Selling music as non-music

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 have UK comedian Dave Gorman to thank for this month's video from an artist I'd never heard of before I caught his tweeted link. So without further ado, take a listen to Scottish artist Admiral Fallow and a track they released last year called Squealing Pigs.

And if you're in the USA this September/October and you like what you hear, you have the chance to catch them live on their first North American tour.





Who I've been looking at
I got an email from Markus Nylund, a young artist from Finland I first encountered nearly 10 years ago. Well, not quite so young now perhaps if we consider that timescale. Anyway it said he is going to university in the Autumn and is done with music and has uploaded some of his more recent recordings (all as free download) on Soundcloud - I guess as a leaving present if you like. You'll find them under the name Sunlight Heart. I'm left wondering by this announcement - is it possible to "grow up" past what I describe as "the artist's soul", or will he be back at some point? It may be possible to be "done with music" if you have "the artist's soul" but that doesn't mean the music is done with you. And as I saw that spark of "artist's soul" when we met several years ago, I'm not yet convinced he has indeed let go

Ironically a couple of days before that email, I found a business card from Ruth Angell, a young violinist I'd met at one of the gigs I saw Markus play at when he was in England a very long time ago. She'd just started experimenting with adding vocals to her music and was still rather nervous about performing in public (despite the fact the audience in this case happened to be an audience of 3 and then only if you included the barman) . I took her card at the time and didn't really think anything more of it until I ran across it this month and decided to check out whether she was still out there making music. Well wow, what a difference a few years can make. She recorded her first album as part of acoustic duo Peacock Angell last year, is part of the folk group The Rainbow Chasers, put together by Fairport Convention founding member Ashley Hutchings and also performs with a number of other artists.

And perhaps a lesson to learn from this experience if you are an artist. Just because a contact or business card doesn't lead to something within a few weeks or months, it doesn't mean it's a failure. Rather if I hadn't taken her card at the time (or hadn't been offered it), I would probably have completely forgotten about her and not looked again.  Always remember this - you never know if or when something will bear fruit.

Francis Rodino's track "Higher ground"  was used for a video on the British Armed forces news website celebrating the armed services involvement with the 2012 Olympics. You can see the video here.

A couple of artists I've encountered this month have the common theme of approaching music as non-music. The first of these that got my attention Beck is selling an album that isn't recorded. Instead, what you get for your money is the sheet music for all twenty of the songs on the album, and it's up to you and/or your musical friends to come up with the musical interpretation. This article from Forbes and its follow-on explains why this is an innovative idea which may inspire the user-generated content generation.

The second music as non-music idea is by a gentleman called Jeff Boller, who goes by the name The Simple Carnival. Rather than recording an album, he's recording an animated movie in stereoscopic 3D. The songs and associated video clips are being released on the internet as they are mostly finished, but the final product will only be available as digital tracks or as a bluray video disc - there will be no CD. It's currently possible to download the mp3s he's uploaded so far for free in exchange for a tweet or facebook like, but as Jeff is doing all the work on both the recording and the animation (with a few exceptions) by himself, the projected finishing date is currently 2014. If you're interested in the project, keep an eye on him because he may start up a Kickstarter (or similar) project to collect funds when he gets more work done and gets closer to working out a more accurate end date for the project. You'll find a video on his website (approx 25min)  showing how he's creating the animation, and for music aficionados, not only does he play nearly all of the wide range of instruments himself, but he also claims to be mostly ignoring modern recording techniques and restricting himself to techniques used before 1980 where possible, so it's well worth a visit. Just remember to take your red-green glasses with you if you want to get the full 3D experience. (You can also get a pair for free if you order his previous album "Girls Aliens Food")

Look Left caught my attention through being mentioned in the text of a Matthew Ebel concert download (apparently one or more of them are particularly noticeable in the audience vocals of the recording). This young band has recorded an impressive 4 full length albums in the past 2 years. Their website is basically their bandcamp page, so there isn't really much information available about them, but you can download all of the aforementioned albums for $8 each. The music seems mainly Americana/folk rock, but there are a diverse range of musical styles in play often within the same song, and particularly in their earlier albums, so it's well worth a stop off to listen to what they have to offer for that fact alone.

I'm not sure which existing artist originally caused this one to pop on my Last FM station but after hearing a couple of different songs over the past few months, I decided to get around to checking out Brianna Gaither. She has an entire album of songs available to stream for free on her site, but disappointingly the only obvious purchase option is iTunes and her site also contains very little information about her or her music. Although the blog page was updated in the last month, her shows page only contains dates for past shows from the last 3 months.

Katie Thompson has just started up a new funding project for an EP on Indiegogo. You can find the details of what she's offering here.

