hypebot

The Week In Music Commentary

• Langston Collin Wilkins Discusses The State of Black Music
• Gold Motel's Eric Hehr Considers The Musician as Entrepreneur
• The Polish Ambassador Wonders What Would It Mean to be an Open Source Musician? Conversation Ensues.
• Amanda Palmer Hacks Her Kickstarter Campaign

 

Getting It Done: The Week In D.I.Y.

• DJ Shadow Adds Discography to Facebook Timeline
• Amanda Palmer Hacks Her Kickstarter Campaign All the Way Past $750,000
• 10 Promotional Strategies for Indie Musicians
• Top Tips for Placing Your Music in Movies, TV Shows, Video Games & Commercials
• London's Orchestra Of the Age of Enlightenment Features Fans in Marketing Campaign

MORE:

MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Why Music is Less Valuable Than Expertise & More

Where

The Music Industry

Thinks Out Loud

 

• Ariel Hyatt: Musician's Arsenal: Killer Apps, Tools and Sites - GigFunder
• Jamie Leger: Why Music is Less Valuable Than Expertise and Information...?
• Simon Tam: How to Book a Tour: Unconventional Advice
• Chris Hacker: Marketing Plan Tactics For Independent Musicians - Part 1 of 3: New Album Preparations

REWIND: The New Music Industry's Week In Review

String Cheese Incident Scalps $20,000 Of Own Tickets In Battle With Ticketmaster as Live Nation "Upgrades" Ampitheaters with $4 Beer & Restaurant Grade Burgers

• Spotify Won't Discuss Justin Bieber's Investment
• Anti-Trust Experts Say U. S. Approval Of Universal EMI Purchase A Toss-Up
• Former Orchard CEO Greg Scholl Becomes Executive Director of Jazz At Lincoln Center.
• DISTRO.fm Seeks to Crowdfund Nonprofit Digital Music Subscription Service as Founder Kyle Marler Discusses Revolutionizing Music With Artist Subscriptions

MORE:

Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter Campaign Tops $750,000

In just over 2 weeks, 15,431 fans have pledged an impressive $754,201 to Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter campaign. There are still 13 days left to go in the campaign.  How did Palmer do it?  As Jay Franks wrote, "Amanda Palmer has pulled off the biggest music hack to date!" By hack, Frank means achieving a goal in an unconventional way. In large part, Palmer's fundraising is making headlines because the "establishment" has consistently undervalued the unique and heartfelt connection between Palmer and her fans.

Gold Motel's Eric Hehr: The Musician As An Entrepreneur

(UPDATED) Guest post by Eric Hehr (@erichehr1955), guitarist of Gold Motel.

"The only thing that matters is the music." I'm sure you've heard this phrase before. As a musician who strives to facilitate a career in music, I've heard the phrase, thousands of times, and I've never agreed with it.

The Week In Music Publishing 5.18.12

Cash Money Records and Young Money Entertainment - home to Lil Wayne - has settled out-of-court with producer David Kirkwood for an undisclosed amount following a suit relating to royalties from Wayne's 2008 track Love Me or Hate Me.

MORE:

Music Tech Startup News: StoryAmp, Thefuture.fm, StageBloc, FANtastic4bands, wahwah.fm

Several of the music tech startups we've covered here at Hypebot have recently launched new intiatives or upgraded their services. StoryAmp is doing a bit of promotion with a music tech trading card series while StageBloc has introduced ecommerce options and new themes to their content platform. Thefuture.fm has launched an iOS app while wahwah.fm has upgraded theirs. Plus, FANtastic4bands is holding a contest for bands who make free mobile apps this month.

Should Music Be Open Source? A Remixed Conversation

The Polish Ambassador, a "beat machine from the future," raised a number of interesting questions on Facebook about "what it would mean to be an 'open source' musician." Discussion ensued. Mike Masnick pointed to this discussion on TechDirt. More discussion ensued.

I've taken some elements from these commentaries and remixed them with related material. I hope you find this remix useful in your own considerations of what open source music might be and how to become an open source musician.

Creative Networks For Music Marketing & Community: Convozine, New Hive, Diaspora

Limiting one's creative awareness by focusing only on music is increasingly as big a career mistake as avoiding understanding the world of business. Social media has turned musicians into publishers, business is embracing design and creative networks are offering additional opportunities for musicians to find community while marketing their artistic brand. Such creative networks range from digital zine platform Convozine to creative center The New Hive to Diaspora and its increasing focus on creative expression.

