Visiting the familiar and new

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown.

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

In one of those "Whatever happened to...?" moments, I found myself wandering past Dommin's website for the first time in a while. The first album had been publicised on TV over here and I'd liked what I'd heard, but that was a number of years ago and I'd never seen or heard about a followup. From what I read on this visit, it looks like this is yet another case of an artist being bitten by the traditional music industry. Read for yourself as the story goes with the video ("Not Afraid") I've chosen for this month. One thing is for sure, I expect I'll be dropping in from time to time in the near future to see if anything does get released once the label hassles have been sorted. Whilst Kickstarter has been mentioned, I can't help but get the gut feeling that this is something that might do much better with the involvement of Pledgemusic instead, despite the fact I'm not sure if Kristofer has even heard of the site.

Who I've been looking at

It's not often I win something, so it was quite a nice surprise to get an Amazon gift voucher from the music discovery panel I was invited to a couple of months back as a thankyou for responding to their artist surveys. While I was trying to decide what to spend it on, I landed up looking through the latest recommendations the site had for me and ran across a rather interesting artist as a result of my interest in Nemesea. Issa is from Norway and the samples I listened to immediately caught my interest, as they seemed to fall in a range of music I quite like with some tracks reminding me more of  Roxette and others stretching closer to a lot of the Scandinavian rock and metal I listen to. It's therefore something of a shame that her website is a) an extremely poor one page item and b) was so extremely difficult to track down in the first place. There's potential here, but her online presence is pretty much non-existent which is the worst possible thing to be in this day and age, and the videos also seem to be pretty cringeworthy affairs more suited to the 1980s, particularly on the choreography front. In other words, nice music, shame about the rest if you're a potential fan.

For other new discoveries this month, Soundcloud provided one in the form of the electronic act Future User. The track posted caught my interest, however everything I've seen so far looks like a failed attempt to go viral with it, given their site has no information on the artist and no clues are given in their social profiles (which mostly look to have been started just this year) either. The inference is that "future user" may be more well known under another name and the idea was to get people trying to guess who it is/was, but despite the rather spammy Twitter account attempting to direct people to listen to the track it seems this idea has fallen pretty flat (if indeed that was its original intention).

I also picked up on a 15 year old artist on Reverbnation called Brandon Vitale who has some pretty catchy tracks and writes his own music. His biography on there states he is looking for major label and publishing support. The biggest problem for me is that there appears to be no website or plan of attack here. There's no doubting potential but with no visible track record and just a series of recordings it seems rather hard to understand why any label would take a chance on a youngster who seemingly has no performance experience behind them and who is obviously struggling to get people to listen to the music in the first place as he hasn't really formed any connections with people either.

Brad Cox has announced that the new We Love the Underground album is going to be titled "Mouthful of Graffiti", and whilst there's still no firm release date announced it is supposed to be released this Summer. I can't help but feel the irony here - at the rate things are going, this is looking like I'll have seen one album and one EP from Skitzo Calypso and two We Love the Underground albums all from an artist who failed to raise funding on Sellaband before I even see one album from the successfully funded project of Lori Greco who I bought parts in on Sellaband over a year before I'd even heard of Brad and his band projects.

The Pledgemusic project of Poets of the Fall passed the 200% funded mark this month and many of the items available are once again running low on numbers left. It will be interesting to see if the DVD (due August) does arrive before the album from Vertical Horizon, as things are still quieter on their side than I'd like despite the fact the Vertical Horizon album is supposed to have gone off for mixing and mastering already.

Poets of the Fall also directed me to a new artist in the form of Ima, as they had produced her new song. For non-Finnish speakers, whilst you can click on the play icon on the main page of the site, I'd actually recommend clicking on the "Nyt" link at the top of the page instead as this "latest (news)" page currently gives you the soundcloud player, and if you like what you hear, you can download the track in question. Once again, I find myself somewhat underwhelmed by the artist's own site though, as there's actually very little useful information on there once you get past the language barrier.

Things are undergoing a bit of an upheaval in the Matthew Ebel camp at the moment. For starters he's attempting to finish the book portion of the "Lives of Dexter Peterson" project, seeing as the album was out a year ago, meaning it will be something like 3 years from his original announcement of trying to get a 3 part project done in a year that we'll be seeing the end of what has turned into a 2 part project along the way. With only the first couple of chapters illustrated, the graphic novel portion got cancelled a few months ago due to personal problems for the illustrator making it unclear when, if ever, it would get finished. In addition he's behind on writing the custom songs that are due to those who have paid Entourage subscriptions and has stated he's actually thinking about removing the Entourage level as a result because he doesn't want to keep falling behind on the custom song commitment (and I know he has no real idea of what else he could offer in its place and doesn't like accepting money for nothing either). It may therefore be that I won't even be needing to consider whether to stay at Entourage level when my renewal comes due, but rather the question may be what subscription I take instead if this change goes ahead.

