audiot

once more, i discovered an interesting discussion on new music strategies right here. it’s about when to put your own musicstuff online. is it better to wait until it’s properly mixed, mastered, produced – so it’s good in quality, maybe even polished and slick. or is the answer more like “now”?

there’s a lot of comments that lean more to the one or the other side, but one aspect seems to be quite important to most of them. the fear of scaring your fans (or people that might become fans) away. boo!

my thoughts on this are a bit different, i’m saying “now”! put it all up, all you’ve got. polished? fine. raw? fine. good? fine. it sucks? fine. no matter what, show it to the world! now! you might think, so what has he put up so far? and you’re right, i might be the last person on earth to give advice about this. and i don’t, it’s just my thoughts on it, remember? by the way, i put stuff up here – remember? and it was neither good quality nor good songwriting or whatever, it was just nothing, a little gag. but back to me being the last person…. right now, i have nothing to upload. ridiculous? damn right it is. it’s a shame that all those years i spent making music only exist as memories and stories – i can’t change that. but i can do better from now on – and i will.

now why is it good if you upload anything that just sucks? well, for one, any publicity is good publicity. and this is now more true than ever. you might scare people who otherwise would have become your fans? think again. tastes differ. one man’s crap is another man’s gold. maybe your sweet little popsong is soooooo bad, it becomes a punkhit – who knows? and if noone likes it at all (and that’s hard to believe, someone on earth would love it. guaranteed.), so what? if you work on your internet-appearance, so that you’re findable – you have as many chances as you like. so the first hundred visitors didn’t like it? maybe the next hundred will. no? maybe the next hundred will. no? maybe the nex….. you won’t run out of possible fans, it’s the internet.

another thing that comes to my mind is the renaissance of bad quality. since everybody’s able to put cellphone-videos online in an instant, there are no more quality issues. today people sit in front of their screen watching clips that are just plain black (maybe with a little blurry-brown-something) and sound like a horsie making love to a running lawnmower. if someone would have brought you a vhs-tape with that clip to watch it on your tv in the pre-web-era? yep, my thoughts exactly. and let’s not forget: even well known acts put up low-quality-stuff. think bathroom sessions of the barenaked ladies – and people loved them. certainly, it’s nicely performed. what if you just can’t play? again, who cares? you will improve, and someday people might be proud of having known you since your first steps. even if they’re not, even if noone likes your music. i say it’s still far better than not releasing it to the public. because now it’s out there and its never going back. YOU are out there and you’re never going back. there’s more danger in waiting and trimming and polishing a little more and trimming again and…. “cool, there’s a new effect-device coming out next month. this will so improve this song of mine. i’m saving some money to buy it and then this song will rock and i can put it up there…..” this never ends. you’re really planning on releasing something as soon as it’s perfect? that moment will never come. it’s not the past, where independent artists saved money to make an album and because of limited time and cash, needed to decide which song and how long etc. today you have the possibilities to throw out whatever you like and an infinite amount of trials, so………………….

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i’ve been saying this for years…16 years to be precise. i was in my final school years back then with a focus on economics. then on a trip to my local music store to buy some cds, as i did about once a week, i was shocked when i saw that cd prices had doubled from one week to the next. until that moment i always found records that were around 10 bucks (deutschmarks that is). this was a fair deal to me so i bought – sometimes just because i liked the cover. and i was a good customer, i kind of spent my whole pocket money on cds and piled more than 800 records before the possibility of cd-burning even existed. then one day i came into the shop and everything was around 20 bucks. it took me quite some time to get over this but i still bought, only now it was maybe 1-2 cds a month instead of 2-3 each week – because i felt betrayed. i pledged never to buy a cd for more than 20 deutschmarks. that was also the moment when i first thought that those record guys did something wrong.

fighting your own customers is not only stupid business policy, it’s also a fight you cannot win.

although cd prices went up even further, last time i checked they were around 36 deutschmarks (meaning 17,99 euros today), i always kept my promise and never bought a record for more than 20 marks (or 10 euros) – well, there were some exceptions, records from bands with no label or something similar, where i needed to order them directly from the band plus shipping costs for instance. but that’s fine because that money ends up where it belongs. as for all the regular cds, i simply switched to ebay and bought them used, usually around 5 bucks including shipping. that way i could legally buy original records with booklets and everything and i never was disappointed with those deals. so now it’s been years since i saw a record store from the inside because i’m the customer and i do whatever the hell i want. you wanna fight me? bring it on!

nowadays i read articles about decisions the music-industry-guys make and i just shake my head in silence. they still don’t get it, maybe they never will. they’re making money selling ringtones to 11 year old schoolgirls alright, but that’s even more ridiculous than being an electric-blanket-salesman on some old people bustrip to lourdes. in a way they admitted their defeat: “it seems we can’t fool the adults anymore….so let’s fool the kids, that’s easy enough.” instead of making a step towards your customers you fight their offsprings. who are your next victims? semen? i pity you.

i’ve been saying this for years and i say it again: fighting your own customers is a fight that can’t be won.