The sites I've been looking at

Tastemakerx
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery and the continuation of last month's story about this site turned out to be someone imitating me. If you recall, I'd posted about a number of artists increasing in price in a short period, all boosted by pretty much the same group of user ids and it was unclear if this was a group of people joining or if someone had created some fake accounts. And that I'd joined in on the buying spree. Well it so happens I'd left a comment on one of the artist pages saying that I thought the price was on its way up fast before I'd worked out this was happening to a number of artists. Another user had also spotted the increases and started leaving a comment on many of the fast movers that the price was being inflated by false accounts. Then it seems he got into an argument with some of the other users on the site involved with buying parts in the artists in question and was told off by one of them for bullying. At which point I can only guess he decided I was creating fake accounts (as a result of the comment I'd left) and tastemakerx weren't doing anything about it and decided to make it look as if I was exactly the same user as him by modifying his profile to use my knifelady avatar. Given the number of users then starting to question if we were the same person and if indeed we had been creating fake accounts, I contacted tastemakerx to step in. After a couple of emails, they reset his avatar to the default one, but not before I'd had to get into a conversation with some of the users involved to try and convince them we were indeed different people, leaving me more than a little irritated, rather than flattered at his stunt. The user in question does still appear to have some kind of a sense of humour though, as the new profile picture they've uploaded is the default tastemakerx one with an added pair of devil horns. It's not the first time I've had problems on a "young" site that I've used heavily (Sellaband and the unofficial forum anyone?) and somehow I doubt it will be the last. Meantime, I now seem to be officially entrenched within the top 10 tastemakers on the site but am not really expecting to get all the way to number one given I've been mixing it with the serious gameplayers for the past couple of weeks and things don't shuffle round that much at the top as a result.

Sellaband
Most notable this month has been the rather strange looking decision of Unter Null to reduce their budget twice despite only being on the site a month or so. First it was reduced to 8000 euros, and then more recently to 7000 which was reached rather rapidly after this and just left to complete its 2 week grace period. Someone who only wanted a month-long fundraiser, or someone who wanted to get out before the "new website"? Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, I've heard a rumour that the "new website" due this autumn is basically going to extend fundraising to projects other than music. Hopefully it won't be too much longer now before fact confirms or denies that. In the meantime it's noticeable that the majority of the "promoted artists" on the Sellaband frontpage are now German, but likewise it's the German signups in general that seem to be bringing some believers in the first place. (10 of the current top 50 sorted by % raised are from Germany, with 6 of those on the first page of the site). It's currently looking like the site will evolve into a niche for fundraising for German projects based on the way things seem to be going, rather than the global music fundraising platform originally intended.

And as promised, here's the update on the albums I'm (still) waiting for. Lori Greco passed her 3 year anniversary since reaching target, yet there's still no news on when (if ever) the album will be seen. In the meantime, it seems she's off to Italy, as that trip is pretty much all her tweets have been about recently. Things are also rather quiet in the Cubworld camp despite his three year anniversary getting ever closer as well. He did tweet that he's set a pretty firm release date, but I haven't seen any mention of when that's likely to be.

Pledge
The other artist I'm waiting for is on Pledge Music. After some comments on their profile asking what was going on because there had been no update for over 2 months Vertical Horizon finally posted a video update just a few days ago (ironically the day after I left a comment - coincidence or the knifelady power back at work?) of one of the new songs and showing the individual layers making up the track. However the question of when the album is coming out still remains unanswered despite that being one of the main questions they were asked in the comments.

As a result of this, I'm now watching Ginger Wildheart's new project very closely on there, as it's the first project of his that I'll have been watching from start to finish. Given he raised his budget in less than two hours (it would have been less than one, if Pledge's servers had been able to cope with the load) and last I looked was about to hit 400% of his total, I'm interested to analyse how this project goes on Pledge and see if it confirms the current ideas I have about crowdfunding music in general.

Last FM
Last FM may be about to lose quite a bunch of subscribers. About a week ago it introduced a 6 skip limit for all users, not just non-subscribers. This means you can't skip more than 6 songs before you need to change the station you're listening to, whereas before it was unlimited. This makes the process of music discovery through the site even more time consuming and a lot of users aren't happy with the change. Particularly as the algorithm they use isn't particularly friendly as it tends to offer you the same track for a given artist and/or keeps playing things you've listened to recently, rather than offering tracks in your library that you haven't listened to in a while (hence the nightmare I've been having this past year trying to "train it" to understand what I listen to). Last FM say they can't change their policy due to their licensing agreements, even though several users have offered to pay MORE to have the facility to skip whatever they want. With music licensing being cited more and more often as the reason why people can't listen to what they want, I'm beginning to think the sooner this idea is banned, the better. Otherwise, we'll definitely reach a stage where nobody will want to pay for music at all (several of those who have stated they are cancelling their subscriptions because of this change have said publicly they will go back to sites which are known not to pay musicians). The current system of music licensing is clearly broken and needs to disappear as soon as possible.

