Experiments

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
Ellie Williams returned to Sellaband for some additional promotion funds for her second album. I would have funded her again, but I decided on 2 basic requirements back when the bankruptcy happened that the new management would need to fulfil before I'd even consider spending money on the site again. And as I'm still unsatisfied on both counts more than 2 years down the line, I'm sticking to my principles. Her return  reanimated a number of believers who had left the site to come back and buy parts in her, though it's unclear how much of the money they've spent is "new" money, and how much was "old" money that had been trapped in the site. If you didn't realise she was back, then you've missed the boat, as she successfully raised her target in a little over a fortnight. A welcome change from the slow or non-moving artists the site has at the moment.

Ironically on the same day as Ellie's return, I'd just decided to spend some money on Pledge Music. Vertical Horizon are an artist I became aware of a couple of years ago, and over a period of time I've been realising that I like most of what I've been hearing from them. They had already reached the 100% target on Pledge, but because the album/incentives weren't yet ready it was still possible to buy into their project. It seems they're currently still recording in-between touring, although the automated "thankyou for buying" message states the incentives were due to be delivered by March 10th 2012. Their page on Pledge now has TBC for a release date though, so we'll see how long it takes the CD to get here. It will also be interesting to compare the fan patience level here to that I've previously seen with other artists, particularly as their project updates seem to have slowed to a crawl and I've already seen one complaint about that. Looks like I could even be facing an experiment to determine just how green the grass is on the Pledge side of the fence, and how it handles complaints about overdue artists as a result.

But one thing that buying into a Pledge project reminded me was how much clearer it is spending money on there compared to Sellaband. The "what you see is what you pay" is something I consider preferable to Sellaband's strange deposit system that charges "hidden" fees on top of the displayed part price that you only get to see just before you hit the confirmation button. $12 for the album and a further $3 towards postage as I'm outside the US comes to a grand total of $15 and that's what my credit card was charged, rather than the price being inflated with "admin fees".

Brad Cox has released the new Niki Thunders and the Temperamentals track (called "Take me") for sale on CD Baby. In the blurb on the download page for the track it states a new album is planned for 2013 so I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that.

Aly Cook is currently driving me nuts. I don't know whether it's a management change meaning someone else is looking after her twitter feed or whether there's an automated program involved, but something has obviously changed recently because she's now putting out the same message a large number of times in a row (just with a different @ tacked on the end) and essentially filling up my twitter feed with spam (often a couple of times a day or more) as a result. It's actually getting to the point where I'm thinking of stopping following her on there because all the pointless repeating within a few seconds is starting to annoy me. I'll be looking to see if things settle down over the next month or not on this front.

A rather large box arrived from Matthew Ebel. This contained the overdue framed album from 2010 and the overdue goody bags from 2011 as well as the new album, so he's finally caught up to where I was expecting him to be. I'm feeling much happier than I was when I wrote my 2011 review of the year post as a result. Episodes of the comic that go with the album are now being posted on his website every day or two, along with comments from Genesis Whitmore (the artist who is drawing it) about that particular strip. Check it out here.

In amongst the items in the box were a number of cards (business card sized), each containing a website link and QR Code for a different artist to download one track for free. An interesting touch to introduce you to a number of other indie musicians, and interestingly they weren't all based in the USA either. Whilst I've downloaded and listened to the tracks, none of them particularly got my interest, although I might wander off to their sites at some point and see what else I can find.

Additionally his "chartbombing" experiment has provided some very interesting data (at least from Amazon) on what it is possible for an indie artist with zero promotional budget to achieve. I've spent nearly a week watching the numbers, despite the fact the experiment itself lasted just one day. Essentially Matthew asked all his fans to hold off on buying the album, and instead asked them to purchase one particular track from it (or the whole album if they wanted) on one specific day via either iTunes or Amazon. iTunes doesn't offer realtime data, but the net result was that the album briefly cracked the 100 bestselling albums in their Rock chart. On Amazon where the charts are updated hourly it was possible to more easily track the progress with both the album and song hitting the top of the respective Adult Alternative charts, cracking the top 40 in the Alternative Rock chart and the album itself even briefly broke into the top 200 overall by sales rank on Amazon. You'll find more of my analysis of the experiment further down this post in the "sites" section.

John C Fraser sent a message to all his believers on Sellaband saying he was no longer going to be performing under that name, but instead was splitting from the the band, management, promoters etc. and going back to writing and performing as a solo artist as "Please be Frank", a title which uses his real name. As a result no further CDs would be sold and as the 2 projects he had on Sellaband have apparently not broken even, this means that believers will never see any revenue either.

The sites I've been looking at

Amazon.com
As stated earlier, I've spent about a week tracking the "chartbombing" results of Matthew Ebel's new album "The Lives of Dexter Peterson". The track he chose for this "I wish I were" isn't the one I would have chosen to try and get attention as it has more niche fanbase appeal than some of the others on the album, but it's been an interesting experiment to follow anyway.