PlayFi Lets Bands Play Shows Online & Sell Tickets

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

We’ve just received word of a promising-looking new online music outfit out of Australia whose main premise is to help bands sell tickets to online shows, which they can then webcast using their own equipment to fans worldwide, or just in specific regions. PlayFi is a fairly standard online music store that lets fans set prices for MP3s and sell them while giving 30 percent to PlayFi, which is the standard deal.

Live Nation 'Upgrades' Ampitheatres With $4 Beer

Ever since Michael Rapino took the helm at Live Nation, he's been saying he wants to improve the concert going experience at their amphitheaters, and yesterday he announced a variety of upgrades. One addresses a key complaint: the concert giant is now be offering cheaper beer - $4 dollars for a 12 oz. domestic draft (except for Toronto and Houston). As well, the company has "upgraded" its food quality at concession stands, including "restaurant grade" hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, chicken tenders, and corn dogs. (What "grade" food were they serving before?). Other "upgrades" include:

NEWS BRIEF: Facebook Opens @ $42 Then Falls, iTunes vs 'Jailbreak', MTV, RDMBiz, OneSheet & More

Facebook shares started trading at $42 a share on Nasdaq, but quickly fell at mid-day ET Friday to $38 under the symbol “FB.” The company’s 421.2M shares offered to the public will raise $17.7B at a valuation of $116.6 billion. Get the latest stock price here.

• According to iTunes, "jailbreak" is a four-letter word. (ars) Is the word "jailbreak" on the same level as "f**k"?
• MTV announces nominees for ‘Must Follow Artists on Twitter’ for Online Music Awards. (Lost Remote)

MORE:

Justin Bieber Invested In Spotify, But They'd Rather Not Talk About It

Justin Bieber has a net worth of $80 million and counting, according to Forbes; and he and manager Scooter Braun have invested a substantial portion of it in technology.  Bieber's dozen or so tech investments include Tinychat, social ­curation app Stamped, gamer Sojo Studios and... Spot­i­fy.

FanCulture: Building A Fanbase As A Lifetime Relationship

FanCulture: The Evolution of Influence is a nearly 30-minute documentary focused on the relationship of brands with their fans. Created by Amplify, an agency specializing in "brand strategy, experiences and amplification," the documentary is somewhat of a meditation on the nature of fans and their interest in brands from a group of marketers and superfans. In some cases the brands are bands and in all cases the discussion is relevant to marketing music.

On The State Of Black Music In America: Is It About The Message Or The Music?

Guest post by Langston Collin Wilkins (@LangstonVillain), a Ph.D. Candidate in ethnomusicology, who blogs all things music, tech, and culture at Soul 4 Sale.

Whenever I read about the state of Black music on the internet, one of the main complaints I hear is that it no longer has meaning or that it's not "saying something." These "critics" recall a yesterday where all black music consisted of impactful lyrics that fell deeply on the ears of listeners, stimulating their brain muscles while penetrating into the deepest regions of their soul. I'm not certain that this magical period ever existed, but I won't quarrel with that here.

Top Tips To Get Your Music Placed In Movies, TV Shows, Video Games & Commercials

Recently both Hypebot and Music Think Tank posted a number of interviews with music supervisors and related industry figures on getting your music placed in movies, tv, video games and commercials. Here are the top tips and insights from those posts organized into five categories. The names of the supervisors are featured with a link back to each post which will have additional information of interest.

Changes At Top Of Isolation & INgrooves Fontana

Music industry veteran Jay Boberg has been named Chairman of the Board of Isolation Network, the parent company of INgrooves Fontana and the music distriubutor's marketing arm INscribe Digital.  Boberg replaces Vincent Freda who served as Chairman of the Board since 2008. Freda becomes the company's COO and founder Robb McDaniel remains CEO.

Marketing Plan Tactics For Independent Musicians: New Album Preparations

A common problem that Chris Hacker of Cyber PR encounters is a band contacting the company to promote their new album that is coming out the following week. Before promoting a new album, bands need to have a marketing plan in place. In part 1 of a 3 part series, Chris outlines areas that need to be addressed before announcing a new album release.

5 Apps Changing How The Music Business Operates

Guest post by Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

In the early days of Web 1.0 beta (i.e. the ’90s), most of us who were paying attention thought music middlemen were on their way out.

Technology on the near horizon allow bands to sell tickets, merchandise, and recordings directly to fans, while promoting their music through early internet radio, where payola and corporate sway over the FM dial weren’t factors. Everything looked like it would operate outside the usual confines of labels, publishers, distributors, marketers, retailers, ticket sellers, promoters, and the rest of the middlemen that had built up over the past hundred years or so between artists and fans.