The not-pop Jukebox 
Not a site, but rather a blog with the subheading "Ignored, Maligned and Forgotten Music". Which pretty much says it all. The blog is updated daily with at least one track embedded into each post. So if you want to listen to music you may not have heard before which comes from a wide range of musical styles, this is a very good place to look.

Rekiosk
Seemingly originally started as a way to sell digital books, the site has now expanded into selling other things digitally as well. The basic idea is that for anything sold from your kiosk (store) on the site, the original creator will get 70% of the cash and you will get about 25% (with the remainder obviously going in site fees) which makes it an interesting looking affliate scheme.

On the plus side, you can add and sell 15 items to your kiosk without attracting a fee for your kiosk. On the minus side, you can only add products already on the site to your kiosk in the first place, unless you can prove you are the original content creator. And at the moment there seems to be very little content available on the site to choose from. Additionally, the payments to you are made using dwolla, rather than one of the better known payment methods such as Paypal and you're required to fill in IRS forms when you open your kiosk. What this means for non-USA citizens is unclear, and their FAQ section doesn't cover that either. However, Pledge Music already have a kiosk on the site, so I'll be keeping an eye on it to see whether it starts to become a more attractive prospect in future.

Current verdict is that it seems an interesting idea but too mired in red tape to attract users. Also without offering an obviously better % to content creators (say 85-90%) than well known services such as iTunes or Amazon, there's very little reason for independents to add their content to the site, as it's unlikely to generate sales without users.

That's all for this month. Hopefully next month's post will come out on time, but with some real life issues needing resolution, I'm likely to become busy around the time I'm due to post.

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).

The Taste Test

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.



Who I've been looking at

A combination of being the summer and the fact I looked at rather a lot last month has meant I've had a fairly quiet month this time around as far as looking for artists is concerned.

I did buy Civilized Tears old album "Autobiography of a Nobody" when Tim Bennett mentioned on Twitter that he was making some available for sale again. What arrived when I finally found my way into the bright pink metallic Jiffy bag was a completely personalised CD copy with handwritten note as well. The CD itself contains 11 different tracks, some demos, some live and a couple of which you'll find were re-recorded on "Miseducated", the album he raised funds for at Sellaband. If you're interested in getting your own copy, contact him.

I gained my first follower on Last FM in the form of Ellhelios who doesn't appear to have his own website but instead is present on various other sites including Reverbnation. The music he writes seems to be a combination of gothic, electronic and new wave elements giving a musical style he therefore describes as "dark wave". I much prefer the pure instrumental tracks of what I've heard so far.
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Now I don't know whether you're familiar with a song that's been around the charts recently called "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson, but this next artist link came about as a result of a few bizarre looking tweets from a friend and the conversation which followed. Be warned this is not for those easily offended or upset, as not only is this a parody of the aforementioned song but given what happened in Miami about a month ago could be viewed in somewhat bad taste. MC Chris has released the zombie-themed "Tasty Face" in aid of an American cancer charity. You can check out and buy a copy here, or visit Youtube for the "Dawn of the Dead" themed video that goes with the song.

Ginger Wildheart released the album he had funded through Pledge Music this month. Pledgers got a triple album (called 555%) but the high street release (called 100%) which contains a selection of the tracks from the triple album chosen by those who funded it was released this week. In the mid-week UK charts it is listed at number 9, above some much more well known and record label funded artists. Its official first chart position will happen on Sunday, and whilst there's no guarantee of how long it will stay in the charts, this is still looking like it will be fairly impressive for a fan-funded artist with no major label money behind them.

The sites I've been looking at

Sellaband
So just when I felt like I was starting to tick boxes saying the site was improving, what happened this month meant it was more like the calm before the storm. Sellaband moved its servers and pages on the site were only randomly accessible for more than a fortnight as a result. Needless to say, the disruption means it has shed something like another 50 artists in terms of the number of current fundraisers, although it does appear to have returned to a stable state in the second half of the month.

Towards the end of the disruption period, Sellaband sent out a newsletter with an apology for the disruption, but explaining that now the server move has been done, we can expect a new website and a change to the business model in the Autumn. Given past site history has made things worse for (potential) believers every time such changes have taken place, it's fair to say this news fills me with trepidation and leaves me wondering what on earth is going to get screwed up this time. Not to mention the fact it annoys me somewhat that believers are still being left hanging on albums funded well over 2 years ago.