Before the experiment started, the Amazon sales rank of the album was in the 45,000s. As I've already said, it hit top 200 in the 24hrs set aside when fans were asked to buy the album. As you can probably guess, it has slipped back since, but not as fast as you might think. Two days after the experiment, the album was still at no 1 for the Adult Alternative category and in the "new releases" section for individual tracks in Adult Alternative, not only was "I wish I were" at number one, there were 5 other songs from the album in the top 100, 3 of which were in the top twenty. And the album was still in the 600s for overall ranking. Both the track and the album have since slipped further (back down past artists like The Fray and Coldplay), but last I looked both were still in the top 100 Adult Alternative charts with the album down in the mid 5000s for overall sales rank (five days after the chartbombing). Because of Amazon's regional restrictions, these results have been achieved purely from digital only sales for the US fanbase, which makes me wonder how much further would have been possible if other countries could have affected that US chart too.

The obvious conclusion is that it's a lot easier than you might think to make a temporary dent in Amazon's rankings, but just because you can make a dent it doesn't mean you're going to make any lasting impression. In a competitive chart such as Alternative Rock, it seems you'll disappear out faster than it took you to get there, unless your sales volume keeps up, but in a category I can't see that many people actively looking in, there is a chance you might hang round long enough to be spotted. But from the realities of a consumer, I have to admit I've NEVER browsed the Amazon charts looking for music to buy. When I visit Amazon, I already know what I want to buy, and all I'm usually doing is checking out their price compared to other options I have available before buying from there or somewhere else. I'd be interested to hear if Matthew Ebel did pick up any new fans purely from a presence on the charts due to his experiment, but I think there's a pretty high chance the answer to that is going to be no.

And that also brings me to what I really don't like. Whilst interested in this "chartbombing" idea from the experimental point of view, the realities of what tends to be involved is something I'd much rather avoid. People are getting really turned off by advertising these days, yet it seems musicians are relying on the emotional approach (a set of "virtual puppy-dog eyes" if you like) to convince people to advertise for them. I kind of share the sentiment of the person who left a review during the experiment which basically said "This doesn't deserve to be on the charts and the only reason it's there is because the artist organised a chartbombing" - not from the point of view of the music, but from the "advertising/publicity stunt" point of view. The whole "hey check this out", "buy this now", "tell everyone today" is something that's going on far, far too much (and not just in music) , and the whole "popularity contest" that results cheapens things as far as I'm concerned. I supported the attempt this time, as you can tell from my previous post (for experimental reasons), but I'm still of the opinion there's enough spam out there without me adding to it, and it's unlikely you'll see me support this kind of thing very often as a result.

And so I have to wonder just how useful this experiment has really been. With only a temporary dent and seemingly little or no chance of fans resulting from that, is a "chartbombing" really worth the return? Particularly if the "spamminess" associated with carrying it out actually runs a risk of you losing some of your existing support.

Snacktracks.co.uk
If you're in the UK, United Biscuits are currently running a promotion on their snacks to allow you to download tracks for free from the Universal Music catalog. Think Hula Hoops, Skips, Mini Cheddars etc. (i.e. pretty much anything popular that doesn't have a Walkers logo). Seems simple enough. Each packet contains a code and a timestamp which you need to enter into the site along with an email address and you can download one of the tracks on offer. There's also a limit of 30 tracks per email address stated and no DRM involved. Bound to be something you want to download, right?

However as we've found out, things aren't anywhere near as straightforward as this. My husband had the bright idea to buy 2 boxes from our local wholesaler - one hula hoops and one mini cheddars. The promotion runs till the end of the year and the crisp bags had a few months to run before they were out of code, plus we have a monthly board games meeting anyway. We were bound to get through the 48 bags in each box, and our guests would get some codes to take away too. This situation led to the first problem.

The codes on each pack are NOT unique. The box of hula hoops contained exactly the same code on every packet, and there were only 2 different codes in the box of mini cheddars. And as you can imagine, when my husband attempted to download tracks it pulled a big fat red flag in the system. Net result of this one is that we are going to need to send a photo of every empty crisp packet we've still got and then mail them back to the promoter and we SHOULD get a working list of codes to use.

However, I had a little more luck and managed to download one track. That's when I found the second problem. So let's stop and think logically. With the length of the promotion and/or the fact you might land up having a packet of crisps in your lunchbox every day, it would be reasonable to assume you'll land up with more than one packet. Under these circumstances it might make an awful lot of sense to save up your packets and enter all the codes and download all the tracks at once, rather than have to keep visiting the site. Guess what. Even though there's a limit of 30 tracks per email address, there's also a limit of one download PER DAY. And they don't tell you that until you attempt to download a second track!

I'm still trying to decide whether this free music promotion is going to be worth the hassle it's turning out to be. So if you run across the snacktracks.co.uk free music download promotion, then it might be worth keeping our experience in mind. One thing is for sure, it's proving that downloading music for free illegally is an awful lot easier than a free legal version. Definitely a case of a promotion gone bad.

Slowbizz
Slowbizz held their first "concert as an app" recently. I've talked about them hosting house concerts in the past, but the email I got from them on this subject actually sounded interesting, as you might find from the following excerpt

Harnessing a unique timeline concept, the software will enables various audio and video layers to be played simultaneously vastly enriching the concert experience. And in an unprecedented technological advancement, the upgraded App will feature 360 degree video layers, allowing the viewer to experience the concert from the perspective of the musician creating the feeling of being right there on stage with the musicians.