Personally, I'm not convinced the removal of this subscription level would be a good idea if there are people willing to pay that amount of money - there's a big difference between 5 people paying $500 a year and those 5 people most likely dropping back to $149 a year when it comes to income - it essentially means you need more than 10 extra fans to appear from nowhere to make up the difference which is not the easiest of things to achieve in a still faltering economy when it's already hard enough for existing fans to keep on supporting you in the first place.

And if that little lot wasn't enough to be working on, he's decided he needs to get more of an "angle" to his shows to try and convince people to book him rather than being just another guy playing a piano. This means he isn't running his weekly show streams at the moment, but instead has been building a set for his basement studio and is working on costumes and storylines as well with the idea of relaunching as a sci-fi themed weekly show similar to the High Orbit podcasts he used to do. However this change is also going to have an impact on his subscription model as he wants to put the resulting videos up on Youtube so potential bookers for live shows can see what they would be getting, which means they are then publicly available rather than exclusive subscriber content. In other words the question then becomes what subscribers will get for their monthly subscription money instead (particularly at the entry level). At the rate things are going, I'm therefore left wondering whether or not his entire subscription model is going to need a reworking as a result of all the changes in progress which seem to impact on it.

I find myself rather in two minds about Aly Cook's latest endeavour. She's still attempting to raise funds on Sellaband for her second album and still has over halfway to go for her current target, yet at the same time has started up an IndieGoGo project for her band the Sou'Westers to raise funds for a video for their first single. On the plus side, an IndieGoGo campaign does at least ensure she will get whatever money it manages to raise and I can see the idea was to treat it as an album presale campaign, but on the minus side there's the thought that having this second project running at the same time as the first isn't really such a good idea as people have limited money and can't put it in two places at once.

The sites I've been looking at
 Interestingly I haven't been looking at any sites in particular recently as it seems more like I've been on a random wander between a lot of my usual haunts to see if any new artists pop up during my listening time on them.

The only thing I did pay some attention to was the finish of the "Bandcontest" on Sellaband. Interestingly not only did one artist actually meet the target (despite this looking very unlikely to happen for most of the month the contest was running), it seems they exceeded it by a rather round looking 20%. With three hours to go, this same artist was on 80% of funds raised and as little as 24 hours before the end of the contest they had still been stuck on somewhat less than 20% of funds raised. Interestingly, the second artist in the competition also made a rather round looking 80% of their total budget by the end of the contest, despite having been in single digits of funds raised with 24hrs to go. The third of the 3 artists barely moved in the last 24hrs, finishing the contest on 5% of budget. I'll leave it to the conspiracy theorists (and you) to decide whether we actually saw an old style last minute rush to buy as with the Sellaband of times past or whether some convenient number fixing took place to avoid the embarrassment the contest was looking likely to turn into if you'd been following its progress from the start.

And finally...
I've been crunching some numbers recently from data freely available on the internet as a result of the debate on whether artists are actually being paid enough for streaming music and the RIAA's recent announcement that 100 streams should count as one sale. I'm in the process of writing up the rather interesting looking results of that into what should form my next blog post (hopefully within the next week). Suffice it to say that at best the results should give you something to think about and at worst may actually scare you. Irrespective of whether you're a listener or a musician, this is one post I think you definitely won't want to miss.

Updates and Changes

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown.

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.

Selecting of incentives is also rather inflexible. Unlike the Pledge system which takes more of a "shopping cart" approach where you can add more than one incentive at the same time and make one single payment, it appears only possible to select one incentive on this Sellaband contest before you're immediately directed to a payment page. There also doesn't seem to be a limit with Pledge as to how many times you can go back and make further payments for other incentives before the project is shipped, whereas the maximum number of incentives you can ever purchase for a Sellaband contest page is 4.

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.

Review of the year 2012

Welcome to my review of the year post. Probably shorter than some you've had in recent years, mainly because my spending has once again been limited for financial reasons and I haven't spent as much time chasing around after music as a result. I do however have an update on the albums I've been waiting for (some of which have already been mentioned in more blog posts than I care to think about) and I've also pulled together some conclusions I've reached on fanfunding as a result of my experiences, which I think you'll find will make for very interesting reading. But before we get to that, it's time to look at this year's charts which produced an unexpected result I wouldn't have predicted if you'd asked me as I was writing my review of the year last year.