Tastemakerx
Billed as a social media game for music discovery, you can either play this on the website, or download it as an iPhone app. There's currently no version for Android or other phone types. I've spent some time this month on the web version which is completely free to play. Essentially you get given 25,000 of the in-game currency (called notes) and then use it to buy shares in artists. The game then consists of trading i.e. buying and selling shares in artists in order to increase your rating, with factors involving your total portfolio worth and your portfolio value relative to other players taken into account as well. So just like the stock exchange the general idea is to buy low and sell high to give you more virtual currency to play with. Buying shares in an artist is free, but 5% of a sale is taken as commission. The site is still fairly new out of beta and so currently seems to have around 4000 players. There are obviously a number of ways to play - do you buy shares in artists you actually like, do you buy shares in a popular (but probably expensive) artist aiming to hold them until (or if) the site becomes popular and their thousands/millions of fans turn up, do you buy shares in artists that are currently making steady gains, do you buy shares in artists that look underpriced relative to their popularity, or do you buy shares in really cheap artists in the hopes of making a significant profit? All I'll say of my own strategy is that it involves elements of the short, medium, long and jurassic, but you might struggle more than you think to work out the right category for all concerned. It does seem to be having some success though, as I've been slowly crawling upwards in the player charts and may even crack the top 100 in the next week or so at the rate things are going.

Having played steadily for a couple of weeks, it's allowed me to see the good, the bad and the ugly that's been present. Whilst the "game" itself can be addictive, I hadn't been on the site long when someone worked out how to use a flaw in the trading system to rapidly increase both their available notes and their rating without needing others to trade. I sent an email to Tastemakerx the first time I spotted it in play and the player in question got suspended for a whole couple of hours, but not before others had also worked out how they had been doing it and started to do the same themselves - some in an obvious way and some in a less obvious way. Suffice it to say it took a couple of days of this before someone decided to step in and this time a number of accounts have disappeared and for a much longer period than the previous one (although whether this is a permanent deletion or merely another round of suspensions is currently unclear). In addition, the most recent set of changes also means it needs a larger number of players to affect short term trading than before. Not necessarily a bad thing at the moment due to the low number of players and the fact it mostly counters the flaw, but without a regular influx of new players, there is a danger that trading could stagnate altogether longer term.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the first artist fanbase to show up en masse to get some exposure for an artist, as even an unknown with as little as 20 odd fans showing up to buy shares the same day would almost certainly cause a riot of trading which would leave the artist in the charts on the site for a few days or weeks, based on how easily I've seen one or two players alone were able to influence them. (if you're on 50-100+ fans spread over a few days, then even better)

At the moment, I'm currently feeling that the site is more about "the game" than it is about actual music discovery. This is further compounded by the information on the site itself. Oddly for most artists a wikipedia link and a myspace link is provided, yet no twitter or facebook link, even though those icons are available. And the big thing missing from the links part is the obvious one of a link to the artist's own website. The site also appears too tightly linked to Apple for my liking. As well as the obvious fact that the app is for iPhone only, there is no music to listen to on individual artist pages, but just a big "download from iTunes" button. This leads me to suspect that music might appear on artist pages, but only if you have iTunes installed. And if that isn't the case and installing iTunes has no effect, then the "music discovery" part is basically missing. It's also been interesting to try searching for different artists I've encountered in the past 6 or so years, as the site claims it will add any artist who can prove they have released music. The majority of their existing artist base and info seems to have been taken from Last FM and their other partners, but I already know of artists who have profiles on Last FM that don't appear on Tastemakerx - some of whom have released multiple albums. Of the artists I've searched for, who is included and who isn't (and what your share price is, if you are included) is therefore quite revealing in aspects of how your promotion/exposure on sites in general (and in the USA in particular) is working.

There's also a distinct lack of "social" about the game as it currently stands. Sure it's possible to "follow" someone, but all that really does is give you a link to get to their profile page quickly. Whilst each player profile shows icons for Facebook and Twitter, there's nothing on your settings page to allow you to add these if you wish and there's no forum or discussion area for players to chat and get to know each other either. That said, there are obviously features in development as I've seen a few rounds of obvious changes appear with the daily chart update, and I'm guessing the site was created more with mobile phone than Internet users in mind in the first place.

And coming back to Internet users, that also leads me to mention that if you're still on XP, then your best bet is probably to use Firefox to access the site as it doesn't work properly with IE8 (the latest version of Internet Explorer that XP users are able to download). Hopefully not so much of a problem when Windows 8 comes out, as remaining XP users will mostly upgrade to 7 or 8 then, but definitely an issue to be aware of in the short term.

Overall, I'm enjoying the site, but I have yet to be convinced it can (or will) be used for music discovery. Something to bear in mind perhaps, but a site well worth a look for some free entertainment otherwise. If you want to find out what I'm up to, you'll find my profile here

That's all for this time around. I'm expecting another quiet month in July, so I might even get around to finishing one of the extra posts I've been contemplating for a while now.