The concert in question was an artist called Fink playing with the Royal Concert Orchestra in the Netherlands for their "Queen's Night" celebration. I was tempted to see what this was like, but it was when I clicked on the link to download the app that I got put off the idea. First the app in question was for iPad only (and I don't have one) and second they were charging nearly $4 for it. On the one hand, not a great sum of money, on the other it seemed a lot for a one-off experience/experiment on an artist I wasn't familiar with, even if I had had the hardware to use the app. It still sounds interesting, just it would either need an artist I was actually interested in at that price or would need to be somewhat cheaper (or free) for me to consider an experiment on something similar if it ever comes round on Android.

That's all for this time. Stay tuned for the next post when I'll be giving you an update on the things I'm still waiting for on Sellaband amongst other things.

Will you fight for an independent?

I'm not the kind of person who usually passes on follow requests, voting requests, buy requests or indeed any other type of request from music artists. God knows I encounter tens if not hundreds of these every single week on my travels round the Internet, and I take the view that with everyone else in the same position, the last thing I want to be doing is adding to their spam level by passing even more requests on. Seems every artist on this planet is in a permanent state of wanting something shared with the world.

I often find myself facing an internal conflict on this though. As someone who has been actively looking for music outside of whatever the current song/artist of the moment is for the past ten years, I know how difficult it is to sort through the mass out there and hence why artists try to convince others to spread the word.

So on the few occasions I do step forward on this, it's usually because I think they've got a genuine chance and/or I'm convinced I'm looking at one of the "good guys" and I'm in the sort of mood where I'd really like to see them stick a metaphorical finger up the music establishment.

Today is one of those occasions. I'm stepping forward and asking for your help.

If you've been following my blog, you'll know I've been mentioning Matthew Ebel's new album "The Lives of Dexter Peterson" in a number of my posts. Well the album is now out, but he's aiming to see if he can get either the album, or a specific song from it into the charts on Amazon, iTunes or both by getting people to purchase on 25th April. If it hits the top 10 on either, he'll send everyone who signed up to help a copy of the album commentary that has only been available to some of his subscribers. And I'm in the kind of mood where it would really make my day to see this happen.

So if Matthew Ebel succeeds in this, I will give a free VIP matthewebel.net subscription for an entire year to one of those who helped. That's something that Matthew would normally charge $149 for. If you want the full details of what one of those contains, then you'll need to read this (look for the section VIP Pass), but essentially it includes live concert recordings, music and behind the scenes material as well as an invite to his annual beer bash, after-show parties, goodie bag and 2 chances to win your own custom song during the year.

There are only two conditions
1. You have to have signed up using the form here. If you're not on Matthew Ebel's list of names then obviously you won't be eligible for the chance to get this in the first place.
2. This is in addition to the free commentary track (which is nearly an hour in length btw) being offered. i.e. Matthew's conditions state that he needs to hit the top 10 on either Amazon or iTunes for those on his list to get the free commentary track, so this extra of the free VIP subscription for a year for one person will only apply if he gives out the free commentary track to everyone on the list he has.

As you ought to realise from this, Matthew is aware I'm putting this on the table as the winner would need to be chosen at random from his list (which is something I don't have access to)

So what do you say? Will you help me fight for an independent artist with no promotional budget or team by buying the song (or indeed the entire album) he has listed here on 25th April? I'm willing to give away a full year subscription so someone can have a free taste of the kind of thing I've been subscribing to for the past three years because I believe he's doing things people need to hear. Will you spend just 99c for me (and him)?

And can I also count on you to pass the information in this blog post on?

Either way, you have my thanks for reading.

P.S. If you want to hear what's on the album first, then this is the link you need.

Musical March

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

Epyllion are no longer playing live. They say they are aiming to stay as a recording project, but in the meantime three of the members have created a cover band called "The Art Vandelays" and their keyboard player is about to release a solo album. Here's hoping they don't run into trouble with the unsigned Florida band of the same name!

Brad Cox has been posting a number of acoustic videos for various songs from his various projects on Youtube recently. There's also a new song from his "Niki Thunders and the Temperamentals" project coming soon.

Francis Rodino tweeted recently that he'll be hitting the studio again soon, so I'm wondering if that means new music is in the works. I'll be keeping my eyes out on his website and my inbox for any further info on that - it's been a while since either have been updated with news.

Katy Vachon caught my interest when Talentcast played her on their weekly radio show. She currently has a profile on Sellaband, but like most other artists there it seems she's forgotten to bring her fans and is waiting for people to appear from nowhere to give her money as the only people who have bought into her project are names I recognise. The only currently finished song off the album she is trying to fund for "I got style" does have hit potential, so I'll be interested to see what else she comes up with.

March has been an explosion of music that I've been waiting for being released. I strongly suspect my album of the year for 2012 is already known as a result, but with only a quarter of the year over, there is a small chance someone could still surprise me. The only clue I'll give you at this point is that it belongs to one of the next three artists I'm going to mention in this post - you'll just have to wait until the end of the year to find out which, assuming I get no surprises in the meantime.