Album of the Year

1. Matthew Ebel - The Lives of Dexter Peterson
2. Poets of the Fall - Temple of Thought
3. Howling Dollhouse - Howling Dollhouse
4. Nightwish - Imaginaerum
5. Fox Amoore - Legends of Valanor

Wow. If I had placed a bet at the beginning of the year as to what I thought would land up as my favourite album of the year based on the albums I already knew would be released, I would have been completely and utterly wrong. I was fully expecting Poets of the Fall to take the honours, based on past experience but as you can see it appears it wasn't meant to be. At the end of the day a very tight title was decided on the basis of instant likes vs. growers. Unlike previous albums, nothing particularly grabbed me on first listen from the POTF album and although I did find many of the tracks have grown on me, I didn't feel it was enough to beat Matthew's album which hit me with 2 straight away and landed up with a similar percentage of likes after the "growers" came through.

Another album I was expecting when I wrote my review of the year post last year was from "Into the Night" who actually changed their name to "Howling Dollhouse" before its release and released the album with the same title. It's a pretty solid album although I didn't find anything really outstanding within it. The two most notably different tracks on the album are "Part 2" (basically just vocals and piano) and "World on Fire" which, whilst not really my thing, does a pretty good job of blending rap and rock.

Although the album I've selected from Nightwish was originally released in late 2011, I waited for the tour edition which also has orchestral versions of the tracks. Having splashed out on an album with the tracks as instrumentals from them in the past (as well as containing the versions with full vocals) I actually found these made good background music when I didn't want to be distracted from work, and the orchestral versions of the tracks on this particular album seem even better than those albums I've had previously for this.

Fox Amoore seems to get better and better and this particular soundtrack effort made for a very worthy 5th place, shaking off competition from other artists such as Sonata Arctica that I've been buying for years.

One artist did lose out on selling music to me this year. I had been looking forward to buying the album "The Unforgiving" from Within Temptation which I'd also been forced to put off buying the previous year, but with both the album itself and the mp3 downloads available being riddled with DRM, I made the decision not to purchase.

As for albums I'm contemplating for the coming year, the main one currently on my radar is a new one from We Love The Underground as most of the artists I listen to frequently only released an album in the past 12 months. I have no release date or title for this one as yet and unlike the debut album, I'm actually finding myself contemplating whether or not to buy as (unlike last time) not a single track released so far has managed to take my interest past the take-it-or-leave-it category. The other album I'm aware of and currently contemplating is "Dark Dog Days" by Dr Scardo which is currently at mixing stage and due to be released in April. It will be interesting to see if Simon Scardanelli manages to get any of the other projects outside of this band effort finished as his last newsletter has stated he's interested in finishing the solo album he started writing in 2010 and may also be releasing an instrumental guitar album and an EP of waltzes and foxtrots as well. So it sounds like I'll have plenty to look out for here to see what catches enough of my interest in the coming year.

Song of the Year

It  should be noted that (as usual) as far as I'm aware, every single artist in this particular chart is an independent. You'll find most of the tracks here available to stream on Soundcloud and I've carefully collected the ones available there into a playlist which you'll find here.

1. Poets of the Fall - Signs Of Life
2. Matthew Ebel - Who I Am
3. Katy Vachon - I Got Style
4. Francis Rodino - Higher Ground
5. Iced Blade - Chiru Hana
6. Skitzo Calypso - Ready or Not
7. Howling Dollhouse - This Is Who You Are
8. Iconcrash - We Are The Night
9. Karena Kelly - Midnight Walk
10. Saintsaviour - Woman Scorned
11. Remi Miles - Perfection (YOLO)
12. Fox Amoore - Lord and Lady
13. Dr Scardo - Leave Us Alone
14. Matchbox Twenty - She's So Mean
15. Miranda Shvangiradze - How The Idea Of Rainy Thoughts Was Made
16. Fabrizio Paterlini - If Melancholy Were Music
17. Brianna Gaither - Let It Go
18. The Traps - Moving Pictures
19. Stickboy - Pirouette
20. Admiral Fallow - Squealing Pigs

As usual I'm limiting my favourite song chart to one song per artist with tracks I've heard for the first time in the past year (even though the track itself could be older), although at the end of the day I could probably have found more than one for a couple of the artists in question. Particularly difficult was the choice for Poets of the Fall, where the missing title track from their first album was released as a bonus track on the German edition and managed to snatch the honours away from the haunting "Skin" (a track about a love where one half of the relationship can't let go) and the Spaghetti Western styled "The Ballad of Jeremiah Peacekeeper" by a very narrow margin. In the end, "Signs of Life" even edged out my favourite from Matthew Ebel to gain the top spot in the chart, although "Who I Am" did win the honour of becoming the ringtone on my new mobile phone. I can't see me changing that one for a while, as I find its opening ideal for alerting without annoying an entire room.

