Review of the Year 2009

Welcome to this year's review, when you can find out my highlights and disappointments of 2009 and discover all kinds of other things such as my top artists and songs of the year.

But before we get to the really good stuff, let's give you a quick update on just a few of the more interesting things that have happened since my last "hatchet day" post.

A quick update
Wow. I'm amazed. Do I scare people round here or something? Are you afraid I might just tell you the truth (and hearing the truth scares you), or are you all quite happy in your current knowledge? With several people having said on the forum that they were quite interested in the old "believer questions" sections from the Tribune, and the fact I'm one of the believers who was never asked to participate in that, this is why I opened up the opportunity for you to ask me anything you wanted (as stated in my previous 2 hatchet day posts). But it seems I won't be answering any questions in this special after all, as not a single one appeared in my inbox! With the readership of this blog seemingly continuing to grow, only you readers can know the reasons why not a single one of you took me up on this offer and you can therefore also be sure it's going to be a long time before I make a similar offer again.

It looks like my post about Scrooge coming to Sellaband had an effect on Jon Robert's parts. Less than 24 hours after publishing my blog, he'd lost another one. And it hasn't entirely stopped there, as he's since lost more but also gained one - the net result being that he's back on the same budget he was on before he changed his plan. Guess the only thing to say here is that obviously Scrooge is very active on Sellaband this year and things like Christmas spirit and charity have been lost in favour of a greedy Christmas charts parts competition. Bah Humbug. I'll also let you decide for yourselves what you think this means for artists currently on Sellaband, because as far as I'm aware, I'm still the only mention of his charity initiative (as far as Sellaband itself or other active users is concerned) in the first place.

I also had another go at a Paypal payout, and this time it looks like it has worked. Watch this space though, as although the money has disappeared from my Sellaband balance, it still hasn't appeared in my Paypal account, so the story may not be quite over yet. Christmas has managed to get in the way as far as the 5-7 working days quoted is concerned though, so there's still a few days left before I need to consider throwing some knives around. So fingers crossed the outcome will be known before my January hatchet day blog gets posted.

Top 10 artists of 2009
I like an awful lot of music, but this is the only time of the year you can discover who my real favourites are. As with all things, the list changes each year, often as I discover more about each artist and their music. To be eligible for this, the artist needs to be currently raising a budget on Sellaband or have completed one within the last 12 months and have posted at least one new song on that profile during that time. So here's the list for 2009

1. We Love The Underground
2. Phil Tweed
3. Matthew Ebel
4. Civilized Tears
5. Ulrik
6. MOPI
7. The Jade Diary
8. The Lights
9. Voodoo Johnson
10. Conflict in the sky

Most noticeable this year is that the 2-way scrap for my affections at the top has most definitely become a 3-way scrap. And to be honest it's been so close between the top three that I don't think I actually officially decided the order until I wrote it here. Brad manages to hang onto first place by a whisker, mostly as a result of coming up with more new material than Phil. But both these two should watch out next year, because there's a very real threat of displacement coming from third place in the form of new entry Matthew Ebel. Squeezed into third place this time around partly because of being a new find and partly because although he definitely has the talent (you might want to put the innocents to bed before you check this out though), he's not quite 100% there 100% of the time. Given that he's been putting out at least 2 new songs every month, the fact he doesn't necessarily write stuff that is easy to play in the first place (watch him play live and solo when 3 hands are required for starters!) and is now going to be putting out an album every 6 months (with or without the help of Sellaband), it's obvious the odd missed note is more of a case of familiarity/practice due to the volume of material than anything else. And if this makes you worry about "filler", well I haven't seen any. I also haven't found a song that I don't like yet, and that's pretty much a rarity in itself.

Quite a few slots obviously became free this year as a result of artists leaving, going pretty much inactive, or becoming ineligible due to finishing their fundraising more than a year ago, so it's made for some quite interesting changes from last year further down in the list, as a few of my "near misses" from last time around managed to fight their way on this time against some of the newcomers, most notably Civilized Tears who went all the way up to 4th. This year the near misses are as follows: Derek Daisey, Jon Allen and Taylor Horn.

Top 20 songs of 2009
Here's the list of my favourite songs for this year. To be eligible for this, the song needs to be currently on the artist's Sellaband profile and I also impose a limit of one song per artist. The new requirement for this year is that the artist must either be currently fundraising or have reached their target in the last 12 months.