Matthew Ebel released the mp3s for the new album "The Lives of Dexter Peterson" to those due them around the same time as the masters went for duplication. A number of other artists I've funded in the past would do well to learn a lot from this, given the number of cases where CDs have been on sale to the general public weeks or even months before those who had pre-paid got access to the downloads (let alone their CDs). The first of the physical CDs have therefore been produced and should be on their way soon, with distribution into the likes of CDBaby/Amazon etc. for the general public expected in April. As for the album itself, it has lived up to expectations and I can't wait to slap an actual CD in something with a decent set of speakers. Even from the 320k mp3s through my headphones, I can hear "A Million Miles Away" calling out for surround sound.

I've now got my Poets of the Fall album "Temple of Thought". I eventually got the price down a lot closer to £20 than the £30 I started at, thanks to a combination of shopping around and the exchange rate being semi-cooperative. At double the going rate of a CD in the UK, it's still a price which pains me though (anything much over 50% extra does) and as you can probably guess, the star rating is the only reason that's made me break my normal price rules in the first place. Initial impression has been that it's not their best album to date but not their worst either. This one appears to be an album of "growers" rather than having any tracks that immediately leap out and demand to be listened to - the only exception is "The Happy Song" which was written for the "Alan Wake's American Nightmare" soundtrack and really does sound like a bonus track, rather than fitting with the feel of the rest of the album as a result. The lyrics are as powerful as ever ("Skin" has to be one of their best to date for its imagery on this score, and as for "The Ballad of Jeremiah Peacekeeper" what can I say but "wow"), and interestingly the signature of this album seems to be based mainly round prose rather than rhyme. Like every POTF album, this one is therefore going to take a while to sort out my real favourites, although I already have a few ideas of which those will be.

Howling Dollhouse have now released previews of the rest of their self-titled 13 song album on their youtube channel, ("All the Pieces" and "Note to Self" had already been released as official videos), so if you want to take a listen to the whole album before deciding whether you want to buy, this is now the ideal place to do it.

Iconcrash also released a new album this month, containing the track they were hoping to get into the Eurovision Song Contest with as Finland's entry (that honour has gone to a lady singing in Swedish). The track in question (We Are The Night) is a lot more commercial than many of the other songs on the album which follow their more usual industrial-sounding electronic music style. Amazingly their special edition album was half the price of the Poets of the Fall album, leading me to a combination of head scratching and further price pain. With such a stupid range of prices for new release albums out there, it doesn't surprise me when there is piracy. Music industry - wake up and SORT IT OUT ALREADY!

Liz Menezes became this month's first Twitter artist of interest, not through following me, but rather through tweeting at me about her music. Have to admit I don't normally wander off to links sent at me seemingly at random, particularly if the profile picture is a pretty female, but I was in the right mood and a quick scout of her twitter account didn't pull up any red flags so I wandered off to take a listen. That's when the fun started, because she had an intro page up (since removed) in front of the website promoting her new album with a large "click here to buy" button. Yet it was impossible to get to her site from this page, and hence impossible to find anything of use to someone discovering an artist for the first time. She did send me a link to the actual homepage when I brought the subject up, so I did find out she would probably be of interest to people who like Lily Vasquez, as she appears to be another latino singer with a mix of Spanish and English songs.

Josh Bunce is the first musician follower on Twitter that I've had appear seemingly from nowhere that's gathered enough of my interest to follow back and see what happens over a more extended period. This young guitar player reminds me at times of Acoustic Jim and at others of Daniel Ward-Murphy and seems to have released just a couple of EPs (albeit long ones at 6-7 songs each) to date. Not the best I've heard, but well worth a listen even so if you're into the similar artists I've mentioned. I'm interested to see what, if anything, he can make of the potential I can hear hiding in there.

The sites I've been looking at
To cut a long story short, I've now got my husband's previous Android phone. I won't say old, because the Dell Streak Five he's using now is discontinued, whereas this LG isn't. Whilst I'd used this phone a few times while it was in his possession, now that it's in mine I've been spending some time at looking at getting it set up to use the things I want to use it for. As you can imagine, a major part of that is music, but so far it's not been living up to expectations.

After the hell of getting the ability to download apps working (It refused point blank to work with my existing Google account, yet was quite happy to work with a newly created one), one of the first things on my list was the Last.fm app. However I'm already thinking about getting rid of it, as it seems the only use it would have is to work as a scrobbler for tracks I had uploaded to the phone. The big problem is the fact you can only stream 50 tracks via the app before you have to pay. Somewhat daft when there's no limit when I access the site via a browser. I wouldn't mind if the only option you could listen to was tracks already in your library rather than the whole Last fm catalog, but to lock it down so completely means there's little point me using it for music streaming on the move. Chalk yet another one up for the idea of ownership - seems the best way to take music with you is still to upload it to your own phone from your own collection yourself rather than rely on a cloud. And you don't need an Android to do that.

No doubt I'll land up exploring the idea of app development a bit further as a reason for using it, but for the moment the laptop appears to be winning for ease of use despite its lower portability over the idea of a smartphone for the things I want to do on a mobile basis. I hadn't expected that, so this is proving an interesting experiment.