Although I'm not spending money on Sellaband, I am still listening to the odd artist who signs up on there now and again and a couple of these artists made my charts as a result. Whilst she never made her budget and the profile has since been deleted as a result, Katy Vachon managed to grab enough of my interest that I may well go check out what she's up to in the near future with the rather sassy song and video for "I Got Style". Iced Blade from Japan were another easy choice due to both my love of the Scandinavian music scene and a couple of rather ancient cassettes of manga music owned by my husband, as this artist sounds like they'd fit right at home in either.

Soundcloud has overtaken Last FM this year in terms of its ability to provide me with new artists to listen to. The ease of being able to listen to all the tracks an artist has posted, not just the one that originally caught your interest is something I'm a big fan of, and with Songza (who were offering a similar service last time I could access them) still cut off for the UK, it's looking likely that this will become my main source of listening over the next year if it remains in its current form. Miranda Shvangiradze and Saintsaviour both made the list as a result of being played by the soundcloud radio app.

Of the 20 artists in the list, 9 of them are artists I've heard for the first time in the last 12 months, and of these it's looking like The Traps are probably going to be the artist I'm most likely to follow up on over the next 12 months. Not just because they appear to be fairly local, but also because both of the tracks I've heard to date have managed to catch a decent amount of my attention whereas other artists have fared less well when it has come to listening to tracks other than the original attention grabber.

Near misses for the top 20 go to the Wily Bo Walker  track "Jawbreaker", cis minor with "The  Story of Rose and Klaus" and The Hundred in the Hands track "Commotion" - all artists brought to my attention by the Soundcloud radio app and also included on the playlist I linked earlier.

Video Playlist of the Year

And a new section this time around to showcase the best songs/videos that I've come across for the first time this year. As with the songs section, the tracks in question may be older than a year but this is the first time I've come across the video in question. The most notable thing here is the fact that as far as I'm aware, I'm only showcasing artists here that are independent and it therefore shows the variety and quality that independents are capable of putting out these days. Particular standouts come in the form of the "trailer" video for Fox Amoore's "Legends of Valanor" album and "Weird Green" which Left Step Band animated themselves.




Last minute news
As usual there have been a few things that caught my attention but didn't manage to make it into a blog post during the year. Firstly there's the news that Francis Rodino is leaving London with his band and moving to Nashville. In the newsletter describing his move it sounds like he's disappointed with the UK music scene in general, but whilst I wish him the best, I'm not convinced he's going to find the grass any greener on the other side of the Atlantic.

Howard Jones released a set of 4 tracks on Soundcloud for free download over Christmas, including his take on the well known Elton John track "Your Song". You'll find them available for streaming or download here.

The other big piece of news is probably the changes to Last FM happening on 15th January. Whilst they don't affect me as I only use the web app anyway, I do find them a rather disappointing move in the wrong direction which feels like one of the last nails being driven into the coffin of that particular site. Firstly, they're cutting off streaming access entirely for most countries in the world, citing music licensing arrangements as the reason. For the remaining few countries, only the US, UK and Germany (traditionally the big 3 for music sales/listening) remain mostly unchanged with others such as Ireland and Brazil having their free streaming removed and listening only available if you pay money and subscribe. It honestly wouldn't surprise me to hear the site is being closed and/or they are being bought/merging with Spotify or another service over the next couple of years. Restricting or removing services seems like a sure-fire site killer to me and even more so when consumers have a range of methods (including sites like youtube and soundcloud) where it's also possible to stream music for free.

Moment of the year
Considering I started this blog as a way of relaying my own experiences (initially with Sellaband artists and later with music in general) as a fan rather than having any kind of expertise or knowledge on the subject, so I was quite chuffed when one of the bloggers who regularly writes posts on social media and music for well known sites such as Hypebot decided my 1000 true friends post of a couple of years ago was both worth tweeting to his followers and linking to from his own blog. So this is my tip of the hat back in his direction. You can follow Chris Rockett as @MusicMarketingX on twitter or visit his blog on promoting your music here.

