modern music marketing

R.E.M. debuts new album on MySpace.com

Taking marketing messages to where people are cyber-chatting is a mainstream move, as Warner Bros. proved with the free release of the new R.E.M. album on 4-million member MySpace.com

The upcoming Warner Bros. album, "Around the Sun," is scheduled for physical release on October 4 internationally and on October 5 in the United States, but all 13 tracks are currently available to visitors to MySpace.com, and many additional features are available to the four million MySpace.com members.

Just like several thousand artists, R.E. M. has a multi-page virtual home on the MySpace.com site. There, it is possible to play the songs, read the lyrics, and pre-order a physical copy of the album. In addition, it is possible to access links to the band's tour dates, utilize an iTunes clips sampler, select from artist photos, and use a link to one of Warner Bros.' Ringtown sites powered by m-Qube, where mobile ring tones and wallpapers are available.

Promoting A Band Austrailian Style

An interesting article on an Austrailian band promotion...

Late last year Brisbane rock band Regurgitator approached the Channel V pay TV music operator with a grand idea to live in a glasshouse in a public space for 21 days, cut an album and be on show and online around the clock for young techno and music tribes.

Channel V signed up, as did Optus and Microsoft's X-Box. Arnott's didn't, although all that was asked of it was a few weeks' supply of Shapes for the bubble's six or so inhabitants in Melbourne's Federation Square. Arnott's made a bad call.

According to Channel V, Optus and Federation Square management, 315,000 people visited Regurgitator's music bubble; it pulled 97,405 registered online members; became the most visited "artist and band" website according to Hitwise; and boasted an accumulated weekly pay TV audience of 1.4 million youngsters.

UPN CASTING Vocal Talent or Musical Group for HALF AND HALF

Nope, I never watched the show, I was just asked to post this...

Casting Note: UPN's sitcom Half and Half will incorporate a reality component into the upcoming season and the network is now accepting applications for vocal talent and/or a musical group. in the show,
characters Mona, Spencer and Adam will screen and talk abut the video tapes submissions, and in February will announce five finalists. The finalists will be featured on the where ultimately a single winner will be chosen.

To find out more, including submission information and contest rules, go to www.upn.com.

All submissions must be in by November 1.
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Mobblogging

If you don't know what it is you need to learn because as a band you can use it. Steve Rubel for Micro Persuasion writes a damn good piece on how Moblogging will have a bigger impact on the public relations industry than any other technological change in the past five years.

...Moblogs can also be used to build early hype for a product/service before it’s even out on the market. Let’s say you’re a movie publicist. Why not moblog or "vlog" (video blog) snippets of the "dailies" live from the shoot’s location? Or perhaps you are organizing all PR for a trade show or conference. You could launch a live moblog from the event. Moblogging offers PR pros the opportunity to leverage new tools to generate buzz....

Time Management for Musicians, Songwriters, and others in the Music Business

Some common sense advice on managing time...like buy an eggtimer...really.

Fashion Rocks

I tell customers all the time that they should pay special attention to what brands their fans are wearing. The fashion industry has already spent millions marketing to them and creating an image. Nothing wrong with 'stealing' some of their ideas of selling...Example: If you happen to get a lot of Nike wearers in the audience that may be a clue that you have some physical fans, you may want to move around a lot more on stage...just an idea.

Fashion Rocks
FOX 13 Sep 26 08:00pm
Special/Other, 120 Mins.
The world's leading fashion designers showcase their collections; Usher, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys, Faith Hill, Mary J. Blige, Hoobastank and others are scheduled to perform; hosted by Denis Leary.

Music to sell cars

GM Canada has launched a website for its 2005 Pontiac Wave that lets you choose from pop, hip hop, punk, indie and house while you take a look at the car and enter win the car as well as receive four free musical downloads from Puretracks.com. Not much info about the car on the site though...

Marisa's American Idol Audition Training Blog

"I'm keeping the T-Shirt poll open a little later, to accomodate late-comers.... Meanwhile, please also tell me what shoes I should wear. I'll post the results early next week and then we can get busy making decisions about my jewelry... Thanks!"

I have no real comment...you can read more yourself here...and it did get her a NY Times article...

The Latin Youth Movement

A youth movement has begun for Latin music in the United States, with labels increasingly signing younger artists and marketing them to a teenage audience.

The teen-oriented acts range from pop/rock singer-songwriters to regional urban acts that blend hip-hop with traditional Mexican sounds.

The fresh wave of acts includes JD Natasha, Yolanda Perez, Ha*ash, Jae-P, Yahir, Kalimba and Belinda. All are in their teens or barely out of them and perform music that their peers can easily relate to.

"It does feel like a fresh new sound is emerging, and it's not just ballads," says Haz Montana, VP of programing for Entravision Communications, which programs the youth-driven Super Estrella radio format for its stations nationwide.

"We just have to remember that one out of every five teenagers in the United States is Hispanic," Lawrie says. "Who's going to speak to the 15- and 16-year-olds?"

Videogames and Rock

The kids like rock and roll. The kids like videogames. So, why not put them together?

That’s the basic marketing concept behind this year’s Nintendo Fusion Tour featuring Story Of The Year, lostprophets, My Chemical Romance and Letter Kills.
This is the second year that Nintendo has put major sponsorship behind a rock tour and sent videogame demos out with the bands. This year the draw is a combination of up-and-coming indie rockers Story of the Year and a chance for game fans to sample some top-notch Nintendo fare and get a sneak peek at the new Nintendo portable system, the Nintendo DS.

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