Do this exercise: go to Trackitdown.net, click ‘House’, go to the ‘New Releases’ tab and select ‘Electro’ in the Genre drop down menu. Finally, choose ‘Last Two Weeks’ under time period. What do you see? More than 40 pages of new music? 879 tracks! And that’s just the Electro section. So even if you know what kind of music you’re looking for, good luck getting to that gem on page 8 buddy. More often than not, you’re going right to the ‘Featured Tracks’ section, and why wouldn’t you? You wanna funk, and if the Nice Man on Trackitdown is telling you what to rip and what to skip, why thank you Mr. Man. Here’s me credit card number…
But what about song 433 on page 12? And what about all those labels and all those artists putting out song after song on sites like Beatport and TID, only to get lost in the monstrous deluge of never ending new releases? Who are these artists and labels, and what is their goal? Vanity projects? Most certainly some, but not all. Its so hard to get on a Beatport or a Juno, that for a lot of labels the opportunity to sell their music alongside the Skints and the Get Physicals of the world is accomplishment enough. But where to after that?
As the owner of a feisty Internet label, I am well aware of the futility of the digital promotion game. That’s why I don’t release a track a day; you simply can’t do justice to each single in terms of promotion and sales. Why put out a beloved tune only for it to get sucked into the vortex of the interwebs?
Remember when all this music was supposed to be a good thing, and how the MP3 was forever going to revolutionize and democratize music? The little label was finally going to have a voice. What happened? Thousands of tracks released each month, only to disappear into the ether. Revolution? Bollocks.
I wish it was 1993 again. In ‘93, if you were making tracks, you were releasing tracks, and if you were releasing tracks, there was a good chance people were buying ‘em. Revolution? My arse…
How long did it take for the majors to realize that they had to get in on this sweet deal and make it ‘business as usual’ before long? Revolution? F@$k off!
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The Original Champion |
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