Although I was initially drawn to the post to find out about Lady Gaga’s touring carbon footprint, which is apparently good, I have to say I have more interest now in the other hack mentioned.
Thanks to the Music Hackday event held in London in September, TrackDropper/Piracy is one of many new and interesting apps available for the curious artist.
Although I’m sure the major labels (side note: Universal was a sponsor for this past hack weekend) may kick and scream about it, I think an app like this has great potential for artists to create excitement about their music.
Imagine employing a street team to drop all the tracks from your new album across major cities a week or two before it is released. Your website could then be the central location for your fans to find clues to the whereabouts of those tracks. Basically, you create a musical scavenger hunt.
Obviously, you would have to include something more tangible for the fan at each site they visit. Something to encourage them to get outside and hunt around for the music you crafted. After all, if they can get it all for free from the comfort of their own home, why leave the computer screen? Depending on your fanbase the chance of simply meeting other fans out on the hunt, or maybe even members of the band, might be enough. Stickers, notes about the track, and ticket presale info are other things that come to mind.
Another possibility would be to simply include a few tracks outside the venue you are playing in each town on a tour. Find a local fan and have them drop a few new tracks in the hopes of enticing people in to hear the real thing. Your tour posters could also mark places where tracks are dropped. A simple note on each poster could explain how people could listen to a track at that very moment.
You could also drop tracks yourself around a city detailing places you love, song inspirations, childhood memories, past romances, etc… Hinting to your fans about the locations of these tracks later on your website could build a great bit of buzz each time you hit their hometown.
Just like so much else on the Internet, I think this new app has a lot of promise. You just need to be creative with it all, and as a musician I hope that is the easy part.
Whether or not Badu’s video intended to bring up the race card or whether or not she really just wanted to pay a slightly confusing homage to JFK is something I’m not sure of, but the people are discussing. The song Window Seat could have gone into obscurity, perhaps noted by fans and a few inquisitive folks, but otherwise just another one to toss into the pile. I can’t say I would have given it the time of day, but yet here I am giving it more notice than a lot of other things going on.
To be fair, after reading the lyrics and watching the video, I think the song has some merit. My own personal spin on it plays more towards the curse/lure of celebrity and the video seems to push that even further. For years now, maybe even a decade or two, we’ve been pushing the sexuality envelope as far as we can go, and Erykah is just one of a few folks who have come to realize that it has gone far enough that getting naked is the next step.
However, and here is where I give her and the director a lot more credit than most of the pop tarts out there today, by paralleling it with the death of one of the most loved presidents of America, the question is posed of what the next step is? Even if an artist bares it all physically, as they already do emotionally, will the world be satisfied? How many artists/celebrities have not been appreciated until they were dead? How much longer do we have on the path that we’re on until a musician decides to burn out in front of a live audience instead of to fade away in the discount bin of a box store record section? Plenty of celebrities have chosen overdoses and other outs instead of their own episode of Where Are They Now? Sure, Lady Gaga brought it to the stage at the MTV VMAs in 2009, but we all knew it was not real.
I hope we never see the answer to this question, but I hope the art you make continues to ask questions just like it. The world needs artists to put people in check when they’re on the edge of something dangerous, and it also needs them to celebrate when they’re doing something great.
If you do it right, and put your heart into it, you can be the marker someone has to more than just a great Saturday night. The art you put out there could become the turning point for someone you may never meet, if you’re willing to bare your soul. And of course, if you have the talent, and plenty of luck, you might also get more in the history books than an obituary.
keep on rocking in the world, whether it’s free or not,
After a few conversations today, some arena rock, and a large quantity of Lady Gaga YouTube performances, I started wondering just how much the music industry has changed in a few ways.
I’ve already chipped in on the mp3 debate, and pushed for my friends to go out to more shows to support local artists, but I’ve only ever had conversations with artists on a one-to-one level. So, I wanted to throw this thought out there:
What are you doing that makes your live show special every time it happens?
If your audience can go home and download your music for free, and they can communicate with their friends and intake so many other things from the comfort of their own couch, what are you doing to draw them out to see you?
Is it not enough today to simply write a great song and be able to perform it flawlessly at 2am in a dimly lit bar after a long day of work at the restaurant down the street?
I think the answer is no. People want/need something special to walk away with. Something that can not be downloaded and put on an iPod. And when it can, they want it to be the type of thing where they can say “I was there!” while their friends say “damn, I missed that.”
So, the questions is, what do you do live that does not happen anytime someone hits play with your music? I hate to push something else on your list of things to be concerned about as musicians, but I think it’s a valid concern from both the performer and audience perspective.
If your music is great, but your shows are no different than the one before, people will most likely not line-up to see you play.
I’ve personally said it a million times, and I will probably say it a million more. There are so many options out there, and even more and more in our comfy four walls, that if seeing your option once does the trick, why would I do it again?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m fighting for you, but my attention span is getting shorter and shorter… and I’m part of the older generation!
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