The rating system
The rating system I use for this blog is somewhat unique. It's not a reflection of how much I like the music itself as much as it is of how far I am along the process of conversion from consumer to fan. So, over time you may well see some of these ratings go up if I mention an artist again. And indeed go down, as musical changes of direction or failure to keep my interest are just some of the reasons that may affect a rating.
Congratulations, you've made a temporary blip of interest on my radar. Now how are you going to keep it?
I've seen enough of you to recognise and remember you, but I'm undecided so I'm not really following you (yet). I may make a spur of the moment decision to check in on what you're up to once in a while, but even that's no guarantee. May also apply to artists I am aware of, but whose music I've decided I don't have enough interest in to want to pursue further based on what I've heard.
I'm liking what I hear in general, but I still wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I will be wandering past your site occasionally, and there is something like a 50% chance I'll be buying your next offering once I find out about it, providing I have the money available.
Now I am a fan, so the chances are I'll be past your site once every month or two at least. There's a 90%+ chance your next offering is already sold, and occasionally I might even be going for something more than the basic package (if you have one)
Reserved for very few, this is about as close to internet stalker as you can get. I am actively watching because I do not want to miss your next release date, tour in my area etc. etc. You may not always be aware of the fact I'm looking over your shoulder to see what you're up to, but trust me, I'm there on a weekly if not more like a daily basis. Depending on how you tend to release your information, I may well be signed to your mailing list as well.
Video of the Month
The most interesting artist discovery I've had this month came about as a result of one of the sites I've been looking at. Enjoy "Bullet for a broken heart" by
Dillon Hodges, and if I'm reading correctly, he should have a new album out on May 14th. Who I've been looking at
Finally another update from
Vertical Horizon at the end of March saying the album was off for mastering and they are now working on trying to get distribution for its release. The latest information given on that release date is "hopefully before the Summer". In other words, still pretty much no idea when it will be seen.Wonders will apparently never cease when it comes to Sellaband albums. I was recently tweeted by a Sellaband believer who said that his
Nearfield CD had finally turned up over 4 years after funding completed.
Here's hoping one of my regular readers who was also still waiting when
I last knew gets theirs as well. Meantime, I'm still waiting on my two albums from Cubworld and Lori Greco which are more than 3 years since funding completion.I wish every Sellaband artist were as good as
Aly Cook when it somes to letting believers know when revenue should have been credited to their accounts. Though having said that, she is the only artist I seem to have been receiving anything from for a while now, despite a number of artists agreeing to 5 years of revenue after release. As I've said before, she is one of the artists I would consider funding again, and this is just one of the reasons why. But there's also no way that's going to happen at the moment, as I'm most certainly not going to break my original statement that I won't even consider funding anyone on Sellaband until the issues with my overdue albums are satisfactorily resolved. Francis Rodino is dropping his name for performances and instead will be performing in future under the name
Caiyo. He's pulled together an album based on tracks from his most recent EP and the "Circles and Squares" album he made at Sellaband and is releasing this as his debut album under the Caiyo name. You can currently buy the download from Bandcamp, although there's a May 2013 date associated with it which seems to suggest that a physical copy might be seen around then.Back towards the end of March there were indications from
Civilzed Tears that they might be back again for another funding round at Sellaband soon, but I haven't seen anything about this since.The 10th Anniversary DVD from
Poets of the Fall reached 100% of its funding target in just 2 days at Pledge music (even before the concert was actually recorded) and pledges are still arriving. So much so that both the signed DVD and signed DVD with dedication completely sold out shortly after the 100% was reached and the second batch added as a result also look to be in danger of selling out - possibly even in the next couple of weeks. Whilst the overall speed of funding even took me slightly by surprise, it must be said that this is crowdfunding as it should be, providing you have a fanbase. There's no video asking for money here and no real introduction to the band or their music unless you care to read the profile page. One forum member posted the following meme in the thread talking about the funding which pretty much says it all.
Or to state it simply - if you have already made a strong enough connection with enough people, this is the response you'll get from them. You don't need fancy gimmicks to hit a sensible budget in rather a short time frame. If people aren't throwing money at you, yet are connecting with you otherwise, maybe it's time to find out why.
As far as the rest of it goes, it's then up to you (the artist) to deliver. This is really the part of the process I'm now most interested in based on my experiences with artists on more than one crowdfunding site, and I'm hoping some of my lost faith in crowdfunding can be restored by an artist I've been trusting for nearly 10 years now.
In the update posted after they reached the 100% Poets of the Fall have stated the "time till release" is planned as a maximum timeframe. However they've also stated that the further over the budget they go, the more special additions to it they may manage, even to the extent of being able to afford to produce a bluray as well if they get enough. So on that score, if they still make the timeframe then awesome, but I'm not going to worry if it slips a bit to fit some of those extra features in, providing we're talking something reasonable rather than measured in years.