Slowbizz
I mentioned Slowbizz a few posts ago as being a service aiming to aid artists with booking tours. Whilst quite liking the idea in principle, the costs involved for hosts didn't make it look attractive for something you'd want to do as a regular event, and I also had a number of concerns about how it could work in practice. Seems there have been a few critical changes since that post, making it worthwhile for me to post some more thoughts as a result.

Firstly, Slowbizz itself has gone non-profit. This essentially means that they no longer take any money and they no longer set the fee that hosts pay to artists. On this score, they've therefore removed themselves so completely from the equation that there's absolutely no reason for existing fans of an artist to use the service at all - as all they're really doing is providing an initial point of contact between host and artist and you sort out all the details between you, you might as well go direct in the first place.

Secondly the changes from the artist side don't make things particularly easy either. Firstly the rules for new artists getting added to the list of those available have changed. Instead of getting a minimum of 100 fans to sign up in order to get added to the roster, you now need to get the approval of at least 75% of the hosts on the system instead. Add to this the fact that you're now essentially doing all the booking arrangements for a tour instead of that falling on Slowbizz and from the artist point of view it's starting to look like you've got a lot of work again.

Thirdly, the new Slowbizz stance of acting as a "social meeting point" between artists and potential hosts is currently unfulfilled. There's no forum or other way to interact on the site itself - the best you can do is fill in a form to state you're interested in booking an artist. Yet to be a useful meeting point there needs to be visible communication. Artists and hosts need to have the social features to allow them to communicate and get to know each other, even before an artist attempts to get added to the Slowbizz roster. There needs to be the possibility of feedback and advice so that both artists and hosts have information on what's going right and wrong with the process and can share that with others who may be hesitating or in order to improve things for the future. None of that exists on the site at the moment. Rather the order of the day currently seems to be mails from Slowbizz that are ultimately just marketing. i.e. the "Please tell everyone else you know about us" sort and that approach isn't going to win any fans of the site or even the idea in general. And a similar problem appears on the new site homepage, where links to the registration forms are prominent, yet you have to go scrolling down the page in order to stand any chance of finding the links to the artists rosters (available and pending) - in fact it's not even obvious the useful stuff is down there, and it's way too easy to think the links will take you back to one of the registration forms you encountered earlier based on the wording.

So overall, my impression hasn't changed that much. I think there may still be some potential there for artists to get additional dates on top of ones they're able to arrange directly with their existing fans, but it looks like the site is still a long way from the chance of making that potential a reality, except for maybe a very few.

Amazon
Given the rise of digital, I decided to spend my latest electronic voucher in their mp3 shop for a change. I've been an Amazon customer for years, buying both books and CDs both in the past and currently and never had any problem. I've shied away from the idea of mp3s, but given the huge discrepancies between CD and digital for some artists, I decided I was long overdue on giving them a try.

My biggest problem with the big players like Amazon and Itunes is the idea of a software download (I'm here to buy MUSIC, not a DRM solution or software I don't need for gods sake), but given the ability to take the downloaded files from the Amazon software and put them wherever you want seemed easy as pie, I thought it was worth a try. Who knows, maybe I'd actually get used to the idea and turn into an mp3 buyer rather than a CD buyer if I could get used to buying them from a name I've trusted for years?

Well the software went on easy enough, I hit the pay button and I got a nice shiny new one telling me to click on it and it would download my tracks. So I clicked and got the response that my card payment had been rejected. This was despite the fact, I'd received the email confirmation from Amazon that my payment had completed successfully! So, I went back into the order details and yes, everything was paid for, but could I find that download button again? Nope. Nowhere to be seen. So I fired off an email to customer support. Within a couple of hours they responded saying they'd reactivated the download button for me (apparently if you miss that one opportunity to download, that's it you won't get another) and this time when I clicked on it, it did actually start to download tracks.

However it didn't download all of them, and yes, you guessed it. There was no way to retry downloading the tracks that the software had failed on. To add insult to injury, whilst it told me "one or more tracks failed to download" it didn't tell me which those were, meaning I had to manually check an order list of about 30 tracks to confirm what was missing. That's when the second email went off to Amazon.

On the plus side, someone from Amazon did actually phone me after that second mail and tried to fix the problem with downloading tracks over the phone. On the minus side he failed. And whilst they were good enough to give me my money back on the tracks that failed despite the fact they have a "no-money-back" policy on digital downloads, the experience has done enough to convince me I won't be buying digital from them again. And confirmed my previous stance about not wanting to buy digital from anywhere that insists you download software in order to be able to download or listen to music. Looks like you'll have to pry the CD out of my cold dead hands after all.

That's all for now. I'm expecting April to be somewhat quieter on the music front, given it seems to have all happened in March, but expect an update on my ongoing Sellaband problems as part of that post as a minimum.

New releases: heaven or hell?

