We publish a music magazine. Though the industry has changed quite a bit over the years, over the transom submissions are still the lifeblood of any music rag. You want to write about what's new, what's interesting, what's groundbreaking or just what's good to groove to.
Just about all music submissions these days are MP3s. Digital files were supposed to make things easier, yet I spent about 3 hours on Tuesday hunting down artist and label info for releases we've gotten in the last two weeks. Despite repeated complaints from DJs and reviewers, many labels still fail to embed ID3 information in their tracks.
Here we are in 2010, a decade into the MP3 revolution that replaced vinyl, CD and cassette tapes, and people still can't get this.
This is something that my 12 year old niece knows how to do, but apparently a great number of House Music labels do not. Since I'm the helpful sort, here's a breakdown of things that my 12 year old niece knows how to do (with an explanation of how to do them!)
Tagging Your MP3s
ID3 tags are tiny little bits of information that allow iTunes or some other digital media player to display track information, such as the title, the artist, and even what the artwork looks like. It's pretty nifty, and it takes no time or technical knowledge (I know this because I add it to every single mix and every single radio show published by 5 Magazine, which is upwards of 100 sets of ID3 tags per year).
Why should you include them? Well, you've surely come across something that looks like this before:
Now if you're sending your music out, presumably you want people to play it. Presumably you want people making thousands of dollars for playing in front of thousands of people to play it. But do you have any idea how many tracks, say, Louie Vega gets in a day? a week? Hundreds. Do you really think he's going to waste his time hunting down the track information that you might have included in an email but not embedded in the track? (Many people make this mistake. People save tracks. They don't save emails. Or you shouldn't expect them to.) Maybe Louie's a really nice guy and he will, but why would you make it hard for him to play your music? Doesn't that defeat the entire point?
HOW TO DO IT: Just about every digital audio workstation (DAW) that can export tracks as MP3s allows you to embed detailed ID3 tags in the file. You can even do it in iTunes by clicking on any track, selecting "Get Info..." and typing it in:
This takes less than two minutes, even if you're typing with one finger.
Photos
The other day I remarked to someone that big-name House producers and DJs often submit tiny, thumbnail-sized headshots to major magazines and publications while my 12 year old niece has a Flickr account with thousands of high rez photos with her friends making kissy faces and peace signs in oversized sunglasses.
You might be one of those people that's just happy being a guy behind the console and doesn't care if people write about you (or, I guess, if your records sell). In that case, by all means, skip this one. But if you run a record label, you do some sort of marketing. If that sounds like you, you need:
- High Resolution Photos. If the photo is so huge that it doesn't fit on your monitor, then it's high resolution.
- Interesting Photos. The headphone shot might be cliched but hey, if you're a DJ, your options are limited. A shot of you looking dreamy in the midst of urban decay is cool but a headphone and peace sign shot is better than nothing.
- Professional Photos. If the photos aren't professional, they should at least be clean and look pretty decent. More people are going to see these in print than you will probably ever meet. That photo, to many people, is what you look like. You should probably make it count.
HOW TO DO IT: You can set up a photoshoot with a qualified professional for less than 1 hour and not much more than $100. Granted, they're not going to hold your hand and dress you up like the Queen of England like it's for the cover of Vanity Fair, but the supply of photographers looking for clients far outstrips demand. You can get some really good work done for not much money.
YouTube
This is a long-standing pet peeve of mine. YouTube is the greatest jukebox in existence, capable of playing songs I don't own and just want to hear once or twice, as well as tracking down obscure mixes and building hype (or extending markets) for new tracks that aren't for sale yet. We have a little script that looks for YouTube videos of tracks we review and I'll add artist-produced videos that provide a "behind the scenes" peek at new releases (to see what I mean, check out Terry Hunter's channel here.)
If you think hearing music doesn't lead to sales, you must have never tried on a pair of shoes before buying them. There is so little risk to putting your music on YouTube that it's asinine to argue otherwise. The kind of loser that's going to rip the audio and try to play it at a gig is not, under any circumstances, ever going to buy anything. You're not losing anything - unless you don't put up one at all.
As a bonus - and this is what the hardheads in the industry don't get about this -- YouTube content is pumped out everywhere. It's embedded on sites like this one. It's embedded on last.fm and facebook and forums. It costs you the same whether one person views it on YouTube or if 1,000,000 view it on some Tasmanian or Sudanese blog. It's piped to every single corner of the internet for the same price: free.
HOW TO DO IT: Create an account on YouTube, which takes about 2 minutes and requires an email address. If you're really serious about this, you can join the YouTube partner's program and actually make a small bit of scratch from ads played every time your videos are played. Most importantly, you can direct viewers to where they can buy what they're listening to or your website where you can throw other swag or gig info at them.
(And please: don't truncate the video. As much as you might imagine your fanbase as living, breathing credit cards, they're not dumb and they're not going to bother with your 2:30 clip when they can hear the full song elsewhere. Music is an experience. Nobody who makes this stuff can tell me they believe otherwise.)
iLike/iMeem/LaLa/last.fm
It's become blindingly obvious (and I'll have more to say on this another time) that the business model for dance music is dead. Dead. Radio won't fix it. Shutting down The Pirate Bay or Rapidshare won't do it. Marketing music exclusively at DJs - a small segment of any artist's fanbase - no longer makes sense. More to the point, though, there's no reason why you should be ignoring 90% of your fanbase who love your music, adore your sets and pay money to see you strut your stuff. Blasting your music to all of them costs the same: free.
There are dozens of streaming sites. None of them make any money but all of them have a tremendously large music base. I recently interviewed Mark de Clive-Lowe who not only participates on these sites but also shoots short videos of his work in the studio and even streams it when he's on the road. Hell, here's an old post in which we embedded a stream that DJ Spinna and DJ Jazzy Jeff broadcast live from a gig in Paris. (Requirements: a laptop with a webcam and internet connection.) Lars Behrenroth goes through his promos on ustream. You might not want to lifecast every moment of your life and contribute to the reality TV culture that's just eating America's soul at this point, but we're not really talking about that here. Just turn it off when you've got to go to the can.
HOW TO DO IT: Each of these sites have their own sign-up policies. For ustream, livestream and other streaming video sites, sign-up is free though there are some minor restrictions for unpaid members (max viewer limitations for livestream, though this really doesn't matter as you're starting out).
And that's enough for a day, isn't it?
