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.