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
There has been a miracle since my last post. Only a small one, but a miracle none the less. Sellaband made the songs from Natalia Safran's CD available for download on their site. (Mind you, the mp3 tagging is a real mess on them) A few days later, the CD itself arrived in very minimal eco-packaging (about half the thickness of a digipak), along with an additional printed sheet insert with a message from Natalia about the album. But is it as amazing as promised? I'm leaning towards no. I find myself distinctly unimpressed, but how much of that is due to the absurdly long time before the music has been seen causing me to lose a lot of interest in the first place, I'm unsure. More care appears to have been taken with the packaging than the CD, as the insert was hand signed but the CD itself appears to contain none of the normal CD information about tracks etc. but appears merely a duplication from a master source of the kind that any person with a computer might perform. It's a pleasant enough listen, but with only a couple of tracks which seem hitworthy (one of those is "Hey You", the one snapped up for the Renee Zelwegger film). It's also somewhat repetitive in both the lyrics department (if you haven't worked out she has a "wonderful but crazy loverboy" by about the 3rd or 4th track you're obviously lagging behind) and the fact Natalia shows no variety vocally either - she sings in exactly the same way with exactly the same dreamy soft voice in every song and it therefore feels like she's being propped up by the music and her male singer rather than able to achieve anything much on her own. I therefore find it's a pretty disappointing effort for something which has taken so long. The strongest material seems to be on the front of the album as well, leaving what feels like a half-finished album finished off with filler just to get it done. On the positive side the album has been well produced - possibly a little too well produced for my own tastes, but there's no denying it's up there with the best sound quality albums to have come from Sellaband so far.

"The Lives of Dexter Peterson" is now available for pre-order from Matthew Ebel in a number of different formats/packages starting at $10 for a lossless download. Alternatively he also has a "chartbombing" plan, if you'd rather wait until the actual release to buy. More details on all the options are available here along with 3 of the album tracks for you to listen to.

Also very much in a "coming soon" mode, the new Poets of the Fall album "Temple of Thought" is due to be released on 22nd March. So I'm now busily looking round to find the best price for this as the current exchange rate pains me somewhat. Whilst I don't mind paying that little bit extra for an import, when the price means I can get 2 albums in the UK instead, that's normally stretching things a little bit too far. Obviously this is one of a few cases where I'm willing to make an exception (the 5 star rating should tell you that) hence the price hunting, rather than me automatically going for my usual source for Finland. In the meantime, they've also released 2 singles they did as part of the soundtrack to the video game "Alan Wake's American Nightmare", one of which will be on the album itself. This particular track "The Happy Song" is a complete opposite to their current release "Cradled in Love" and whilst feeling more like B-side material it features what I can only describe as the ultimate in stadium singalong for a chorus involving the magic phrase "I'm a psycho". So if that description doesn't make you want to check it out, then I don't know what will.

Howling Dollhouse have released their debut album this past week. Well.. technically it's their second, seeing as their first was the self-titled "Into The Night" before they changed their name. It seems they've had the same amazing inspiration on album titles since the name change though, hence this one is also self-titled "Howling Dollhouse". It seems the album itself is currently available to buy digitally on iTunes but not Amazon, and tracking down physical distribution (if indeed there is any) will be very hard work given their website is currently little more than a landing page with a video of one of the tracks from the album - the only mention of actual CDs I've seen so far is that they will be available to buy at shows which would be rather a way to go unless you live in Australia. Whilst their music is also available on some streaming services already, the fastest way to get a feel for the variety of this 13 song offering once you've viewed the video is to stop by their facebook page where five more of the songs are posted. What I've heard has been enough for me to make the tweak upward I was expecting in their rating (and yes, despite the fact I don't like rap) but I'm currently expecting it may take me a while to get hold of this one due to the present distribution seemingly being a complete mismatch for my usual methods of purchase.

The latest facepalm moment came as I was taking a visit to Sellaband to post a status update to let people know my Natalia Safran album had actually arrived. I happened to notice this particular project, which appears to have basically nothing to do with music. According to the info in their plan, they want to fund production and warehousing facilities for wood granule based bio-fuel. In return for your investment, you can get a reduction in the cost of buying tonnes of this stuff. Nearly a fortnight on, the project is still there and still available to fund. Are Sellaband branching out into non-music related stuff, or is there STILL nobody keeping an eye on what's actually in the projects being signed up because they are too busy spending their time on Facebook? I know what I think the answer to that one is, hence the facepalm. Makes you wonder just what it takes for some people to get a clue. And given it took me about 30 seconds to spot that strange looking project, I'm wondering how many others I've missed as a result of my less frequent visits so far this year.

The sites I've been looking at

Mushp
Had a wander over to look at this as the result of the news article on Sellaband listing them as their new partner site. Described in the news article as a "community and information portal", I found myself staring at something I certainly wouldn't describe as that. The site itself appears to have absolutely nothing resembling a community, seemingly being merely links to a collection of articles you can comment on with no forum or obvious way to interact otherwise. Clicking on the link for "artist blogs" gave me a list of a whole 7 artists, most of which contained only one post (with the most being two posts). And as for the artist profiles, I've no idea how you find those. The "show all" link on the newest profiles just takes you back to the list of artist blogs, meaning that as soon as an artist is no longer one of the last 3 added profiles, they've basically disappeared into the equivalent of the "Sellaband graveyard". How many artists on Sellaband actually will bother starting up profiles over there I have no idea, but the site looks highly "beta" and of even less worth than Sellaband itself at the moment - it looks like they're looking for Sellaband to drive traffic to their site as a result. I have no idea what Sellaband are looking to get from the partnership either, because there's certainly no "community of fans" over there, or anything interesting enough to make such a group of people want to visit Mushp regularly in the first place, so the chances of Sellaband getting any traffic from there other than perhaps the odd artist under the false impression people will throw money at them if they join Sellaband look to be pretty much nil.

