Music Ally

First session this afternoon at the Music 4.5 conference in London focuses on the communications gap between artists and labels, and music tech companies. It’s a conversation between Marc Bridgen of GigJunkie, and Helen Sims of Strata Creative Agency – representing both sides of this divide.

Bridgen says that when GigJunkie started, he found it very hard to get to speak to the key players in the music industry. Why isn’t there more conversation and networking between the two sectors?

Sims said there’s a language barrier – “people in technology speak in a different way to the people who are used to dealing with artists and creators” – and also that there are so many startups out there, it can be hard for music people to get their heads around what’s important.

“Artists can be very interested in embracing new technologies,” she says, though – especially when they’re the first artist to try something, and can thus get PR coverage – which in turn might get more interest from TV or radio. Which is interesting – experimenting with whizzy Web 2.0 (or Music 4.5) stuff is a way to get more coverage in much more traditional media.

So how should startups get in front of music people, asks Bridgen? Sims says she gets a lot of unsolicited stuff from all sorts of people – “so you need to make that initial email quite short and punchy – ‘this is what we do’ – and then ask for a meeting so you can explain what you do in person.”

Are bands too lazy or busy to make the most of new technologies? Sims says it can be a combination. New bands know they need a MySpace profile, a Twitter feed, a website and a mailing list. But go further than that, and it can become “a bit overwhelming”. However, she thinks it’s easier a bit further down the line, when the artist has got all those things up and running.

“Often artistic people aren’t technological people too,” she says, while stressing that others are “super technological” – it can be a real mixture, so it depends on the artist.

Should startups be trying to engage with artists through their managers first? Sims says labels too, and independent companies like her own who do marketing for artists and labels.

Bridgen asks what new technologies have stuck in Sims’ mind from recent years. “One of the things we’ve been using most effectively for data capture is widgets,” she says. She’s also worked with US firm MusicShake on remixing campaigns, which worked well.

A question from the audience: should artists focus just on the big digital music stores like iTunes when getting their music out? No, says Sims – it’s worth investigating independent stores and services too. “With new bands, I try not to just limit them to iTunes.”

Meanwhile, Sims comes back to an idea discussed earlier at the conference – how deep artists get into social media depends entirely on how deep they want to. Some just naturally use Twitter, Facebook and all the other channels. Others just want to write and play music. “There’s complete polar opposites,” she says. “But new artists, especially young ones coming through, they realise it’s as much a part of being in a band as doing gigs.”

Tags: Music 4.5

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. 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.