At the NARM-hosted Music Biz 2013 in Los Angeles in early May, there was a room of 200 people clamoring to discuss metadata. Really? Metadata? I’m sure we can all think of a dozen other places we’d rather be, but some key points were made to reiterate how important it is to submit correct metadata.
Submitting music for one artist with various spellings will split the music across different artist profiles. For instance, if I were a musician, I’d do myself a disservice by releasing music under Jaclyn, jac1yn (see how the L turned into a one?) and Jac & Diane (what I imagine to be a wonderful duet).
Different release dates around the world cause confusion when we all get information from sites that provide reviews and news to a global audience. Let’s say an Australian fan reads a glowing review on Pitchfork (psych!), and then heads over to iTunes to purchase the album which isn’t yet out in Australia: missed opportunity.
And now my big pet peeve, wrongly listed release years screw up an artist discography. Every now and then I want to listen to some Sinatra or Coltrane and, aside from being annoyed at having to scroll through things like Jazz Explosion, it appears that the earliest Sinatra release was in 1996 and Afro Blue came out in 2011. Huh?
There’s a great recap of the panel in this Billboard.biz piece by Ed Christman. I encourage you to read it if you’re still not convinced that submitting correct metadata needs your full attention.
From Lonestar to Müslüm Gürses and PJ & Duncan to The Black Angels, we’ve got quite a diverse set of music that popped up in charts throughout the month of April. Congrats to our clients!
WEEK ENDING April 28, 2013
Billboard Top 200
#82 — Queensryche: Frequency Unknown [Cleopatra Records]
Billboard Current Albums
#74 — Queensryche: Frequency Unknown [Cleopatra Records]
Billboard Heatseeker Albums
#15 — Har Mar Superstar: Bye Bye 17 [Cult Records]
#19 — Charles Bradley: Victim Of Love [Daptone Records]
#28 — The Appleseed Cast: Illumination Ritual [Graveface]
Billboard Independent Albums
#12 — Queensryche: Frequency Unknown [Cleopatra Records]
#43 — Whitesnake: Made In Japan [Cynjas]
iTunes Russia Top Albums
#1 — Basta: Basta 4 [Gazgolder]
#4 – Grigoriy Leps: The Best (Deluxe Version) [Nikitin]
#9 — Deep Purple: Now What?! (iTunes Exclusive) [Soyuz Music]
iTunes Turkey Top Albums
#7 — Various Artists: Karadeniz’e Kalan [Kalan Ses Goruntu]
#10 — Taksim Trio: Taksim Trio 2 [Dokuz Sekiz Müzik]
MusicRow Country Breakdown Chart
#27 — Lonestar: “Maybe Someday” [4 Star Records]
WEEK ENDING April 21, 2013
Billboard Top 200
#164 — Rodriguez: Cold Fact [Light In The Attic]
Billboard Current Albums
#194 — The Black Angels: Indigo Meadow [Blue Horizon]
Billboard Heatseeker Albums
#35 — Charles Bradley: Victim Of Love [Daptone Records]
#47 — Thee Oh Sees: Floating Coffin [Castle Face]
Billboard Independent Albums
#48 — The Black Angels: Indigo Meadow [Blue Horizon]
iTunes Russia Top Albums
#1 — Basta: Basta 4 [Gazgolder]
#2 – Grigoriy Leps: The Best (Deluxe Version) [Nikitin]
#3 — Deep Purple: Now What?! (iTunes Exclusive) [Soyuz Music]
iTunes Turkey Top Albums
#6 — Various Artists: Karadeniz’e Kalan [Kalan Ses Goruntu]
#7 — Müslüm Gürses: Veda / Ervah-ı Ezelde [Kadırga Prodüksiyon]
iTunes Brazil Top Albums
#6 — Jorge & Mateus: A Hora e Agoro (Ao Vivo) [Som Livre/Globo]
iTunes Greece Top Albums
#4 — Paola: Meta ta Mesanihta (Live) [Heaven Music]
MusicRow Country Breakdown Chart
#24 — Lonestar: “Maybe Someday” [4 Star Records]
Five years ago today, we launched this blog to share artist news as we grew our roster of Interactive Marketing campaigns. We quickly evolved The Daily Rind into a vital piece of our corporate content marketing strategy, focusing on client communication, Orchard news, tips for navigating the digital landscape, op-eds on industry topics, and yes, artist news. All of this through the eyes of my very talented co-workers, who we continuously pester for more posts.
