Posts
Based on my Last.fm listening...
Via: http://xhochy.org/lastfm-nationstats/
Friday, 31 July 2009
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Drowned in Sound Recordings // Spotify Playlist
Bat For Lashes – The Wizard
Martha Wainwright – I Wish I Were
Jeniferever – From Across the Sea
Youthmovies – The Naughtiest Girl Is a Monitor
The Koreans – Machine Code
Kaiser Chiefs – Born to Be a Dancer (demo)
Les Incompétents – How it all Went Wrong
Metric – Handshakes
thisGIRL – Oscilloscope Love
Blood Red Shoes – Try Harder
Kaiser Chiefs – Oh My God
Metric – Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT mix)
Les Incompétents – Chapter Two
thisGIRL – Drake
Redjetson – This, Every Day, For The Rest Of Your Life
The Stills – Helicopters
Jeniferever – Alvik
Emily Haines – Reading in Bed
Emmy The Great – The Hypnotist's Son
Martha Wainwright – Factory
Brett Anderson – Love Is Dead
Kaiser Chiefs – Caroline, Yes
Blood Red Shoes – You Bring Me Down
thisGIRL – Coffee & Giro Cheques
Youthmovies – Archive It Everywhere
The Stills – The House We Live In
Adam Gnade – Hymn California
Emmy The Great – Secret Circus
thisGIRL – St. James Gate Marylebone
Bat For Lashes – I Saw a Light
Brett Anderson – The More We Possess the Less We Own of Ourselves
Emily Haines – Our Hell
Redjetson – Stay Comfortable (Birdpen East of Here Remix)
Jeniferever – Closing In
Click here to listen to this playlist on Spotify.
For anyone who's wondering, the label is currently "on hiatus" and although we've given all of the acts on our label their records back, the label have picked up the option for the next Martha Wainwright album (actually, it's her next two records) and patiently await its arrival. The singles club/RCRD LBL Mp3 blog are still ideas I wish to pursue but the past 12months (since the demise of a deal for DrownedinSound.com with BSKYB and the associated fallout) have been hell plus "the record business" isn't exactly a future-proof thing to be involved with at the moment. I've spent a few year's investigating other options and hope to get back to finding, investing in/licensing and sharing great music in the future.
DiS Records related links:
http://www.myspace.com/disrecords
DiScography http://rateyourmusic.com/label/drowned_in_sound_recordings/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowned_in_Sound#Record_label
http://www.last.fm/label/Drowned+in+Sound
http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/1655051-label-focus-1--drowned-in-sound-recordings
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/day-in-the-life-sean-adams-of-drowned-in-sound-442270.html
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Why the bands as 'start-ups' biz model doesn't make sense to me...
Been pondering this bands as start-ups concept too but I have a huge problem with it. Been curious about the reactions to the NYT piece, especially as I was the guy who released Metric's previous record 'Live it Out' in the UK. They're an interesting example which kinda breaks this bands as a start-up concept into disperate red herring puzzle pieces.
My main issue is that start-ups and hyped new bands, both work on the premise of hope and potential, whereas any tried and tested company or band, has a quantifiable ROI (return on investment). This is problematic because the media is not that interested in bands or websites/tech which aren't brand new (as Metric weren't when we released their record, despite outselling the Gossip week on week until the NME cool list, etc) or massively successful. It's always a headscratcher when a band changes their name (like the Kaiser Chiefs did) or a website relaunches as something totally different, that it leads to press, which leads to other media coverage.
The economics (and perhaps ego-nomics) is all sorts of illogical when things are run on and driven by promise (see also: the banking crisis). All sense of scale is totally lost when people invest or talk about future projects, which is obviously what makes the world go around but at the cost of everything great that falls in the huge canyon between the stools of the new and the established. It's incredibly easy to miss a window of opportunity or jump the shark too early (often leading the charge for a lesser copyist), whilst for some reason never being allowed a chance to shine. I'm always fascinated at the different ways things worked when hits were slowburners or how books become paperback bestsellers from all the hardback praise (which I guess is kinda how imports or poor performing initial re-release get a massive second wind).
Without wanting to doom-monger: Metric's continued success isn't down to biz models and is in part down to consolidating all the great things they've done in the past (especially Emily Haines' solo album which opened various different doors) and the fact they've made a friggin' great record, during a window of time when there aren't a great deal of great records and less and less brand new major label bands. Yet, the fact Fantasies (much-like Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix) was overlooked in the UK in favour of the likes of electro-fronted ladypop from La Roux and Little Boots (who was once in a band named after a Metric track) or long-deadstars like U2 and Oasis speaks volumes about the state of the media and its problems which are more at the stagnant heart of the poor sales of records, much more than p2p.
Metric may have done better with this record but it's far from the best case scenario, they're still playing similar sized shows (billed exactly the same place on the Reading bill) but slowly starting to get a few mainstream breaks which might help them crossover in the states.
Ultimately, a bands success can't be gauged by recorded music 'sales' or ticket sales (especially as some of the biggest sellers, are small-fry live draws - pop acts with number 1 albums playing 1000 capacity shows at Koko or half-way up the V Festival bill, etc) and the only true return on investment with music is those wishing to be associated with its credibility and(/or) success. Starbucks had it right but were ahead of the shark and shoulda been giving music away as part of a loyalty points scheme. MyCokeMusic got their biz model wrong trying to find an Arctic Monkeys via a MySpace-like site full of shite and billions of other squandered pounds can never compete with labels like XL, Domino or Columbia, yet they barely compete with the financial upside that the likes of 02, Apple, etc get from being involved with music. Something like Dreamworks (Spielberg's imprint that put out Elliott Smith Figure 8 and developed Rufus Wainwright) Virgin Records, imploded and relaunched would be the future, great ears and vision meets a pile of dosh - just imagine if someone had given Tony Wilson/Alan McGee/Malcolm Mclaren the Microsoft/Newscorp/Disney chequebook, etc...
