by Wes Royer
This week, independent musicians were dissed once more by the music industry, but this time by a one of their biggest allies: MP3.com. While many saw MP3.com as either a sellout or simply a collection of independent music junk or leftovers, the rest of us realized how easy it was for the open-minded music fan to find some great new music at MP3.com’s easy-to-navigate site. Part of the reason: so many artists scramble to get a page posted at the ultra-popular site.
What’s changed? Well, MP3.com still lets any artist post a customized webpage with downloads, etc. But artists used to be able to sign up at no cost in a profit sharing program. The service was called “Payback for Playback.” If the artist’s music was bought or downloaded enough, the band would be paid a small bit of money. Sorry, not anymore; at least not for free.
As of April 1, MP3.com’s new policy requires a $19.99 monthly fee to enroll in the royalty program. So basically, an artist has to pay MP3.com and hope to at least recoup the cost in royalties. But so few artists make $240 per year in the original program that they have no real incentive now to continue using MP3.com. In this new program, the musician immediately suffers, and in the end, the music fan suffers because there is less music to sift through at MP3.com. And artists are posting angry messages in full force at MP3.com’s discussion boards.
Granted, MP3.com is certainly not a musician’s last resort for popularity, nor the last resort for a fan to get free/cheap, undiscovered music. And with Napster’s new filter in place for major label artists and songs, independent artists reign stronger in that MP3 community.
But my point is that if bands are relying on one-stop shops like MP3.com to get their music out there, think again guys. If you want to get your music out to the masses, you have to work your butt off just like any other industry. You think successful independent web developers start off with one ad in one place? Not the case. And musicians need to understand that getting your music out there means getting your name and brand out there first.
“So what kind of advice are you offering, Wes?” Glad you asked. I have been reviewing CDs for a couple years now for both print and online publications, and I get a good deal of music from both labels and independent artists. I have seen my fair share of good PR from an indie band, and just downright pathetic PR. Not to mention those few indie artists that are just too damn high on themselves and send you a 20 lb. press kit of every word ever written about them online or off. Like I want to read all that crap! But, I digress�
There are entirely too many options online for a musician to give their names a buzz. Free website space (some with free apps like ColdFusion!), free web-building tools and tutorials (like Bravenet), free easy-to-remember redirect URLs (like come.to/yourname or go.to/yourname), free streaming MP3 services, etc., etc. Bands need to exploit these tools before they are no longer free.
Next up, get you website up, post your MP3s on every file-swapping service Zeropaid promotes, and make friends. Get your bio and discography up there. Post what style/genre of music you are offering right up front. Join a website ring and promote your website in music discussion threads. It doesn’t take much for search engine crawlers like Yahoo’s Google or AltaVista’s Raging to pick up your website and indexing all the keywords you use.
There are three things that I am absolutely surprised, even disgusted, by when it comes to some independent artists, sometimes in major label artists:
1) Artists that don’t have some sort of website;
2) Artists that neglect to put their website and e-mail addresses on all their merchandise;
3) Artists that don’t realize the importance of teaming up with other artists, whether local or online.
Can you believe that that 50% of the CDs I have bought/gotten in the past year don’t have a website and/or e-mail address on the packaging? 50%. Where do these people live? And the more bands or musicians you get to know, the more links you can swap and the better chance you have of getting a song on some independently released or industry-only compilation.
Anyway, if you are one of the many artists posting your anger at MP3.com’s bulletin boards over their new royalty service and policy, power to you for voicing your opinion to the system and I understand your grievances, but you shouldn’t have been keeping all your online eggs in one website. Any musician who offers decent music and spends at least an hour online each day exclusively making connections online, their music will get heard. They may not selling hundreds of thousands of CDs or sell out clubs, but they will develop a fanbase over time.
Yes, being a musician is hard work. And don’t forget it.
Wes Royer, editor@openupandsay.com, is a professional webmaster living in Northern Virginia, and owner of OpenUpAndSay.com, an online music magazine, and NetworkOfMinds.com, a daily news and cartoon portal.
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