Strategies and tactics

Yes, it has come to that. Strategies and tactics. It was always our hope at BlancoMusic that the business would be a bit of fun. Of course, there was always going to be an element of administration and organisation involved in recording and selling music, be we’d hoped that it would be minimal. Making music is fun, doing a&r is a blast, coming up with funky graphics and ideas for the website and album covers is creatively satisfying. Unfortunately though, it seems that the time is coming when we’re going to have to put away the fun and get out the spreadsheets. New business strategies appear, somehow, to be the way forward for the music industry. Actually, more the t-shirt and box-sets industry, as it seems to be becoming right now. The strategies proposed by new-media gurus (who very rarely seem to be musicians themselves, but often consider their experience in unrelated, non-creative sectors is perfectly applicable to the quite unconventional realities of music-making) are very time consuming and dull as a barrel full of school socks. What they boil down to, is creating an attractive entity out of an act – one which is so cool and lovable that the gullible public will happily part with their cash to own a piece of (hard, non-downloadable) merchandise that is somehow associated with that entity. Music should be seen as a part of the mechanism by which that magic attractant ‘cool’ element be constructed, and should be considered as an expendable pawn in the larger game of monetizing that cool element. Pity, because music is the only bit of the whole thing that’s actually worth anything.

Fighting the devaluation of music in our culture is becoming exhausting. It is truly astounding to us that such an important cultural element of our lives be relegated to the status of a peripheral attractant in the fight to sell pencil cases. Can we keep fighting against this overwhelming sense that music is absolutely brilliant, totally important, great for having in every moment of our lives, but not worth paying for? Who knows? I’m not even mad at consumers here, it’s the insulting profiteering by the streaming sites that riles me most. There is a point at which even the most righteous disgust becomes difficult to maintain. I’ve put the front cover graphic of BudNubac’s Que Se Yo up here today, because if we do decide to do an about-turn on our ‘dignity for musicians and downfall to the freetards’ policy, it’s the album that is likely to be first sacrificed to the tactics and strategies of the new music industry model. We haven’t yet decided on this. I’m actually discussing it on here as part of the openness and transparency that I hoped would be a part of the allure of BlancoMusic when we started the label. We’d always hoped to involve fans of the music with some of the running of the label, at least keep them informed. Properly informed, with real, honest interaction, not the self-aggrandising nonsense that makes up the majority of artist and label sites. One critical part of that came months ago, in a post I wrote about a Mil i Maria song that I don’t actually like much. One of the stipulations I made before getting onboard with BlancoMusic was about that very post. Would I be allowed say that there was material available to purchase on our label that I didn’t personally like? Would I be allowed a platform where honesty and candid opinions were allowed to be expressed, or would it just be a ‘this is how we roll at BlancoMusic’ PR rubbish? To me, that sort of transparency was the kind of unique selling point that would make us interesting, worthy of loyalty, and would bring people to our site to listen to our music, form an opinion, buy the tracks. It works well for the first two, but buying music just seems to be too much for people to get their heads around, now that they can pick it up for free whenever they wish. I wish that weren’t the case, because I really don’t want to go into the screen-printed t-shirts business. We’ll see, there’s a whole weekend to think about things. Hope you have an enjoyable one.

Surfing the net? Forget it, try Skating the Social Web

Quote of the day comes from Sean Adams, the figure behind the Drowned in Sound musicblog. Writing for The Times, Adams creates a beautiful new soundbyte in this:

‘when musicians view social networks the way skateboarders view architecture, a whole new creative process begins’ (article here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article7110757.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=6861918)

Now, some of you may know that I am a skateboarder, so obviously, this quotation appeals to me. I should point out that the mainstay of my riding is in the discipline of downhill, or speedboarding. For anyone who isn’t familiar with speedboarding – it’s quite simple. You get a big, stable board, put on some protective gear, get to the top of a big hill and go down it as fast as you can. Ideally, in that kind of skateboarding, architecture is something you avoid. That notwithstanding, I understand what Adams means. Social networking, and its application to selling records, is not very well-understood by bands, indie labels, or the majors. It’s all very fine telling a band that they need to maintain a social web profile to remain or become competitive in the music market, but the truth is that even in the case of our own label – BlancoMusic.com – the weekly 40 hours I put into maintaining a social presence on the internet is not enough. At the moment attention is demanded from the social web on a constant basis, globally, incessantly. The downfall of the argument that social media would allow bands and labels to reach a bigger audience and fanbase than they ever could have done through traditional media is that, to do it properly, there is no time left to tour, write, record, practise or play. Let alone party.

Adams makes the case that it is now time that bands make a decision about how they wish to pursue the publicity and goodwill that can clearly be gathered from social media use. I’ve written here before about how my critical comments about the band Hot Chip led to a member of the band getting in touch with me via twitter. Over the course of the dialogue, the band’s spokesman convinced me that they were truly motivated by making music and that the hype surrounding them at the time was as much an irritation to them as it was to me. I bought the album. Social media used, and used well. But then when I think about it, it starts to look really daunting. Do Hot Chip reply personally to every harsh word said of them? Where do they find the time? Is it really fair to expect this kind of attentiveness form the musicians we love, or even the ones we don’t? Again and again I come across the misguided efforts of freetards trying to justify their actions in illegally downloading music for their own consumption. A recurrent argument is that musicians have no right to expect to be paid handsomely for what is, in the eyes of the freetard, a hobby. OK, we’re all more sophisticated in our understanding of the value and circumstances of artistic creation on here, but that aside, even the most understanding of listeners now demands some level of personal interaction between themselves and the acts whose music they purchase. Gone, it seems, are the days when we considered ourselves privileged to get to drink a pint at the bar with the band after a show. What Adams hints at is that it is this sense of privilege, of ‘being with the band’ that is being eroded by the access granted and demanded by social media interaction with artists. Hot Chip’s attention to the social media is, far from what the freetards would claim, more demanding than most peoples’ dayjobs. Maintaining FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, Reverbnation, band blogs and e-mail relationships for one act alone, can become a full-time occupation. And it may just be more destructive than beneficial. Hence using the social web in the way skaters look at architecture. Let’s rewind, and think of a skater as one of those rangy kids with a clackitty-hop board, doing nosegrinds on park benches. Park benches are designed to be sat upon, and the majority of people use them that way. Skaters look at them differently, often to the consternation of those who wish to sit, but to the great applause of the skater’s peers. Perhaps therein lies the key of how bands should approach new media – with the aim of appealing to their peers and their chosen elite. Put some of the mystique back into the equation, and make it something to be earned and cherished.