MUSIC INDUSTRY BLOG

Just discovered a quirky new site for music and music video discovery called YouMusic.  Under the strapline, Make Music?  Find Fans!  Love Music? Find Talent!, the site crowd sources its content from artists and allows music consumers to rate what they hear and see.  There’s a music chart, gig schedule, contest and other community and artist opportunity bells and whistles.  I wonder how much the YouMusic.com domain is worth?

Slicethepie and Bebo announced a co-venture this week whereby Bebo members will have the opportunity to grab the A&R seat at Slicethepie’s artist career-funding network.  Strikingly similar in concept to Sellaband, Slicethepie is tapping into the leading British social network’s community assets while Sellaband remains very much an independent platform.  The music “business” role-play idea has been embraced by a number of players in one form or another, including Songness, TheNextBigSound, and  Soundout, a Slicethepie imprint, based on the belief that if potential fans are provided with both a true hand in an artist’s fledgling career as well as a financial incentive, consumer loyalty and word-of-mouth shall follow.  Perhaps the shape of things to come.

An independent artist by the name of Rustcycle contacted me a couple of days ago about his interesting marketing idea and cross-over musical offering.  Rustcycle (a.k.a. Adrian Johnson) developed a gorgeous looking 255-level iPhone and iPod Touch game which mimics the natural flow of particles when the player manipulates the electromagnetic field with his finger.  Far out.  The $0.99 game, aptly named NANO, is set to Adrian’s self-composed and produced ambient music, creating a “meditative, serene journey that stands in contrast with the tense experience of many other iPhone games.”  Adrian has differentiated himself by bridging two talents to create an experience that few artists can compete with or even conceive of.  By drawing users (paying users, incidentally) into a world of nodes and particles, Adrian is exposing his musical facets to a highly targeted new audience.

I love the thinking behind this and I praise Adrian for identifying and employing his strengths as a creative programmer in order to bring his musical attributes to the fore. 

Demo:

Related post: iPhone Artist Promotion

I’ve been following Bandcamp for a little while now (see earlier post) and I noticed today that the company made some revisions to its home page.  Most notably, Bandcamp created a “features” page which lists the entire suite of tools and services.  I was also delighted to learn that Bandcamp now provides Creative Commons licensing designations:

Under the Creative Commons licensing designations, artists who make their music public, in this case via Bandcamp, are providing limited rights to other artists and music fans who wish to remix, share, or use the music in a variety of ways without having to formally ask permission.

Not yet familiar with Creative Commons?  Overview: