This isn’t exactly farm-fresh (it came out all of last week), but in case you missed it, the NIN frontman continues his always-interesting seminar on what the hell anyone in music is supposed to do, now. He’s very upfront with the fact that he doesn’t have the answer, either. But like a grizzled veteran, he is very generous with hard-earned advice to up-and-comers.

Since the initial post, he has issued updates and responses here:
 http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?30,7671…

Here’s the original:

I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media “got it right” regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here’s a link to their store:

 www.amazon.com]

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere.  www.tunecore.com]

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.

The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact – it sucks as the musician BUT THAT‘S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).

The Beastie Boys’ site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in – available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging – they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on – like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.

Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace – it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content – pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any – Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

If you don’t know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don’t get it – find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig – good luck, you’re going to be waiting a while.

TR

TopSpin Media info: topspinmedia.com

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Mike Errico official site: http://www.errico.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Errico/8888939428
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/Tallboy7Vids

Tags: Amazon, Flickr, mike errico, new business models, new media, NIN, Retail, SoundCloud, Tallboy 7, the future of music, Topspin, Trent Reznor, Tunecore, Twitter, Vimeo, Youtube

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under Digital, Mobile & Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.