1. A few good men -Phil Tweed
2. Who do you find - Ulrik
3. Drive away - Matthew Ebel
4. Feel it down - MOPI
5. Drop dead girl - Mount Fabric
6. Words you bleed - Derek Daisey
7. Open her eyes - Silverimage
8. Bad habit - Voodoo Johnson
9. 7:30 plane - Matt Byers
10. January blues - The Lights
11. Dead man's suit - Jon Allen
12. Love called me home - The Jade Diary
13. The universe is burning - Marc Supsic
14. My enemy - Silver and Blue
15. The comedown (we are not saints) - We Love The Underground
16. Country storm - Aly Cook
17. Death clock - Conflict in the Sky
18. Candy whore - Six Eyes Lost
19. Back up - Taylor Horn
20. Take me - Broken Sun

Sadly a few of the artists on this list appear to be going inactive, which is a real shame. You'll find all the listed songs in my playlist until February, when I'll revert to a playlist which only contains fundraising artists. Most interesting in this top twenty list is probably either Mount Fabric, as I feel this particular song is one of the flashes of genius that occasionally pop up from the often quite mediocre I've heard from that direction, or Silver and Blue who are so new on the site I haven't even had the opportunity to mention them in a hatchet day post yet.

Dropped the ball
Here's my list of artists who I think have real music potential, but look like they're in the process of dropping the ball.
1. Matt Byers
2. Silverimage
3. Voodoo Johnson

Amazingly Matt still seems to be listed on Sellaband despite all the site changes and the fact I mentioned him in this category last year as having not been seen for ages round the site. The last seen date on his profile is still listed as unknown. Silverimage left a message on their own wall back in August mentioning that not only were they having problems with the site, but there was also a split in progress. Voodoo Johnson also haven't been seen around the site in more than 3 months now so the question of whether they're actually interested in fundraising any more is coming to the fore. It will be interesting to see if any of these recover or disappear over the next few months.

Sellaband albums
What's my favourite of the albums produced so far? Just a top 5 here as there's still a relatively small number to choose from. The main factor deciding the order is how much I like the tracks on an album and therefore how likely I'd have been to go out and buy it if I'd heard it first.

1. Arm Yourself - BulletProof Messenger
2. Circles and Squares - Francis Rodino
3. In Control - Nemesea
4. The Elements - Second Person
5. Until the Morning Light - Daniel Ward-Murphy

So interestingly, no change from last year, although I have to make special mention for Unseen by Ellie Williams at this point, as I think it's easily the best Sellaband album Tony Platt has produced to date and shows exactly why he's considered a world class producer. So from a personal point of view, whilst I have a lower liking for the songs themselves than I do for those of some other artists, I'd still say this album is highly recommended as not to be missed due to its quality.

I also got surprised by one of the album releases this year, as it contained a derivative work of a very well known song. I say derivative, because while the lyrics had been altered, the song itself was the same (just the artist's own interpretation as opposed to a straight copy). Interestingly the artist in question had had the cover (i.e. exactly the same song but with its original lyrics) on their page when they were fundraising. I'm slightly surprised Sellaband let this one through given the terms and conditions under which this album was produced, particularly as the last time I looked, the original composer was still alive, so here's hoping the correct dues have indeed been paid. Meanwhile, I'll leave you to try and work out for yourselves which artist I'm referring to.

Disappointments of the year

1. Vegas Dragons
Let me take you off sideways first by talking about Cubworld raising his 50K (trust me, the relevance will become clear by the end). When you consider that when Jake originally signed up to the site, he was just an airport baggage handler who sang songs for his wife and kids, the idea of giving someone like that 50K to make an album and therefore effectively get started in the music industry from nothing is like handing them a ten tonne ball and telling them they need to carry it to a finish line that's an infinite distance away. And despite starting from nothing, as soon as he was given it I've seen him try and pick that ball up and carry it, or even effectively just keep pushing and shoving, trying to roll it on the ground towards that finish line. It's fair to say he's still an infinite distance away, but equally you can see that having been given that ball, he has both moved and is still trying to keep moving. You'll find out the full story in my hatchet day post, but this is just part of the reason why Cubworld became only the second artist on my belief list to see a parts increase since the site change - the fact that he's making that effort deserves respect.