Disappointment of the year
No prizes for guessing that the title of biggest disappointment of the year is taken by three artists - Lori Greco, Cubworld and Vertical Horizon. I'm still waiting for albums from all three of these artists. In the case of the first two, they both completed their funding on Sellaband more than three years ago yet no album has been seen. In the case of Vertical Horizon, I used Pledge back in April when their project was funded but was showing "Release date TBC". Since then the updates to the project have dried up and, as with Sellaband and overdue projects there, it looks like the complaints are starting as this status doesn't appear to have changed 9 months down the line. It looks like I'll be contacting Pledge about this one in the New Year, as I'm obviously far from impressed with my foray into what life is like on the other side of the crowdfunding fence. And it probably goes without saying that Vertical Horizon have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to seeing any money from me for a similar project in future. With more than 6 years of experience on the "money-spending" side of the crowdfunding fence, I've been forced to draw some conclusions which will sound rather harsh (and indeed some artists in particular may even find upsetting) but which I think represent the true situation with crowdfunding as it stands today. You'll find them in the next section.

Crowdfunding: The conclusions so far

Whilst collecting money from fans is still a relatively new industry, there are a number of conclusions I've already come to about the current state of fan funding in music based on my experiences of spending several thousand pounds on more than 40 different projects covering over 30 artists in the past 6 years.

1. 1000 true fans? Try 100.
Let's face it. If you are an independent musician who has never had a record deal or even a song in your own country's top 100 charts, how many people will actually have heard you? With the demise of the community on Sellaband, I'm not currently aware of any funding site which has people who are actively looking to form a fan connection with you and your music. So if you want to crowdfund then you need to look to the size of your own crowd. Established names with that previous label (or even current label deal) are the only ones I've seen hitting the thousands (or often even the several hundreds) mark. The average artist I've seen on Sellaband since the site changed has been needing at least 100 people to fund them in order to make their target (even the minimum of 3000 euros). Unless you can make a list of 100 people that you know for sure will spend money on you (even if it's just buy a download of the album), you do not have a crowd and you cannot/should not be even thinking of crowdfunding. Facebook likes don't count. Number of Twitter or Facebook friends or number of people on your mailing list don't count either - not all of these will support you. If you want a good chance at a successful crowdfunding campaign the first step you need is to both acknowledge and make that actual list of 100 names.

Yes, more guaranteed names is obviously better. Yes, more names = more money, but how much? It will vary from fanbase to fanbase, but as a ballpark figure, I'd rate 100 names as worth 3000-5000 if your base incentive level is 10 of whatever currency you're raising in (e.g. $10 minimum incentive would get you $3000-5000 when 100 people have agreed to give you money). If your expectations are bigger than that, you better know (or hope) you've got some rich backers and/or you'd better be prepared to be disappointed if you can't make a long enough list of names to scale up that initial 100 name list.

If you can't make that list of 100 names, you should definitely be considering your music as still being a hobby. You don't yet have a fanbase so stop calling it a career until you can pass at least this basic check.

2. Your budget needs to represent the 1% of the 10%
Chances are that only around 10% of those that follow you on Twitter or Facebook (not including existing friends and family) are taking any active interest in you. And of that 10% only 1% are likely to look at supporting you in advance unless you have a good and immediately obvious track record of communication and delivery on a similar project in the past. If going on pure fans alone rather than the friends and family connections, that means you're going to need somewhere in the order of 100,000 followers to find your 100 names. Hence why friends and family are so important to reduce the followers you need and help you create that initial track record.

3. You need a track record that is easy to find
Both established and unestablished names are screwing up badly on this one. Both Public Enemy and Jonathan Davis fans were up in arms on Sellaband and my experiences with a number of unknowns over there have been no better. Over 50% of artists I have supported via crowdfunding have not delivered on time. Even worse, over 40% of artists I have supported have been more than a year late compared to their original statement of timescale. More than 10% of artists I have supported have been over two years late. And as previously mentioned I even have a few artists who have already broken the three year barrier.

With seemingly little or no protection offered by crowdfunding websites and these horrifying statistics in mind, it has led me to the conclusion that even I am no longer willing to take a chance on a crowdfunding artist unless I can easily find how they've performed in the past -  in terms of being able to raise money, how their delivery time has compared to their original statement and what their communication has been like.

If you cannot convince a music lover like me who is open to both new technology and experiences that you are worth supporting, then how in the hell do you expect to ever be able to convince the average person in the street?

Be honest. Would you support a product or service that failed this badly on communication and delivery? So would you support an artist given these statistics?

Musicians, Labels, Managers
Get
Your
Act
Together

Can I be any more clear?

