Posted on 06/10/2010 11:09:28 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Companies are preying on desperate musicians by selling them Twitter followers, Facebook fans and even download sales. But only a fool would think this is real success
One of the most staggering statistics I took from this year's The Great Escape was that analytics company MusicMetric is currently tracking 450,000 artists. As it's not following every artist out there, we can safely say there are more than half a million competing for your attention. So how are they supposed to get heard?
Unsurprisingly, new companies have emerged that are intent on profiting from the increasing desperation of artists and start-up record labels, in the same way that modelling agencies prey on young, naïve hopefuls.
...with social media becoming increasingly important in marketing, some companies are selling "fans" and "followers".
On Usocial.net you can buy 1,000 Twitter followers for $87, 1,000 Facebook friends for $197, and 5,000 YouTube views for $97....
It's unclear from Usocial's website how they go about getting you these followers and views, but maybe Subvertandprofit.com provides a clue...
...It's a warped system when the marketing company and the "music fan" makes money out of the artist, with little – if any – gain for the artist. What's to stop someone signing up for a Twitter and Facebook account that they never look at...
...For $6,000, Chartfixer will crowd-source 1,000 downloaders to each buy a digital copy of an artist's track from iTunes. After purchasing the track, the downloader can claim the cost back and obtain a reward of one dollar. In Australia, 1,000 sales can get you into the top 80, whereas 5,000 sales (which would cost $25,000) can buy you a potential top 20 hit...
My advice... is to build their fanbase organically. It takes time, but that's how you develop a loyal fanbase...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It'd be like the industry trying to push Fabian on a world that would rather hear the Beatles and denying that there even is a Beatles.
Actually, I'm not sure 6K for a top 80 song in Australia is such a bad deal. A crowd gathers and what do people do? They stop to see what everyone is looking at. Interesting business. Might have to look into it.
This guy's talk of "building a fan base" is very 20th century. The album is dead. AOR is dead. Now it's ala carte. It's done online. Live shows are not a big deal anymore. It's online. It's ITUNES.
Except that isn't how hits are made. You get your name out there under any pretext. Sheena Easton rose to fame in the US piggy-backing on the success of the movie 9 To 5 (and Dolly Parton's hit). She went to number one and didn't hit there again even with a Bond film themesong.
It's chart success that determines commercial (not just career) longevity. Your old songs won't get played on radio if they didn't become a hit the first time around.
And the corporations that own the labels also own publishing in books and magazines and broadcast tv shows and movie licensing deals. You have to storm the gates.
Some major corporation (Disney?) did this themselves with Youtube. They signed some female singer-songwriter and had her release to youtube "homemade" videos of her playing and singing in her kitchen. She "got" hundreds of thousands of hits and then they announced that they "signed this popular unknown".
Don't believe the hype.
I think the track for becoming a top paid summertime “one hit wonder” is to craft some song and get it played on the fashion runways (like an “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred).
Doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s just about charting a hit. Show-Business.
The public has tuned out of what the corporations are selling musically and politically. They are dishonest and the public wants something else.
I’m a singer/songwriter in the “racist” state of Arizona. I often wonder how to get heard.
Here’s a video I did for Memorial Day. It won’t win any MTV awards (actually I’m proud of that) but it might open some hearts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hss6kWXIiEY
In Canada, where the State runs the media, being Canadian is practically enough to be heard on the radio (I think they require something like 80% Canadian artist content on the radio).
And even in a state like Texas, there is a music department associated with the Governor’s office. And despite over a decade of Republican governors, I fear that it would lean towards liberal artists’ advancement as it is run out of Austin Texas, the most liberal city in the state.
the idea of a claque has been around for centuries, if not millenia.
New word to me. Thanks. Yea, so this is a virtual claque.
Perhaps one in a hundred of that number are actual "artists", so perhaps they simply don't deserve to be heard? :)
Have to be Canadian to get on the radio in Canada, huh? My favorite key is A. Do you think that would count?
90% of everything is crud - Sturgeon’s Law (said when he was asked why 90% of the science fiction stories the questioner read were crud)
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