As a fan, I'm still waiting for the website on crowdfunding that nobody seems to have produced yet. With all the crowdfunding websites out there and the number of projects/sites now around, isn't it about time we got to rate artists on their so-called "successful" crowdfunding endeavours? As far as the crowdfunding sites are concerned it seems a project is successful if it merely raises the budget in the timeframe, whereas successful to a fan is when they actually receive their goods and I'm therefore not convinced by the news articles I read about the percentage of successful projects on various sites when this is clearly only looking at it from the site rather than fan perspective. Imagine how useful it would be when considering whether to fund a project if you could see how the artist had performed on past crowdfunding projects in terms of keeping people updated and how long it actually took to deliver compared to the original expectation/promise. (Think of it a bit like being able to read a review on Amazon to see what others thought of it when you have different things to choose from). Fans have limited money, yet actions (or lack of) of some artists on crowdfunding websites are enough to make piracy even more attractive. Crowdfunding is no baby any more, it's growing up. So why not give us the tools and hence incentive to put our limited cash in the direction of artists we like who actually deserve it? Who is going to be first to take up this challenge?
Every so often I get a "How-in-the-hell-did-I-miss-that" moment where an artist is concerned. In this particular case, I think I know what happened as their first album came out in 2007 around the time I was heavily into Sellaband, and it's taken this long for me to pick up on this particular project.
Blaqk Audio is actually a side project of a couple of the members of AFI, one of those artists where I've never really got into the whole of their back catalogue but drop into their site from time to time to see what's happening. I have a feeling I may be taking more interest in this side project than the main band, even though they have only released 2 albums in the past 6 years. If you're into electronic music (particularly 80's), the best way I can describe the sound is a fusion of Depeche Mode and a trance version of The Sisters of Mercy.The sites I've been looking at
Sellaband
Could we be seeing a last-ditch attempt to restart interest in the site? One thing is for sure, the competition pages for the 3 bands have rather a pledgemusic-like feel to them what with the video placement and incentive lists as well as only percentage of funds raised being displayed rather than actual numbers and the promise that money will not be taken up-front. There has also been a "special funding project page" for one particular artist appear which appears to follow a similar form (the page itself is in German with no translation available so I'm a bit limited in just how much I understand). It certainly looks like they may be testing this format out as a potential thing to swap to for the site in general based on these pages.
So at first glance, I'm seeing a too-little-too-late Pledge clone, but on looking deeper, there are a number of things about this new format that worry me over and above this when it comes to considering whether it's trustworthy even for anyone who is not familiar with past history.
First up for scrutiny is the payment system. This states that funds will be reserved on your Paypal account and only taken if the project reaches target which is rather contrary to the way the Paypal system operates (at least in the UK, where I could find nothing about using it to reserve funds to be taken at a later date anywhere in the site or FAQ). Even Pledge take the money up front if Paypal is used and refund if the project doesn't reach target. The fact is that by only taking Paypal and not credit or debit card payments, there's both less choice and less consumer protection for potential believers. The whole payment side looks rather dodgy as a result particularly when you consider section 3.4 in the T&C which states:
"The financing for a music project can be stopped at any time prior to reaching the project funding target by the artist or by SellaBand. In this case, all reserved funds will be canceled in connection with the deleted project on Paypal and returned to the believers’ accounts, as long as the project still lies below 100% of the selected funding goal"So is the money actually being taken from your Paypal account and then refunded if the project doesn't reach its target or does it stay on your own account in some "reserved" status and is only taken from it at the point the project reaches 100%? As we've come to expect of Sellaband, the T&C actually seems to contradict both itself and the other information displayed on the site. Not a good situation to give you confidence.
Pledge is very good at displaying estimates of how much something will cost in your local currency - whilst I've found it to be off by up to a few percent, it does provide a broad benchmark if you really have no idea how much something costs in another currency. This is another place where the contest pages fail as it seems you can only find that out once you log into Paypal to fill in the payment process. The other main fail that could put off some potential users is the fact that the contest pages display in German by default and it wasn't particularly easy to spot the fact an English version is available and how to switch to it. Definitely a handicap for one of the bands in the race where I'd be expecting the majority of their supporters to have English as a first language.
There's also the rather unfortunate situation of calling this a contest, when in fact no prizes will be awarded to believers if none of the 3 artists in the competition manages to reach 100% of their budget. You won't find that information in the FAQ section of the site though (or indeed anywhere else on the site that I could spot), but rather it's hiding right at the end of section 6.4 in the T&C. I'll be busy waiting to see if anyone gets misled as a result of not reading the small print given that the band currently in the lead is only on 13% of budget with less than 2 weeks remaining. It should be noted that it doesn't seem to state whether the winning artist will still receive a prize, even if they don't make 100% of budget. Given Sellaband's history with contests (as a way of raising money) gone bad, this whole thing looks like an accident waiting to happen. Complicating a simple funding idea by plastering a competition of this nature on top definitely isn't the way to go.
All-in-all, colour me unimpressed with this inferior Pledge clone.
Magnet
I forget exactly what linked me out to this online magazine originally, but the real interest here is on their free mp3s page as it seems to feature an mp3 to download for free virtually every day. Even better you can actually listen to the songs from within the site itself to find out if you're interested enough to want to download them in the first place.
And finally
That's all for this edition. Watch this space to see how my wait for overdue albums is going and how the progress on the DVD is shaping up compared to my past experiences.