In short, the old model is dead but the new model is still an ugly mutant.
My main issue is that start-ups and hyped new bands, both work on the premise of hope and potential, whereas any tried and tested company or band, has a quantifiable ROI (return on investment). This is problematic because the media is not that interested in bands or websites/tech which aren't brand new (as Metric weren't when we released their record, despite outselling the Gossip week on week until the NME cool list, etc) or massively successful. It's always a headscratcher when a band changes their name (like the Kaiser Chiefs did) or a website relaunches as something totally different, that it leads to press, which leads to other media coverage.
The economics (and perhaps ego-nomics) is all sorts of illogical when things are run on and driven by promise (see also: the banking crisis). All sense of scale is totally lost when people invest or talk about future projects, which is obviously what makes the world go around but at the cost of everything great that falls in the huge canyon between the stools of the new and the established. It's incredibly easy to miss a window of opportunity or jump the shark too early (often leading the charge for a lesser copyist), whilst for some reason never being allowed a chance to shine. I'm always fascinated at the different ways things worked when hits were slowburners or how books become paperback bestsellers from all the hardback praise (which I guess is kinda how imports or poor performing initial re-release get a massive second wind).
Without wanting to doom-monger: Metric's continued success isn't down to biz models and is in part down to consolidating all the great things they've done in the past (especially Emily Haines' solo album which opened various different doors) and the fact they've made a friggin' great record, during a window of time when there aren't a great deal of great records and less and less brand new major label bands. Yet, the fact Fantasies (much-like Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix) was overlooked in the UK in favour of the likes of electro-fronted ladypop from La Roux and Little Boots (who was once in a band named after a Metric track) or long-deadstars like U2 and Oasis speaks volumes about the state of the media and its problems which are more at the stagnant heart of the poor sales of records, much more than p2p.
Metric may have done better with this record but it's far from the best case scenario, they're still playing similar sized shows (billed exactly the same place on the Reading bill) but slowly starting to get a few mainstream breaks which might help them crossover in the states.
Ultimately, a bands success can't be gauged by recorded music 'sales' or ticket sales (especially as some of the biggest sellers, are small-fry live draws - pop acts with number 1 albums playing 1000 capacity shows at Koko or half-way up the V Festival bill, etc) and the only true return on investment with music is those wishing to be associated with its credibility and(/or) success. Starbucks had it right but were ahead of the shark and shoulda been giving music away as part of a loyalty points scheme. MyCokeMusic got their biz model wrong trying to find an Arctic Monkeys via a MySpace-like site full of shite and billions of other squandered pounds can never compete with labels like XL, Domino or Columbia, yet they barely compete with the financial upside that the likes of 02, Apple, etc get from being involved with music. Something like Dreamworks (Spielberg's imprint that put out Elliott Smith Figure 8 and developed Rufus Wainwright) Virgin Records, imploded and relaunched would be the future, great ears and vision meets a pile of dosh - just imagine if someone had given Tony Wilson/Alan McGee/Malcolm Mclaren the Microsoft/Newscorp/Disney chequebook, etc...
In short, the old model is dead but the new model is still an ugly mutant.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Nail on the Head: Music vs Music Biz quote from Seth Godin
Seth Godin:
"We need to make a distinction between the music business and music. There’s more music now than ever before, listened to more often, by more people. There’s no music shortage, there’s no music problem. The music industry however is a group of people who don’t necessarily play music but is trying to profit from the people who do. What we have is three people involved now, we have the listener, we have the musicians, and we have the industry, with the industry trying to put a tax on the relationship between the musician and the listener. Musicians will get paid when they lead people and the leading includes not just producing a song that someone wants to listen to but creating all the stuff that goes around it that people are willing to pay for: experiences, souvenirs, connections."
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
DiS June 2009 Google Analytics Stats
The year so far stats seemed rather popular on here, so thought some of you might be curious to know http://drownedinsound.com's stats for June 2009, which has been a rather big month for the site.
Most Read:
- Oasis In Photos - although 68% of the traffic on these were from Google
- Artist 'n' Artist: Frederick Blood-Royale meets The Mars Volta
- Glastonbury In Photos: Lady Gaga - again mostly Google and also bbc.co.uk
- In Photos: Glastonbury 2009 - Day 1
- Review: Sonic Youth - The Eternal
| Visits | % Visits | ||||
google (organic) | 299,447 | 47.25% | |||
(direct) ((none)) | 150,461 | 23.74% | |||
drownedinsound.com (referral) | 36,929 | 5.83% | |||
en.wikipedia.org (referral) | 17,444 | 2.75% | |||
twitter.com (referral) | 12,241 | 1.93% |
Overall stats:
- 633,742 Visits
- 308,254 Absolute Unique Visitors
- 2,722,717 Pageviews
- 4.30 Average Pageviews
- 00:06:06 Time on Site
- 49.44% Bounce Rate
- 41.82% New Visits
If you're interested in advertising on DiS contact Matthew.Holt [aaat] bskyb.com
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