Believer fatigue

I'm suffering from what has been called "believer fatigue". If you're an artist, the feeling is often more familiar as that raindrop in the middle of the ocean - you don't necessarily want to reach the shore as a tidal wave, but you do at least wish someone would notice the ripple (or as one artist said to me "sometimes it feels like nobody ever gets to hear our music"). From a believer point of view the feeling is the same, the thing that most often causes it being the complete and total lack of progress by Sellaband itself which leaves you being that raindrop, banging your head against a brick wall or worse.

I've seen more than one believer seemingly suffer a terminal case of believer fatigue. Who can forget Kristen for instance and her Sellaband promos? (here's just one as a taster - I'll let you find the rest), yet if you go to her page today, it's pretty much a case of the lights are on, but nobody's home. Don't get me wrong, she's still around. In believer land, just because you give in on Sellaband, it doesn't mean you stop caring about those you leave behind.

You've probably noticed the Amazon widget under my picture by now, and are probably wondering what it's doing there instead of one of the Sellaband ones. Simple - the Sellaband ones don't let me promote Sellaband, they only let me promote artists I own parts in, so I've decided to go with what I consider a more suitable solution for people who just happen to stumble over this blog and are wondering what music has come out of the place so far. I also like how obvious and simple the Amazon one is, rather than the somewhat confusing design from Sellaband.

That's just one example of something that believers have been shouting about for ages ("give us promotion tools!"). Add to that incidents such as the fuss over the "stolen" T-shirt slogan, poor CD sales through Sellaband and the fact Sellaband doesn't seem to be going anywhere believer-wise to the casual observer and it's maybe easier to understand why the faithful seem to be slowly losing it, thoughts of incompetence are appearing and that fatigue is creeping in. Remember the Paradiso concert after Nemesea hit 50K and how many believers turned up buying parts in the following weeks, catapulting Cubworld to 50K in the process? Bit of a disappointment not to see the same after Sellabration both this year and last, wasn't it?

My own case of "believer fatigue" currently exists as a result of Sellaband's lack of response to dealing with the "inactive profile" problem. I originally started on about this in April 2007 when the biggest common theme was the fact that artists seemed to be using it as a dumping ground for music, often didn't bother uploading any info or a photo, were completely non-responsive when you tried to contact them and didn't make any mention of Sellaband anywhere on their other sites. These days, you won't find quite so much of that going on, but will find the deficit made up of profiles of artists who have left Sellaband, have split and are no more, or who opened a new profile and the old one is still hanging around.

Whilst artists are supposed to send an e-mail to Sellaband if they want their profiles closed down, it's impossible to tell how many do this and how many arrive in Sellaband's "other" inbox (otherwise known as the spam folder). I used to report in profiles to Sellaband, but I stopped because they never do anything about them.

I've been trying my best to try and find some of the "interested" hiding in the mass of seemingly "inactive" profiles. Hopefully a case such as Essentia, who this week sent another bulletin round Myspace about Sellaband, yet who still haven't updated their Sellaband profile demonstrates these people exist. (Of course that's only part of the story, but I won't go into the rest of the hell you have to go through if you decide to do something to try and help in this post). I've also traditionally listened to every artist that signs up, irrespective of my own musical taste. With so few believers on Sellaband to start with, I think every artist deserves to have been listened to by someone. But the fire and enthusiasm has gone. With Sellaband seemingly not caring, it gets harder and harder for me to care too. Sellaband isn't helping me to try and help artists, so why should I bother? I've changed the way I approach Sellaband as a result.

I'm now only listening when I feel like it or have the time, which means I'm only listening to a fraction of the music I was not so long back. All artists I believe in I am now a fan of (if I missed you, let me know - I have rather a lot). If I set myself as a fan of an artist, but don't own a part it's pretty much a guarantee that I love the music enough that there will be a part there sooner or later if the artist is active. Wishlist is now for people I'm watching or whose music I haven't really decided on yet.

But maybe you're thinking I'm making a fuss out of nothing. I've never asked for Sellaband to do something to every artist who hasn't updated their profile in a while, only to do something about the obvious problems which can be fixed e.g. deleting profiles of artists who have left, or not even displaying/creating profiles of artists until they have filled in a minimum amount of information (say info section, upload main photo and one song). So to give you a very brief intro as to what I'm talking about, here is the list of profiles that I can think of where the artist is quite clearly stating they are no longer there, has messaged believers to say they are no longer there, or has made some attempt to clean out their profile. Obviously, there could be more, and remember this doesn't include some of the really crazy profiles out there like the band that's been on Sellaband for well over 2 years and never had a song on their profile to start with. (If you want a list of those, we could be here all night)

Mellow Yellow - if you want them these days, go visit Rebelle instead
Awake - Siger is back as Tarball
Man Made Ivory - Remember their game?
Yakir Shahar - Note the comment of frustration (presumably at being unable to delete the profile themselves)
Orange latitude - hmm, how soon is soon? That was a year ago.
Private Nation, Emily's playground, Mira gem, This side Up, Alioune K, Marijke, The Super Dead, Alien Orphans, Lapser, Trailer Trash Tremblers, Joyz, Eutopia, The Mitchell Blues band, Jesse David, The tonic rays, Dirty Wee Middens, Syrius Jones, Monsieur Cannibale,

There are also other profiles I've heard about from other believers that are still there when the artist is supposed to have given in, but with only their word and no evidence of my own I'll leave those out of the mix, despite the fact the profiles in question haven't been updated since I was told.

So what do you think now, with more than 20 profiles that I can think of just off the top of my head on display? Am I being unreasonable in expecting Sellaband to sort out the situation with artist profiles? In the (albeit unlikely) event that one of these artists were to reach 50K, I get the distinct feeling there'll be some lawyers somewhere making an awful lot of money while the situation is untangled.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to waiting for pigs to fly, which seems likely to happen sooner than Sellaband taking any interest in doing its "housework".