Tag Archive for 'Nine Inch Nails'

Tunecore: The DIY Solution for Digital Music Distribution

Tunecore. This gem of a company is quite frankly the only solution that DIY musicians will ever need for digital music (and video) distribution. Two of the most obvious reasons why: 1) Get 100% of the royalties and 2) Keep all your rights.

Not only is Tunecore the largest distributer in the world, touting artists like Nine Inch Nails, Jay-Z, Joan Jett, Aretha Franklin, and Public Enemy, but they are also the preferred partner for many of the top digital stores due to their speed, reliability, and low costs.

For artists there is no better deal because they keep every penny from every sale of their songs. And Tunecore sales are up in the neighborhood of $45 million so far. Now, that’s a lot of pennies.

On top of that, the process couldn’t be easier. Instead of submitting music to a ton of different places, Tunecore does all the work for you. They push your music to iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, Aimee Street, and others, give you access to Access to Interscope, Island Def Jam, Republic, Motown Records, and can even make your song available to buy and play on Rock Band. You also get physical on-demand distribution on Amazon, get paid for your streams on MySpace, and get a streaming music player with your music for your webpage. Merry freakin’ Christmas, people! If you ask nicely, they might come over and tuck you into bed at night too.

Ok, maybe they won’t show up at your door, but you can definitely always reach them. In addition to 24/7 access to your account (where you can add or remove stores, review iTunes sales trending reports, withdraw your money, view or download your accounting, create a streaming media player or get an iTunes store link on your artist page), there are also dedicated Artist Support Reps there to hold your hand throughout the process. Then again, Tunecore was founded on the philosophy of never taking advantage of an artist, so that shouldn’t be surprising. Their motto is “Sell Your Music, Not Your Soul.”

Tunecore should also be your new best friend because they’ve got friends in high places. Like, thanks to their partnership with Universal Music Group, they can help artists get their music licensed for TV, movies, and video games. Try doing that on your own. It’ll be tough. They’re also in cahoots with the folks at Guitar Center and House of Blues, which could bode well for your future.

As if all that weren’t enough, Tunecore also insists on hooking you up with freebies like free digital cover art, free CD artwork (for Amazon’s Disc on Demand store), free streaming music widgets, and even free bar codes, UPCs and TuneCore song identifiers (TCSI).

You’re probably wondering what the catch is by now. It all seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? They must charge like a zillion dollars, right? Nope. For $9.99, you can push your single to all 19 stores. And for $46.99 you can push your album (unlimited songs) to all 19 stores. Holy crapola that’s cheap. Another option – for the picky among you – is the “a la carte” album option that, for $59.58, let’s you select your songs and select your stores. By the way, signing up is free.

Another cool feature is the custom widget. Add your songs, band photo, tour dates, streams from Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. Be strategic and put the widget on your blog, website, Facebook, MySpace or wherever so that your fans can buy your music, see your videos, become a fan, and most importantly share your goodies with their friends.

If you do well with Tunecore, they will even grant you some super exclusive opportunities. For example: Sell 100 songs on iTunes within 30 days and get guaranteed gigs at The Roxy in LA or at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC. Or if you become a Tunecore Top 10 best seller, you can get your CD in over 200 Guitar Center stores next to U2, Jimi Hendrix, and other greats, plus guaranteed in-store music play. Not. Too. Shabby. They’ve always got crazy deals and promotions going. Check out the current ones.

So what are you waiting for? Don’t just make your hot sister stand there and sell your CDs at your next local show. And don’t be that creep following rockstars around LA hoping to slip one of them a demo. Just go to Tunecore, for Pete’s sake. They’ll welcome you with open arms and propel you and your music to a level you couldn’t reach on your own. Sign up for Tunecore today!

SXSW Spotlights Artist-Fan Collaboration in New Film About Music 2.0

sxsw

Over the last several months, MixMatchMusic has been busy working on a short film for South By Southwest, titled “Remix…A New Way to Engage Fans”. Well, we’re happy to announce that the film is now live and you are invited to see how artists and fans are turning to remixing to connect and interact with fans in a music 2.0 world.

Emerging hip hop artists, the Bayliens, are poster children for a music 2.0 world that is nearly as much about connecting with fans off stage as it is entertaining them onstage.  This film shows how they’re connecting with fans at an almost molecular level, by offering them the musical building blocks of their songs and encouraging them to remix them into new sounds and new songs. The film also features insights from AmpLive (of Zion I) and Trifonic on the power of artist-fan collaboration.

Musicians are navigating a dramatically changed music business landscape.  More than ever, they have to engage and involve casual listeners in order to build deep and lasting relationships with them.  The group behind the video, MixMatchMusic (aka, the dudes writing this post), is focused on helping musicians make those connections and deepening the bonds that link them with fans.

The Bayliens

Deep Artist/Fan Connections Critical to Success in Music 2.0

More than nine million musicians are trying to connect with more than 200 million music fans, according to some estimates. The huge numbers alone would suggest the odds are in their favor. Yet the channels musicians have traditionally relied upon to get their music discovered, promoted and sold are increasingly irrelevant and as a result, musicians are increasingly on their own, without labels, record stores or radio to help them.