But you might be wondering where the relevance of Cubworld to Vegas Dragons is. If you know the history you shouldn't be, because you should be aware that the story behind Vegas Dragons also means a ten tonne ball effectively got handed out in that direction as well. And as one of those doing a large part of the handing, you could say I've had a vested interest in trying to help out beyond handing over my part of that particular 50K.

So it was when I was writing the "review of the year" blog this time last year, that I noticed the Vegas Dragons website had gone offline. For those who don't know the story, when Brian first joined the site, there was no Vegas Dragons website. Not only did I create the site for him free of charge using my limited knowledge and experience, but I also paid for the first year of hosting (which turned out to be 18 months in the end, due to the special offer on at the time). I also rethemed the site to match Lovingly Cruel on its release (again for free) and indeed would probably have continued to maintain it for as long as he wanted, providing he just picked up the hosting tab. Towards the end of December last year is when the money I'd paid ran out and I contacted Brian to let him know (despite the fact the reminder e-mail that the site was due for renewal would have been sent straight to him anyway). The bill has never been paid. And like any independent web developer worth their salt, I still have a backup of the site, so it wouldn't exactly have been hard (and indeed still isn't) to get the site back working again - seriously, how hard is it to pay one small bill?. Add to this some of the other things that need to be done and still haven't, and it soon becomes clear that when it comes to dealing with ten tonne balls, Cubworld and Vegas Dragons are a world apart. And perhaps a second lesson to be learned as well - that despite the best will in the world and the support of others, there does come a point where artists have to wake up and realise it's no use waiting for things to happen, you actually have to do something yourself rather than expect that others will do everything for you. Don't get me wrong, there's still a friendship there - it's just a highly frustrating situation when it's known and agreed what needs to be done, but it just doesn't happen. So if you're wondering what happened to the Vegas Dragons website, that's the story behind that particular disappearance. And if you think carefully, maybe this story can also go some way towards explaining just part of the reason behind my own changes in parts buying as time has passed, and hence why I have a certain reluctance these days to jump in and support, even when I see something that I think has potential.

2. Sellaband
Probably no surprise here, but some of the reasons for my own disappointment may be a little bit different from what you might expect. I could probably write an entire blog on this subject alone, but let's keep it simple with a summary list of the more important ones in no particular order.

- failure to maintain "housekeeping" of inactive profiles - this was only done for a couple of months before the June site change, and we've been back at the bad old days of them not deleting inactive ones, or removing artists who are stating on their profiles they've left the site since.
- coming up with a confusing and complicated incentive/plan system which seems to be just as complicated and confusing for artists to get changed. Even artists are struggling to know how to fill this in to make sense, never mind the poor believers who have to try and interpret what everything really means themselves now. Sorting out those with good intentions from the (often total) idiots is a nightmare as a result.
- failure to enforce section 5.5 in the current fundraising terms and conditions. Just go back over the blogs I've posted since the last site change and look at the "help I'm lost" part of the section I have dealing with artist plans. Despite some of these plans being more than 2 months old now, they still don't conform to this section of the T&C and Sellaband appear to be doing nothing to rectify the situation. This is also only the tip of an ever increasing iceberg as far as this particular problem is concerned.
- no Sellabration. 2009 was probably the last chance I would have been able to do some travelling (particularly abroad) for a while and I'd been aiming to go. It's unlikely I'll be getting out much this year, even if it does return.
- isolation rather than fostering of community. I remember mentioning in last year's blog that I feared this was the way they were heading and it looks like that fear came true.

I may still be listening to and following interesting new music on the site, but is it really any wonder that even I have become somewhat apathetic as far as believing in artists is concerned?

And you shouldn't be surprised that I don't mention ArenaFest in that particular list. After all, who described it in an earlier blog post as "looking like a big if"? So whatever the story behind its failure to occur, it should be obvious that the fact it didn't happen was obviously not an entirely unexpected possibility to me, and hence couldn't be that much of a source of disappointment as a result.

