when they don't like something. They hide behind the idea that they don't listen to everything but really it is just a nice way to reject things.
- Don't go too big with the blogs. Sending to Stereogum and other big blogs is aiming high since they are huge and get too many submissions and definitely do not listen to everything. What they do is read all the smaller blogs and use them as a gatekeeper. Send to the cheesiest looking small blog that has music taste that would be into your music. Even if they don't have a customized layout or they post infrequently it doesn't mean that bigger blogs aren't looking at them to find the next big thing to write about. Send out to anyone and everyone, after all it only takes a few minutes.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- New Buddyhead Gossip
- Brooks & Dunn Call It Quits After 20 Years
- Spike Jonze-Directed Kanye West Short Film Gets Release Date - Oh joy
- Michael Jackson left over 100 unreleased songs on hard drives - We don't wanna know what else is on those drives
- Justice, Basement Jaxx lead HARD Haunted Mansion '09
- Morrissey: Don't Buy My Box Sets
- U.S. regulators open probe into music royalties
Yesterday, while we were getting some much needed rest the only exciting news was that Facebook bought FriendFeed. Most people had heard of FriendFeed but really only from their Internerdy friends. If you want to see what the $50 million hype is all about Mashable has made a great guide on what awesome features FF has and how you can use them. Go check it out!
TechCrunch has just upped a post stating that Apple will be making it's own new format (probably a part of this new cocktail thing) that will be a rival to the CMX format. The conclusion being drawn is Apple won't be supporting CMX and it will render it pretty much useless. Head to TechCrunch for the whole deal.
If you are making money in the music industry odds are you are making money through PayPal. Unfortunately they are starting to get a little cocky with their near monopoly over the payment system and quietly unveiling some shady new features. Consumerist has the dirt on two new schemes these guys are up to that you should watch out for!
- PayPal Takes Bite Out Of User's Funds, Calls It 'Rolling Reserve' - Taking 20 percent off of monthly sales and keeping it in reserve in case a customer initiates a chargeback.
- Assessing A Fee of 2.9% On Purchases - Transactions marked "goods" or services" in personal accounts are now seeing a new fee.
I thought Myspace was dead? Yeah, Yeah, they are still fighting and despite this seeming like you are about to pet a dead horse, it actually can be helpful. What makes this good is how many times have you searched through some fancy Myspace layout to find the send a message button? Well now it is very likely that all you will have to do is type in the URL in the myspace profile and you can get right in touch with someone. Pretty smart? We like it and suggest you get on this new piece of oddly timed technology. Follow me to the jump and I will show you how to set this up in 5 seconds.
We're only doing a few articles today and getting some much needed rest. In the mean time enjoy our Table of Contents.
Love Long Distance
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Taylor Swift Pranks Keith Urban
- THE SHINS Recording New Album with Dangermouse
- Watch the Live ABBEY ROAD Webcam
- Lollapalooza 2009 Wrap-Up
- Morrissey to Release 7" Vinyl Box Sets
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Thom Yorke: Radiohead Not Planning to Release Any Albums for Awhile
- Them Crooked Vultures Sell-Out In 3 Minutes
- Police shut down HARD Summer '09
- Final Fantasy Signs to Domino
- Beatles Fans Swarm Abbey Road On Album 40 Year Anniversary
- Roger Ames goes to join the loser crew at Ticketmater
- The Washington Post LOVES metal
It's been a long week here at Musformation with the whole Twitapocalypse and Facebook of Revelations meltdown and the fact that everyone on earth is on vacation except us. This week was really slow and we did a lot less posts than usual and we imagine next week will be the same as well since everyone on earth is on vacation. If you guys get bored of staring at that picture looking for Lady GaGa's cock read these links below or head to our Table Of Contents and get to work!
- When Your Funds Are Low - Employ Your Fans For Cheap Volunteer Labor Part 2
- Getting Publicity - Use Hype Machine To Find Blogs That Will Blog About Your Music
- Putting The Hyper In Hyperbole: The Music Industry Will Be Over By 2018
- The Musician's Guide To Twitter: Making Your Followers Count Tools To Make It Faster Part 7
- If You Recorded A Demo You Are Already Dead In The Water
- Using A Netbook For Your Mailing List Is A Cheap And Great Idea
- Music Industry Red Flags: Having Bad Photos Talks About Your Work Ethic Not Your Look
- Don't Tighten Your Snare Stand Too Much Or You Will Pay For It
- Scheduling Time To Do Vocals Right In the Studio
- Get On 4G Cellular Internet On Tour To Get Things Done
We save you the trouble of going to a million websites and just tell you what garbage is worth skimming over.
- Lollapalooza Starts Today start braiding your hair
- Flaming Lips Songs Requested for Next 'Wild Things' Trailer
- Notes On Live Nation, Warner Music Group Earnings Call
- Sales Boost For Mercury Nominees
- R.I.P. Willy DeVille
Yes we have made this our weekend watching before, but I have to say this is one of the best movies I have ever seen and if you are not watching it you are missing out! It has some of the best insights into navigating the new music business you will see and could not be more entertaining. Head to Pitchfork where they are screening it for one week only!
Yesterday we discussed that having bad promo photos speaks about your work ethic as well as your image. My astute co-editor Todd Thomas made a comment that I felt made a point that should be brought to everyones attention.
"This is UTTERLY ESSENTIAL. I worked in journalism for years - people are lazy. If you have a good photo, they'll probably run you - it makes their job easier. When you're one of SO many bands buzzing around the interwebz you're going to need to be different. Set yourself apart from the 10 zillion other boring bands and catch someone's eye."This is absolutely true and we find it everyday we work in this business. I have witnessed bands not get articles that were already written because an editor didn't think they had a good enough picture available. Make great quality shots of yourself available on all of your sites as well as Flickr (with a creative commons license!!!). The easier they are to access the more likely you are to get written about! You want proof? Todd's band is getting written up all over the place right now and they have some fantastic press shots!
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