In honor of our five year mark, here are some of our favorite Daily Rind moments :
2008
Sharon Jones on Austin City Limits, Grammy Consideration by Tonia Samman
2009
Getting Social: The Orchard is on Facebook! and Let’s Twitter! by James Volpe
2010
Streaming vs P2P (Round #543324): Why Does Spotify Feel So Much Faster? by Nathan Thompson
Honorable mention to a republished Billboard piece: Billboard Op-Ed by Scott Cohen (Our Co-Founder and VP): LESS BEGETS MORE by Scott Cohen
2011
SoundCloud: So…About Just Sending Out That MP3? by Robbie Mackey
Honorable mention for a catchy song and catchy topic: Ai Se Eu Te Pego: When Music + Soccer Collide by Celia Saez
2012
Indie Artist Makes a Killing from Streaming – Yep, You Heard Right. by Chris Duncan (this was reposted by Hypebot)
Honorable mention for being our sixth most read post of all time: The Most Valuable Thing You Don’t Know About YouTube’s Business Model by Doug Shineman
Thank you to all our writers, readers and sharers throughout the years. As always, let us know via comments if there are topics you’d like us to cover in the future.
I remember when Mobile Roadie first launched back in 2009 and we immediately struck an agreement with them to enable our clients to create a mobile app. The dedicated artist app seemed to be a powerful tool when it first launched, but after publishing a slew of them we were quite disappointed in the number of downloads they received. And they were free! It seems the fans weren’t intrigued by an app that provides the same info as what’s on the artist website.
Fast forward a few years and developments in technology make it fairly easy to create a mobile-optimized website. In an ideal world, an artist will have one site that looks slick and works across all devices, giving fans a plethora of info no matter where they are and eliminating the tediousness of updating the same info across multiple destinations.
MOBILITY TRUMPS MOBILE
With a mobile-optimized site live, the need for a separate mobile app is possibly justified if you have an idea that is uniquely entwined with the flexibility and capabilities of a phone. Miranda Lambert just launched a very cool app in conjunction with Mobile Roadie and Sonic Notify*. When you watch her new video on Vevo, the video sends out inaudible sounds that trigger actions on the app. While I was watching the video I received information about a contest and exclusive tracks. Cool!
I immediately envisioned Steve Aoki on stage using Sonic Notify to send out tracks from his Dim Mak catalogue. Or He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister playing to their Austin City Limits crowd and sending a track from their upcoming album. But here’s the thing, this app only works if it’s open. And maybe there’s no cell service, either because everyone at ACL is uploading a photo to Instagram or because you’re in a deep corner of a concrete club. Back to square one. I do believe there are opportunities for Sonic Notify and creative apps, but the conditions have to be just right and the artist not afraid to tell their fans to open up their app.
The moral of my story is: to maximize your fan acquisition and engagement in an efficient way, don’t design specifically for the mobile device – define your overall marketing strategy and develop it for mobility. It’s worked for Facebook, Pinterest and Spotify! As I read in a Harvard Business Review article, “mobility trumps mobile”.
*While I’d like to say I’m a Miranda Lambert fan, I read about this on Mashable.
Over the past year I’ve seen a tremendous number of product demos. Sometimes I’m immediately struck by how amazing the product is, sometimes I can see the potential, and other times I’m shocked that the service is making its public debut, even if it’s in “beta”.
I started to make a mental list of things I want to keep in mind for our future product launches and then realized how that list can be applied to many launches — including an album or film release. Here are my key takeaways:
You only get one chance to make a first impression.
I’m consistently shocked at how many products are demo’d with an awful design. I’ve seen way too many products that look like they were created in 1999. No one will want to use this product if it doesn’t look good, even if the tool is revolutionary. It’s just as hard to get past ugly album art, film poster or website. Your meager Photoshop skills may have worked for your student project, but it’s unlikely they’ll gain you any fans as a professional.
Don’t rush the launch date.
I’m a firm believer in releasing early and often. In tech speak, this means that once you release a product you continue to iterate on it to improve it. For music or film, you can release countless EPs, singles, trailers, out-take reels, etc. in the digital world. HOWEVER, if your marketing plan has fallen apart, or just never got off the ground, push the release date! There are few reasons I can think of that justify releasing material when you’re not actually ready to.