3. Believers
A slightly misleading title perhaps. One thing this year of disruption on Sellaband has given me is a time to reflect on the "good old days" when I used to talk to other believers and artists on Skype, or could be found trading comments with others on their pages. But if it wasn't for "Mr Silver Balls" himself (i.e. UBG) I'd be inclined to think I'm the earliest active believer left. Particularly distressing to me was to discover the apparent loss of Dolly. The first I noticed something was wrong was when I discovered the music interests she had on her page had been replaced with some philosophy about the dangers of herd behaviour. If you visit her page today, it's gone - the photos, everything in fact except for the fact her "about me" is now populated by the following quote from Henry David Thoreau. “Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.” If you aren't familiar with Dolly, then let me tell you she is (or should that be was given the seeming disappearance) employed by Sellaband and has an appreciation of music that goes beyond the average. Musically, you got the sense that Dolly was dining on caviar while you had a tin of baked beans at hand. Not in a snobbish way, but rather for her appreciation of music as an art form rather than just your run-of-the-mill enjoyment that the average person has. To see a believer such as this go AWOL is probably the icing on the cake of the sadness I feel at seeing so many of the believers who were around with me in the early days drift away from the site, and it truly makes me wonder what the future holds if true supporters of music such as Dolly no longer have interest in the site.

The forgotten
As regular readers of my blog will know, it tends to be very long. As a result I often reach a stage where I intended to talk about someone or something and don't get around to it because the blog is already quite long. And often I intend to talk about it the next month as a result, but then find the same effectively happens again. So here are just some of those who ought to have been mentioned but weren't through lack of space.

NRG Rising
There's been more than one point when I ought to have written about these ladies, but somehow something else always worked its way further up in my memory. Probably the best reggae I've heard on the site since Alioune K decided to call it quits, although the demos themselves aren't the best in quality. I'll be interested to see what their first actual single sounds like, as whilst I'm not a huge reggae fan, I am currently keeping watch from a distance and will almost certainly take a better look at them once the budget raised figure starts to become that bit more serious.

M Harris
I had been hoping the arrival of Public Enemy might have a knock-on effect in this direction, but with rumours floating around that PE aren't even promoting their Sellaband profile on their current tour, this might be a long time in coming. There is also the question of what exactly a M Harris CD is going to sound like, given the current profile contents. I originally said a long time ago that it was obvious there was more to him than just rap, and now Sellaband is allowing more than 3 tracks on a profile the range starts to become that much clearer. On an artist where a track like "Do it" has me reaching for the skip button, but I could quite happily listen to something like "(ethnic)" for hours on end, it opens questions as to what exactly he is planning for a Sellaband album. Irrespective of whether it falls more towards the rap/hip-hop end or the jazz end of the range though, it seems neither are particularly popular amongst current believers.

Jon Allen
As one of several custom artists that came in at the same time, this turned out to be an artist I was extremely interested in but a combination of the high part price and its corresponding absurd plan/incentives put me off. With Amazon selling the album in question for less than 10 GBP, the only reasons to take an interest in the Sellaband profile were really those of the extra EP+download plus the concert ticket. And the problem with the concert ticket is of course the fact you'd really have to be in the UK to take advantage of that in the first place. Sadly a profile that therefore looked only of real interest to UK believers who didn't already own the album (which would presumably rule out most of his existing fanbase) and hence something which has held a sense of doom from the start, even without the low profile attendance.

The Fanclub
Well here's another interesting custom artist, and one that makes me wonder if we're now seeing the "custom promotion profile" appearing. There's always been a big question over artists who seemingly are using the site merely for promotion rather than having any genuine intention of raising a budget and the frustration it can bring to music lovers who are genuinely looking for someone who is genuinely interested too. So cue an artist who doesn't have a website (just a glorified e-mail signup) and whose management company doesn't have a website either (just a nice "under development" page) despite the fact they're quite happily mentioning all the experience they have on their myspace site. Roll forward a couple of months and recheck, and find that nothing has changed on this score, and what you have basically looks like a profile that's just on Sellaband for the promotion. Either that or their choice of signup time on Sellaband is bad, which let's face it, isn't that much of a recommendation for their management either.

Kompis is to this year's post what netvalar was to last year's. I always read the 50K music mag, but due to its timing I never tend to make any comment or post about it, because I'm either still writing my own blog post or busy taking a breather having just finished writing one. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate the effort though. In a world where Sellaband appear to have given up on community, it's always great to find there are still other believers still trying to do their bit to keep a spark alive. So this is me raising a glass to Kompis for his efforts in that direction.

And finally...
I'll be taking a short breather before my January hatchet day post. That means you should be able to expect that particular installment in about a week's time, when I'll hopefully be able to tell you the finish of the stories I've left ongoing here as well as give you a catch-up on the new artists of interest and my parts changes. Happy New year and here's hoping for a better 2010 on Sellaband than 2009 has been.