Earbits
Welcome to the site that I could have seen thesixtyone becoming before they had their disastrous site redesign. Earbits is basically a streaming radio service covering independents from the somewhat known to the completely unheard of (obviously providing they've uploaded their music). You can pick a radio station from a wide number of different genres to listen to and you'll get a very useful page up for the track currently playing. This typically contains an artist biography, photos of the artist, links to artist sites (e.g. website, twitter, facebook etc.) and a "discography" section which lists all the releases currently available on Earbits for that artist with clickable 30-second previews of each track. For many artists there's a "buy" option associated with this (though I've not checked out the prices yet) and I've even occasionally seen a "download for free" option too. The streaming is completely ad-free as well, so there's actually a lot to recommend it for the music lover looking for something new. There's also a real-time chat option, although it appears unmoderated at least at present. On the downside, the ads that pop up when you first reach the site are annoying (in particular the one with the question about whether you'd visit the site again - seriously, why ask that within the first half second of someone visiting your site as it may be their first time?) and whilst I've been able to stream from the site without logging in, it seems that Facebook is required if you want to post comments or get any real use out of the site, as that seems to be the only way to register. I'm also seeing a lot of problems with streaming as it often gets stuck claiming it is "buffering" - in reality you land up having to skip or pause/play to get it going again, and as a result it's not as reliable as I'd like for something to be playing in the background whilst I'm working on something else on my computer. There's also no mini-player/pop-out player which is kind of a mixed blessing - on the one hand it would be a shame to lose the view on all that lovely info I quoted earlier, but on the other it seems more likely you need to hear something you like before it becomes of real interest. I can't really see people spending all their time reading artist bios while the music plays - it's more likely they want to do as I do and have the music playing in the background, but then have the easy info access when something catches their attention.

Ylex
As one of the major radio stations in Finland, I've been visiting this site on an irregular basis since about 2004 as one source to point me in the direction of artists from Finland I hadn't heard of before, so I could go elsewhere and check out them and their music. However it's been a while since I was last there and I had a pleasant surprise on my recent visit. Seems that not only are they now streaming live radio over the Internet, it also seems the licensing is in place to allow people outside the country to view/listen to it. As a result I'll probably be spending a few hours a month doing just that, as it's likely to cut out some of the work in deciding which artists I might be most interested in (previously I had to fight the language barrier on the site to determine that). It also means I'll probably be keeping my eyes peeled for other streaming radio stations outside the UK this year - if streaming is finally starting to get past the licensing issues it's had up until now, then it could well become my main form of discovery this year.

That's all for now. Stay tuned in March when I'm hoping to get one of my special posts out (though I haven't decided which of the subjects rattling round my head to write it on yet) as well as one of my more usual ones, but you'll have to wait and see if I actually manage enough time and material for all that.

New Year no surprises?

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
Firstly as a quick update from my review of the year post, it's probably going to come as no surprise that the Skitzo Calypso album "Ghosts" has arrived safe and sound. And in fact a few days earlier than I was expecting it. Meantime I'm still waiting for my Natalia Safran album, even though the email exchange with Sellaband about the situation (and other subjects) continued after my review of the year post was written. Indeed it will soon be another month since she last logged into Sellaband and more complaints have started appearing on her wall in that time. And enough said by my last post on what I'm thinking at the moment as a result of these events.

As for the Skitzo Calypso album, interestingly although I like it nothing has leapt out and grabbed me above any other track as a must-listen. The tracks come across as too similar rather than having the variety (and hence interest) that Brad's solo project album ("The Day The Devil Fooled The World") did. Rather I think the better (and more memorable) tracks are the ones up for free download. Even though it's well known I'm not a fan of rap, my pick of the bunch is therefore "Ready or Not" - the song you'd probably be least expecting me to choose of the eight available (5 on the EP + 3 free).

Into the Night are in the process of changing their name etc. to Howling Dollhouse. So the album I posted as expecting this year is going to be released under their new name. They already have a new website and a new video for the first single from the album which you can view from the Howling Dollhouse link I just gave you.

Don't know whether he read my last blog post, but it looks like Matthew Ebel is finally getting himself organised with regard to sending out things overdue from last year, causing me to once again relax and stop doubting my sanity for now. Looks like I'll be able to expect this in the first half of March, given the travel time for post and the fact that the album part of "The Lives of Dexter Peterson" is expected to be mastered and have all its artwork ready by the end of February - once again it makes much more sense to send everything together at this point.