4. There are too many musicians
I still don't understand how the music industry operates because to me it attempts to break every rule of the laws of supply and demand. There are only so many hours in the day. There are only so many of those hours in which people are able to listen to music. It should not be possible for so many to be out there making music and claiming they are musicians rather than just doing it as a hobby.

The biggest shift that the music industry needs to undergo in the current era is to ditch the deadweight. And unfortunately a lot of the power in that resides in the hands of fans. There are too many musicians out there and all the internet is doing is spreading the existing money pot much more thinly compared to the old days when the average person was aware of a much lower number of artists due to only knowing about what was placed in front of them. The danger is that although more musicians are getting money, it's more a case everyone will land up getting pocket money rather than anyone getting career money. Is it really any wonder that free music is seen as the norm given the laws of supply and demand in this case?

We are also too forgiving of the artists we love. Just like best friends we let them off. Again. And again. And again. Eventually we might get fed up of being given the runaround, but in general emotion drags us back even when we feel let down. Just like in business, we need to put money into the hands of the reliable and force the unreliable out of music. The big question is whether us emotional humans can break the cycle and realise that somewhere out there is a much more reliable artist who is just as good and making exactly the same music as the unreliable one we may feel connected to at the moment.

Fans showing the big money spenders (investors, labels etc.) who the reliable are is something I see as the way forward to put money back into the music equation. Without a reduction in the number of artists, music will remain undervalued (or free). And we'll lose a lot of the artists we shouldn't unless we learn to step away from our emotions and put some logic back in.

My experiences show that artists need to become a lot more reliable than they are at present if funding direct is to become a truly viable mainstream alternative to a label deal for any artist, but I'm not convinced we'll see the shift the music industry needs until/unless fans noticeably start acting less on emotion and hence force the issue.

And finally...
As January is usually both a short and quiet month for me on the finding music front, it's unlikely you'll see a standard post before February. But to keep you going in the meantime I'll be writing a special post for all you musicians out there in a couple of weeks which contains some questions that you ask fans (and sometimes even potential fans) which I happen to think are wrong. And I'll be letting you in on what I think you should be asking instead to get the information I think you were really looking for.

A Lazy Summer Update

If you already know about my rating system then skip on down to the next header, otherwise here's the lowdown.

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
I've decided to restart a section I briefly toyed with back when this was my hatchet day blog by including a video I've come across over the past month. Some will be from artists I already know and in other cases it will be the video that might have led me to their discovery.

This month's video is from Remi Miles, an artist I originally discovered on Myspace (and who still doesn't seem to have a website). Enjoy this video from a track he's newly posted this month called "Perfection (YOLO)"






Who I've been looking at
I've had another fairly quiet month in terms of actually looking for artists, but it seems my lazy Summer hasn't been as lazy as I was expecting because once again a number of artists have found me in various ways.

For all those who remember Luckyhorse from their Sellaband days, it seems they've either changed their name or are starting up a different sound. I haven't heard any of their new material yet, but thanks to a tweet from Hogdaddee, I now know they're called The Criminal Hand and have a link to their new Facebook page.

And talking of Sellaband, the fastest moving artist we've seen on there in a long time signed up only about a fortnight ago and is already over a third of her 9000 euro budget, proving it's still possible to make serious headway if you bring your fans in the first place. Unter Null is essentially an electronic project, but including a wide range of elements that make it sound gothic, industrial and trance almost by turns. If I'd still been buying parts there, I'd have been tempted to join in with this one based on what I've heard. No prizes for guessing that unlike many other acts that join Sellaband, this is one that is actually advertising their fundraising effort on the front page of their own website as well as talking to people about it on their social media.

Meanwhile Kabul Dreams have slashed their target from 100,000 euros to a mere 5,000 and will probably complete their funding by the time this post publishes as a result of this change, having less than 100 euros to go the last time I looked. I'm not going to provide a link to their website as it's apparently using a javascript exploit and has sent several different anti-virus products nuts as a result every time I've tried to access it. Not a great advert for an artist.

The big question for the next month is what Aly Cook will do. With less than 7,000 of a 40,000 budget raised on Sellaband and about a fortnight to go before her year is up when I last checked it will be interesting to see whether she decides to make a budget change or not.

