How to succeed in the music business...by trying

Get ready for a long rant. For those who stick with it, it is relatively easy reading - I hope you enjoy. Here goes.

We live in the digital age. In the past decade there has been a major paradigm shift in the music industry and those who embrace it (artists like Radiohead and Amanda Palmer) will reap great rewards, while those who resist (major labels) will become extinct.

There has always been one key to success in the music industry - getting your music to the fans. For decades this was done through radio. Not today. No one listens to radio anymore, not for music, NO ONE! Have you even tried to sit through an hour of commercial radio in the car these days? There is a reason the word commercial comes first. You get 60% advertising and 40% music. And the playlists are ridiculous. Anyone who wants to listen to overplayed classics of past decades owns it all already. And the radio no longer plays interesting new music. DJs are a thing of the past. Playlists are now computerized, handed down by marketers who don't listen to the music as much as they listen to their focus groups. I repeat, radio is the PAST. The web is no longer the future. Music on the web is NOW. (If you are reading blogs, you know this already!)

The goal of a new artist should no longer be to make money from recordings. You just can't. CD sales are plummeting. The new media is digital download. If you want to succeed you need to build a fan base - a SIGNIFICANT fan base. With radio out of the mix, you need to WORK to accumulate fans. Why try to sell CDs at your gig? Why not hand out cards with web addresses where your fans can download all your music for FREE? Is ANYONE making money selling CDs? You need a decent fan base before it's even worth manufacturing them. Don't get me wrong - people want hard meda (CDs, Vinyl, whatever). But they need to be IN LOVE with your music before the will buy it now. I own just about every David Bowie CD ever made (that's a lot of CDs). I have them all on my MP3 player, but I wouldn't give up my CDs for anything. (At least until the next great hard medium comes along.) Maybe that makes me a dinosaur. Maybe our kids won't want the liner notes in their hands. You can see all that on the net. But I know that you still can sell hard media. But you have to work at it. And you still need to give it away on the net. Take Amanda Palmer.

I am a fan of Amanda Palmer, and of her duo, with Brian Viglione, The Dresden Dolls. If you read this blog, that comes as no suprise. Amanda's first major solo release comes out in about 10 days. I've already listened to most of the album - on YouTube, MySpace, and various other websites. I like the album, I'm a fan, and I want to own it.

I get the impression, though I don't know for sure, that Amanda puts up a lot of her own money for her projects, this CD included. She needs to make that money back, and hopefully more - to live, and to build her next project.

Amanda's fan base is relatively small. She's a bit of a niche artist, though she strongly hits the classic rock demographic - teens. She's not a Kanye West (thank goodness!) or U2. But she's no longer a "local" artist, exclusive to her home town of Boston. She is international. Her fans are web savy. They all have heard the album, and many have downloaded it, one way or another. But they will buy it, too.

Amanda is smart. An extremely intelligent business woman. In many ways she has been writing the book on how to market yourself over the net. This is how she has marketed the new CD, titled "Who Killed Amanda Palmer."

1) She blogs. She has told her fans about the trials and tribulations of creating this new work of art. We've been waiting now for well over a year for this CD. She didn't clobber us with frequent "commericals". She just told us about her life, through her blog, with posts a couple of times each month, including info about her work on the album. This level of communication is for the die-hard fans. This is where your word-of-mouth begins.

2) She uses her MySpace page to give you unreleased tracks, including, over a year before the release of the album, rough live recordings of the new songs. I already have the lyrics for several of the songs long memorized - way before the album hits shelves.

3) She used YouTube to release, one by one, videos for the new album. MTV? A thing of the past for music videos. Now its just trashy reality TV. I really never could have predicted that one in 1985. But back to Amanda: The fan base, and other curiosity seekers have seen the videos now. For well over a month before the album release. She uses YouTube like film makers of the 1940s used the cinema for Serials. Each time you see one video posted, you can't wait for the next. We're hooked.

4) She doesn't try to keep the songs off the web, doesn't threaten to sue people who download her music "illegally". In fact, she encourages it. (What a concept! Give the fans what they want, when they want it!) She even asks fans to record and video her concerts, get them on the net ASAP and spread the word. GENIUS.

5) When it finally comes time for the release, she creates a multi-media work of art. Sure, you can download the music and pay nothing. I bet a lot of those people will pay money to see her in concert. A good thing. Or you can just buy the CD at the record store. Even better. Or, you can buy packages directly from Amanda. With these, you get to download a digital version of the CD a week before it comes out. You can get t-shirts, books, memorabilia, unique gifts, and entered in a contest to have Amanda play a show in YOUR LIVING ROOM. (Don't think I'm not entering that one.) CDs are $14.99, but the bonus bundles begin at around $35 and go up to $100. I'll be buying one of the more expensive versions. Maybe not the most expensive, but maybe I will. I have until Monday, when they go on sale, to decide.

She will sell to all her fans. Everyone who cares will own this. This is how you succeed in the music business.

Metallica fought the internet. Fought illegal downloads. And I agree with them, that the music is theirs and it is their choice on how it should be distributed. If they want to charge for it, they should. But I think that is a paradigm of the past. By the time you are successful enough to sell a ton, why do you need to? You are not making a good margin on it. Why not break barriers and become the next Beatles. They are coming. And they won't be focused on CD sales. I can guarantee that.

p.s. - my Vista laptop is now synched with my network. Still have to figure out printing, but I'm getting close!