Times are a changing for musicians and content creators currently, a myriad of options to release music and promo content is available, physical & virtual, usually with little comeback for the budding artist, One is expected these days being a artist to also be attuned to business, marketing, all while still making ones art.
Is your band on free social media? itunes, google play or perhaps CD Baby? Whats your marketing plan for the next 90 days? Promotion? Hows your cyber footprint and presentation of the branding of your art/content? - Does it look top notch? The List is endless but one must consider the dynamic ranges of ones effort, across all areas.
I was on the phone to a fellow producer friend of mine the other day, we was discussing how the music industry had changed, beyond CD's, MP3's.....how the consumption of music and distribution digitally of music/content had changed with the advent of the digital music industry (of which we still consider in its infancy!) and with the technology of the internet changing the very modes of music consumption.
He explained how artists have unique challenges today, that inherent with digital music distribution a noise of information across all media ment the fight for attention in a attention based economy ment artists had to shout louder than ever!
Cats, memes, jokes, Dibble across the internet, porn, bad behavioural advertising, you name it. What about social media noise he says? Chasing Fame too? We discussed in depth the "rat race" engaged by most artists chasing notions of fame and fortune. But he says something deeply moving and interesting. He Says....
"We are not in the music business, We are in the Business of Making Music!"
New tools are in the works as we speak across the cryptocurrency world, Musicoin - a coin for pinning music rights and distribution has been a clear first mover advantage in the space but as we know the final tech and product needs to expand and devolp however impressed we have been at the possibility of musicians not having to rely on PPL or PRS as a "middle man", taking a slice of the pie for digital and physical royalitys.
I understand too Hakim Draper, cofounder of Boogie Shack Music Group, believes that Blockchain holds the power to spark the greatest revolution in the music industry since Apple launched the iTunes Music Store in 2001. For me the promise is delivered upon delivery of the promise. The tools artists/labels need to directly engage and distribute and transform content into value.
Personally for me too should the development of a sidechain to the bitcoin blockchain so that one could create a content or media both physical and immaterial and assign rights, ownership.
With blockchain technology the very samples of a track can be sold as micro payments, One could only wonder if the free transactions of the IOTA blockchain was harnessed in this manner. These things for me are the exciting areas. Artists and content creators dont need another itunes, we need to have tools to manage and distribute content down to the very sample.
The world is changing and technology is changing the way things are done, simple right?
Clearly there has emerged a somewhat centralisation of information distribution by the internet as the tech giants have acted as the gate keepers to the flow of capital on content consumption has left most independent artists out in the cold.
Things like BitTunes, Resonate, Musicoin, new decentralised, distributed, supply chain cutting digital tools have emerged!
Lets see what the space brings, We are putting a team together on the above topic with the intention of building or doing something good, perhaps you can help? got a skill? get in touch?
As for the post, Are you passionate about your content, music, art or work? How do you see the music industry moving and what tools have you found useful?
Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Love n Light x
E