Elsewhere Poets of the Fall have been announced as a support act for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on August 1st. Whilst I'd be happier to see them announced as a support act outside of their own country, the fact it seems they're now being considered for major artist support in the first place gives me a little more hope they might actually make it to the UK one day. They've also released an extended version of their recent cd "Temple of Thought" containing 3 extra tracks - 2 live versions of tracks on the album and the "missing" track from their debut album. If you're familiar with their work you'll know the album title for each of their releases has either been a title track for a song on the album, or a key line in one of the songs. The exception to this was their first album, hence the "missing" track they've just released on the extended version called "Signs of Life". However this release has caused some concern and exposed the fact they appear to be following some antiquated practices which really ought to be stamped out in a modern music industry. The first problem is the obvious one that this extended release comes less than 6 months after the original. Whilst designed as a "new release" for German speaking territories, it's led some fans to question why there's a different release in the first place and whether they can buy the extra tracks separately as they're not bottomless pits of money. The second one is the rather bizarre situation that this extended release is available to buy from the artist's own webshop, unless you live in one of the German speaking territories where it is being released, in which case you CAN'T buy it from the artist's own webshop.

Huh? Or rather, how stupid can you get.

The lessons to be learned here, irrespective of whether you are artist or music industry. 1) There is only ONE WORLDWIDE release date for your song (or album of songs) and no such thing as different versions for different territories. Any other option is just encouraging people to go pirate it. 2) If a song/album is available for purchase direct from your own website, it should be available irrespective of where the buyer is coming from.

GD Allan has been putting some more tracks up on his Soundcloud page recently. It's prompted me to start following him on there as a result.

Mysti Mayhem has been posting some new material on Reverbnation recently. "How do you know" has a bit of an R'n'B vibe going on, whereas the acoustic "Mary don't you weep" is much more of a blues track. Both songs (along with others) are downloadable from Reverbnation, so why not check them out. She's also got some shows coming up in North Carolina, the area she's now living.

Vertical Horizon are busy proving that life isn't really any greener on the other side of the fence as far as crowdfunding is concerned. There's still no sign of or release date for the CD I paid for on Pledge Music back at the beginning of the year and their last update was at the beginning of June. Considering Ben Folds has signed up, raised funds AND announced a September release all in the time after my money was actually taken for this one, it really does seem to prove that artists are going to have to get it together if they want to take a publicly funded route. Crowdfunding is still in its infancy, but if it's to become mainstream then artists are going to have to start being a lot more reliable rather than leaving people hanging for months or even years after their money has been taken. Bet you wouldn't get to treat a label who'd financed you like this, so why such disregard for fans? There are plenty of other artists out there wanting funds and I'm hoping the crowdfunding industry will move towards supporting those artists with proven reliability and adding more protection for fans against those untried or just plain unreliable rather than standing by and wanting nothing to do with it as the case is at present. It may sound harsh, but enforced penalty clauses are something I'd really like to see adopted for crowdfunding based on my experiences to date, given artists in general seem to be incapable of doing anything in a timely manner unless they've been through the wringer at a label first (and even then I'm seeing exceptions). Seems the lesson that being independent means that YOU are the one accountable for the money you've just taken is something which artists are currently not being taught strongly enough. And that's a situation that really needs to change (and urgently) if you want to stand any chance of convincing people to pay for music, particularly up front.

As a statistic for you. Of the 36 artists whose projects reached funding on Sellaband where I was involved there are only 6 I would definitely consider funding again based on my experience there. A further 19 I might consider funding. That means there are 11 artists I probably wouldn't or definitely wouldn't consider funding again. On Pledge Music I don't have a wide enough sample to compare (just the 2 artists to date, one of which I'd funded before on Sellaband), but with my feelings currently starting to lean in a negative direction on an artist I've funded on Pledge as well, is it really any wonder I think crowdfunding platforms need to be taking a more active role with artists and communicating the results to their funders rather than leaving them to their own devices?

So I now consider that's a "late" album from Pledge Music (given the email when I funded them stated a March 2012 release date) as well as the two (much longer) overdue from Sellaband. Of the two Sellaband ones, Lori Greco will become the second artist I bought parts in to pass 3 years since funding completion during August, so bets are now officially on as to whether she will take longer than Natalia Safran's current record (All the evidence I see suggests she will). It's also worth noting that it will soon be 5 years since Lori first signed up on Sellaband, so I really am beginning to wonder now what on earth she's been doing in all that time, and can only assume she was nowhere near ready to make an album when she signed up. I'm willing to bet that if her funding had been label based she'd have been hit with a penalty clause for non-delivery by now. If further evidence were needed that crowdfunding sites need to start protecting consumers against artists, as far as I'm concerned you can't get a better example than this.