I also now have an album title for the new Poets of the Fall album due this year. The album is called "Temple of Thought" and the first single from it "Cradled in Love" has already been played on radio in Finland. Of course this also meant within a couple of hours it had already been uploaded to Youtube, despite the fact it wasn't even available to buy at the time. Unusually this isn't an up-tempo track (as might be expected from the first release off an album) and might therefore explain why a different single is being released in Germany. Whilst I don't generally link to unofficial uploads, I've got a particular reason for doing so this time. So go listen to the full song here and then give your ears a real treat by listening to the full quality clips posted on the artist's own site. Like many in this day and age, I'm often guilty of listening to mp3s for convenience and portability, but it's nice to be reminded of one of the reasons I still buy CDs in the first place, given what can happen to track quality in some cases. And at the same time there has also been a reminder of the dilemma fans face in the form of this post. Just as artists seemingly face the "chicken and egg" situation of not being able to get their music on the radio or tour until they have enough fans in a country, so there is also the problem from the fan side of how to convince others to listen to an artist (and hopefully eventually convert into fans) when their music isn't being played on the radio and they're not touring there either. Hence one of the reasons people turn to illegal means in the first place, even though a lot of artists seem to be under the impression sharing is actually hurting their sales despite the fact those who like what they hear will often buy it later. People don't buy music they haven't heard unless they are already reasonably big fans of the artist that created it, yet there are still way too many roadblocks out there stopping music getting to potential listeners without them resorting to methods considered illegal, given music should be considered a global market.

So onto the new stuff and as usual we're at the time of year where I go looking around at some of the artists I haven't been near in a while to see what they're up to, rather than actively looking for new music. However that doesn't stop new music from finding me, and it's been interesting to spot that I am starting to get the odd artist follow me on Twitter, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Unfortunately I haven't picked up anything that has grabbed my attention sufficiently to warrant a follow back (at least at this point), and as can probably be expected the follows have therefore tended to be temporary as a result. Most interesting so far has been Bridge Construction, who sounded like they ought to be something I'd have fairly high interest in listening to from the description in their biography, but have turned out to be a pretty disappointing take-it-or-leave-it based on the tracks I've heard so far.

As for those I've been to visit so far, it feels like I'm pretty much suffering the curse of the dead due to unclear, outdated or just plain old hard to find information presented to those dropping by rather than actively following. Three examples of such artist websites follow.

It's been rather a long time since I stopped off at Mandyleigh's page and it's unclear whether the most recent post on her blog is a couple of weeks old or more like a year old as a result. What does seem to be certain is that family has been taking up a lot of her time since I was last there and the music has been forced into taking a back seat as a result. Indeed the fundraising she started on her own site for a second album back in 2010 looks like it didn't really go anywhere either and there's seemingly no new music available since she recorded her Sellaband album. Whatever she's currently up to, I wish her well, but it doesn't look like anything much is (or will be) happening musically any time soon.

I've also wandered past Lily's site, but the obvious information on it appears to be about a year out of date, as the "February 8th single release date" shown on the homepage appears to apply to last year. She does appear to be active on Twitter though, so will be seeing what further info I can get from there as she always used to be a pretty friendly and fast responder before.

Bulletproof Messenger's site pretty much continues to annoy me. I find I get much more useful info a lot easier from anywhere but their own website. I really like these guys and their music hence why I'm signed to their mailing list, but it never ceases to amaze me how poor their website seems at introducing them and their music to anyone hearing them for the first time who will have dropped by to find out more. When you get more from Youtube and even from Twitter than from an artist's own site, it's quite clear they're really not making best use of their potential.

One other place I've been was to visit Grooveduke's site to find out how he was getting on with the cancer battle. Seems he is still holding off on getting the transplant operation done and started looking for a management team at the end of last year to try and get some progress towards getting a new album funded. Looks like the one he attempted (and failed) to get made on Sellaband did indeed get finished. It's called "Heavy Mariner" and whilst I have to admit I never really got into his music, I quite like the rather distinctive album art he had made for this (of which there appears to be more in a similar style elsewhere on his site). There hasn't been any update to his blog in January though, so I can only hope his latest trip to hospital has gone well.

The websites I've been looking at
Netvalar who I first met on Sellaband has resurfaced on the music scene after being pretty much absent for a while now. It looks like he's reopening his music research, but has dropped the Netvalar name and slightly bizarrely has me listed as one of his mentors, despite the fact I only scrambled out the consumer pile and started looking at music and crowdfunding as a result of discovering Sellaband. So it's a little strange to feel someone considers me a mentor when I've spent all the time we've been interacting in learning from scratch myself. A process which is still ongoing, but for which I really ought to publish a "what I've learnt so far" type post soon, listing the conclusions I've reached to date. Five years has caused me to contemplate some interesting stuff, after all.

I've also started a little more training of my station on Last FM. So far I'm up to just over 500 artists covering about 3000 plays, though the first couple of pages are now getting pretty representative of who I'm listening to most at this point in time, whilst being not necessarily so accurate of who I've listened to most if the past were properly taken into account too.

That's pretty much all I've got for you at the moment. Recovering from Christmas/New Year and getting January with all its birthdays (including a major one of my own this year) and wedding anniversaries out the way always tends to take up a lot of time (yet another reason for me not looking for that much in the way of new music at this time of year), so hopefully I'll be finding some more interesting info and sites for you soon.