“The artist’s challenge is to convert casual fans into loyal fans, and loyal fans into paying customers,” said Charles Feinn, CEO and co-founder of music technology innovator MixMatchMusic. “Getting your music discovered just isn’t enough. Musicians have to engage and involve casual listeners in order to build deep and lasting connections with them, and to convert them to loyal fans. These connections are what drive sales of the concert tickets, band merchandise and CDs artists need to pay the rent and put gas in the van.”

According to Feinn and many other music industry observers, record labels play a smaller and smaller role in breaking new bands or even promoting signed bands. Record stores are disappearing and radio is less and less of a factor in promoting new music. And it’s hard for a new band to breakthrough amongst the millions of songs in the iTunes Store. It’s also true that music fans have changed, acclimated to the read/write web and the social interaction that comes with it, and looking for the same experience with music and the artists who create it.

“While the business part of the traditional music business is breaking down, music is alive and well and there is more music than ever,” said Feinn. “We’re on a mission to help keep music alive, and we’re doing so by helping artists forge deeper and more meaningful connections with fans.”

Feinn said a growing number of artists are turning to new Internet-based initiatives, such as the remix promotions pioneered by Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead, to help them engage with and connect with music fans.

“Involving fans in the creative process by encouraging them to remix and mash up a new song from the musical building blocks provided by the artist, is catching on as one of the best ways to make the artist – fan connection stronger,” he said.

Feinn said that more than 60 artists have launched remix promotions based on MixMatchMusic’s Remix Wizard, a simple-to-use widget that any fan with a broadband connection can use. Artists including Pepper and Zion I have loaded the building blocks of songs – the guitar, bass, keys, drums and other elements called stems, into customized versions of MixMatchMusic’s widget, and invited fans to remix the stems to create new sounds and songs with them. He said the company’s site has received more than half a million impressions since the beginning of the year, and more than 80 thousand plays of fan-created remixes.

Feinn said the Remix Wizard is a fan-friendly approach to the more complex remix technologies employed by Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. Bands such as Pepper feature remixes submitted by fans on their sites and MySpace pages, and some artists even promise to incorporate especially imaginative fan-created interpretations of their music in future albums.

Feinn said the Remix Wizard is the first in a series of artist and fan friendly technologies from MixMatchMusic designed to forge even stronger and deeper connections.

“Music has the power to bring people together,” said Feinn. “It’s exciting and also humbling to know we’re playing a small part in making those connections happen, through our technology-based products and services that help musicians convert casual music fans into loyal fans, and loyal fans into paying customers.”

mixmatchman_450

New Trend Connecting Artists & Fans: 50+ Bands Engaging Fans with the Remix Wizard

Logo

Today, we’re happy to announce that MixMatchMusic has achieved an important milestone in the adoption of its Remix Wizard with more than 50 bands hosting fan engagement promotions since October! Artists including Pepper, Zion I, Camp Lo, and Julien-K are among the bands using the MixMatchMusic Remix Wizard to power remix contests for their fans. Each of the bands have loaded guitar, bass, keys, drums and/or other music stems into personalized versions of the Remix Wizard, and invited their fans to remix, mash up and create new sounds with them.

Pepper and Zion I recently wrapped up contests for fans to remix popular tracks from their respective newly released albums. The response was tremendous, with Pepper receiving 50 remixes, 2,000 votes and 22,000 plays of Freeze. Zion I’s contest around its track “DJ DJ” received 35 remixes, 1,900 votes and close to 11,000 plays.

“The response way exceeded our expectations and it was super gratifying seeing all these fans putting their own flavor on our song… one guy even paid to ‘liven’ a sample from another band and use it in his version,” said drummist/ vocalist Yesod Williams of the band, Pepper. “Getting the fans as involved as possible was the goal and we accomplished that tenfold with MixMatchMusic!”

MixMatchMusic’s Remix Wizard is a solution for the masses. By comparison the remix promotions pioneered by seminal bands, Radiohead and NIN, were limited to the relative handful of fans with Digital Audio Workstation software. The Remix Wizard is available to every band with a song and every fan with a browser and broadband connection.

“The chance to remix Zion I’s track ‘DJ DJ’ was an opportunity for me to show off my producing chops to the Zion I crew, Amplive and Zumbi, and to my own fans,” said artist/producer Stinj-e. “Remixing tracks from bands I admire gives me a different level of interaction with their music than if I’m catching Zion I at one of their live shows. It lets me tap into my creativity.”

To get your remix on, or to listen to all the remixes that have been made, check out the Remix Wizard gallery.

What I'm Hearing, Vol. 10

For last month’s new music update, click here.

February brought some very excellent music my way. An update of 84 songs spanning most genres included some new music as well as some hidden gems from the years past. Enjoy!

Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: In their first studio album since 2005’s You Could Have it So Much Better, the Scottish blokes return with another round of rollicking, high energy rock music. The staples of their previous musical endeavors are all here, from the steady lock-step drums to the grinding and rapid guitars, all accentuated with Alex Kapranos’s distinct vocals that he ranges from soft caress to forceful leader to out and out yell. While the album doesn’t provide much in the way of evolution from previous work, that’s not to say it’s not solid. In fact, in an era where numerous bands change their face and sound from one release to another, a little continuity isn’t a bad thing. They slow it down nicely with “Dream Again,” showing a more melodic touch to their sound, and on “Bite Hard” they show their ability to start slow to build to a frenetic and recognizable chorus structure. Don’t Sleep On: “Can’t Stop Feeling,” “Twilight Omens,” and “Bite Hard”

Glass Candy, Deep Gems and B/E/A/T/B/O/X: This is a group I just heard about out of Portland, OR. They’re currently on the Italians Do It Better label, with B/E/A/T/B/O/X coming out in 2007 and the Deep Gems album of unreleased tracks released in ’08. With an eerie female lead vocalist in Ida No, this group specializes in a delicious mixture of 80s pop music fused with dark/deep disco sounds. The grimy bass grooves, melodic keys and moving beats create a vision of dark streets on a rainy night or a dimly lit club for slow dancing hipsters, but would also feel right at home on the Scarface and Grand Theft Auto 2 soundtracks. Imagine a collaboration between Tangerine Dream and Nine Inch Nails with Kelli Dayton, formerly of the Sneaker Pimps, on vocals. If you like 80s, or disco, or just some dark music you can listen to in your cruise to an unmentionable location, Glass Candy will keep your head nodding. Don’t Sleep On: “Feeling Without Touching,” “Etheric Device,” and “Touching the Morning Mist.”

Lake, Oh, The Places We’ll Go: This relatively new (at least in terms of mass release appeal, just signed to K Records) lo-fi indie pop/rock group out of Olympia, WA caught me by surprise. Taking liberally from multiple genres and mixing it up with lyrics from both a male and female vocalist, the album doesn’t fit any one mold. There are hints of Say Hi to Your Mom, Death Cab for Cutie and Peter Bjorn and John here, but also moments of quiet melody that hearken to Feist or Sia. Some of the more uptempo indie moments on the album bring to mind Throw Me the Statue. Pianos, guitars, handclaps and horns find their moments at various points throughout the album, leading to a well-rounded and easily enjoyable album that is effortless as a listen. Don’t Sleep On: “Minor Trip,” “Dead Beat,” and Bad Dream.”

Telefon Tel Aviv, Immolate Yourself: While I’ve been listening to Telefon Tel Aviv since their sophomore release Map of What is Effortless, it wasn’t until I heard about their newest release that I learned about the death of one half of the laptop duo, Charles Cooper. Unfortunately, not much is known about the circumstances surrounding his death, other than he was missing for about a week before he was found, but given the dense emotional contexts of the group’s music, it isn’t hard to see where some levels of despair may have existed for Cooper. While Map brought their electronic sounds to a simple and accessible short format, Immolate Yourself is a densely layered piece that screams of despair behind towering walls of sound, melancholy synth work and distorted and echoed lyrics. At times beautiful for the music and others simply horrendous because of the distress the music belies, Immolate Yourself is a perfect study of what happens when depression meets a talented musician who simply can’t get it all out on paper. No word yet on what Joshua Eustis plans to do, but having been a long time friend of Cooper, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a bit difficult to go back to the studio without him. Don’t Sleep On: “Your Mouth,” “Helen of Troy,” and “M.”

Zion I, The Take Over: Having already written a review of this album (that you can find here), I won’t say much other than to mention that the songs grow on me a bit more each listen. Don’t Sleep On: “The Take Over,” “Antenna,” and “Coastin'” featuring K.Flay.

The Singles Artists: These artists didn’t get full albums on the music update, but they definitely had a hit or two that got thrown in. For hip-hop fans, check out Kool G Rap (“On the Rise Again,” “What’s More Realer Than That”.) If you like old time classic rock and roll but have grown weary of listening to your Led Zeppelin albums over and over again, check out the new throwback work of the Golden Animals (“Queen Mary,” “My My My”) If you’re an indie rock listener, give Ruby Isle a try (“How It Hurts,” “One Trip.”)

MixMatchMusic Tra.kz releases: For those of you who haven’t been following, MixMatchMusic recently launched Tra.kz , a URL shortener for all things music. As part of that release, a number of bands released new music using the site, to tremendous results. The Expendables, Giant Panda Guerrila Dub Squad, Trifonic, and Pepper all released some new tracks. From Trifonic, we got “Gutter Box,” as well as a smoking remix of Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown.” Pepper brought a soundboard recording from a live concert with “Too Much.” For those with more interest in Pepper, we’ve got an interview coming up, as well as a remix contest, so stay on the lookout for that.

Another great month for new music… can’t wait to see what March has in store. Keep listening.