It's not often I pick up an album I'd decided to avoid, but a combination of some Amazon funds and the fact a song from it came round on my Last FM station made me change my mind. I've been a Chris Rea fan for a long time but after the illness he only recovered from after they'd removed rather a lot of internal organs he'd announced he was going to be going back to his roots and start writing blues. I'd given the resulting 12-disc behemoth he'd come up with based round the history and development of blues music a try when it came out and it turned out to be too much of a change in musical direction for me. So when he'd released "another blues album" a couple of years after, I decided to give it a miss at the time. However the album in question "Santo Spirito Blues" is the one I've now picked up because, well, it may be blues influenced but unlike the previous 12-disc it's actually back to sounding like the Chris Rea I know and love. Looks like I may land up looking out for his next album on its release after all.

Miranda Shvangiradze is an artist I've picked up on as a result of Soundcloud radio and in my first listening session on it too. More about what that is under the sites section, but what you'll find here is mainly instrumental electronic music with a classical influence. The recommendation came about as a result of the fact I listen to Fabrizio Paterlini. You'll find lots of music you can download for free from her Soundcloud page but I haven't seen any mention of a website for her.

This month's "whatever happened to" moment happened when I decided to take a look and see what Pete Strobl was up to these days. Hadn't seen anything of him in a while, so the most obvious thing to do was stop by his music blog. Sadly things are looking rather quiet over there as it seems his last post was made in January 2011 but after leaving a comment over there I got an email from him. Apparently he's been writing a book and working with Van Halen as well as wishing he had a lot more hours in the day (amongst other things). Here's hoping we'll see some more articles from him soon.

Meanwhile on Twitter a familiar face appeared in the list of people following me. Fred, or Meo (as more may remember him) of  Meo and the Alternative Preachers is the familiar face in question, but I've not got around to checking out what he's currently up to yet.

The Sites I've been looking at

Sellaband
I spent the first couple of weeks this month fighting Sellaband's support system as it seems their server migration managed to break my Sellaband profile in a rather large way. I've heard of sites sending you an email asking you to verify your signup before, but never a site sending an email asking you to verify that you've asked for support before your support request actually gets sent. As a result, the problems with my profile took about a week longer to fix than they ought to have done, as that's how long it took me to figure out what the situation was. Things did get fixed quite rapidly when the request actually reached Sellaband and I decided to withdraw the money on my profile when things got back to normal due to the uncertainty over what the "new concept" will be and hence to minimise any impact due to changes in what will happen with revenue and/or payouts. On that score, Sellaband have sent a link to a questionnaire round by email. Whether it asks you different questions if you're an artist, I obviously don't know (one of the first questions is whether you're on Sellaband as artist or believer), but it does ask some interesting questions such as whether you want revenue option to be available, whether you think Sellaband should hold live performances and whether you want a CD for your investment. However, it's hard to understand exactly what Sellaband want to get from the answers to these questions - if they've already decided on their new concept/new direction and that it will be launched in the Autumn, this seems to be asking relevant questions too late to be of any worth for that. They've also announced a concert in Berlin to celebrate their 6th anniversary, but I won't be attending as it doesn't seem appropriate, given the only thing I'm currently capable of "celebrating" is the fact I'm still waiting for albums I should have received a couple of years ago (one of the reasons I've refused to buy parts in artists on there since.)

TastemakerX
After only my second month using the site, I seem to have already worked myself into the top 20 players (and have gained a shedload of followers as a result), helped at least in part by investing in some very well known names who were at or near minimum price when they certainly shouldn't have been. But moment of the month on what is still a very young site came just over a week ago when a number of profiles started buying into the same group of about a half dozen artists, leading one player to comment on many of these that someone was cheating by setting up multiple accounts to inflate artist prices. On the one hand, a possibility, on the other you would get the same effect with a group of friends signing up, or even potentially fans of an artist. Whatever the case, I did dive into the buying spree and stand to make a decent profit on a couple of the artists involved if I decide to sell in the near future. So far, the profiles that went on a mass buying spree haven't gone on a mass selling spree to reap their profits, nor does it seem the site creators have taken any action. I'm watching closely to see what (if anything) happens next on this one.

Soundcloud
Someone has created a Soundcloud radio app. Essentially it plays tracks you have favourited on the site, tracks that people you follow have favourited and also tracks that people they follow have favourited. As a result I've already picked up on one interesting artist (as stated earlier) so I might start using this a bit more to see what other discoveries it will lead to. In the meantime, I'm probably the one responsible if I'm following you on Soundcloud and you've seen a sudden jump in your Soundcloud plays as I've had a few hours listening to the app already.

That's all for this month. Stay tuned for next month when I'll let you know if there's been any further news on the three overdue crowdfunded albums I'm waiting for (two from Sellaband and one from Pledge).