Today I wanted to think a little bit about how new bands could follow the example of world-wide bands like Muse who rose from the middle of nowhere playing covers around the local pubs, to the superpower they are today.
How can you up your game a bit? The first thing that comes to mind may be to throw money at it, get a big studio based recording made by a well known engineer / producer and get chummy with someone at a record label. BUT, why do all that when the awesome resource that is the internet is right at your fingertips? I mean, take Radiohead who not so long ago released In Rainbows for £however-much-you-want-to-pay via their own website. Wouldn’t it be much cheaper to make your own album, release it yourself online and not have to split the profit with a label?
The idea of distributing your album yourself may seem like a whole heap of effort for not much reward, but actually going down a similar road to Radiohead may be a really good option in the long run.
I wanted to share some insight into promoting your music online so go and read this article at philipsheppard.com as it’s written by a guy who lectures at the Royal Academy of Music, and has some great info on setting yourself up to promote your own music online. The article covers everything that I wanted to mention in this area, so go read it, it’s excellent!
In short, the article overviews:
1. Get a website, use WordPress it’s stupidly simple (this site is wordpress too).
2. Get your album finished, artwork and all.
3. Chose a good way of streaming your music or making it available for download.
4. Set up an online label (may sound a big deal to do, but good tips in the article)
5. Spotify
6. Get on the social network scene (not mentioned in the article) Facebook and Twitter are going to be major tools in directing web traffic to your website, so get started on them and stick with it.
[image via Scott Beale]
