A friend of mine reminded me about wearehunted.com. The idea is that the website ranks and finds the most blogged, downloaded, and buzzed about music from all over the internet world. It’s a cool idea, but the most significant piece of info is not who holds the number one spot on the list of daily emerging songs, but who’s in the weekly and monthly charts.
When you scroll through you realize that to be a band that sticks around you must have massive songwriting chops. The kind of writing that will keep people coming back to your music. That’s because you’re not only competing against other artist of today, but you’re competing against Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and Zep, to name a few.
For some this may not come as a surprise, but it threw me for a loop. People have Radiohead’s entire discography at their fingertips. For you to get through you’ve got to connect with them. Make them dance, make them cry, make them laugh, make them angry, as long as you make them FEEL something.
Sites like We Are Hunted re-affirm one thing; Songwriting is and always will be king. Write more songs.
Tweet This
So I got back from Vancouver after seeing U2’s last show on the 2009 North American Tour. As a fan, I had a great time. Every song I knew and they played almost everything I wanted to hear. It was pretty much the exact same set as the YouTube Rose Bowl Show, so there were few surprises, but still seeing it in person was key. 60,000 people singing “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in unison is an experience hard to top.
U2 has so many hits that still feel fresh today. Streets, One, With or Without You, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride, etc.. They aren’t songs that fit a moment in time. They’ve endured. That’s something every artist should strive for in my opinion. Writing material that you can go back to later on and still get into it. I don’t know if you know exactly when you’ve got a song like that, but ignoring trends and following your own gut seems like a good place to start.
Download The NewRockStarPhilosophy eBook. It’s FREE!
A few weeks ago Billboard magazine released it’s Maximum Exposure List. The idea was that if an artist did the things on the list they would become a hit sensation. It included such reasonable things like, get your music on an Apple commercial, get on the cover of Rolling Stone, and play on Saturday Night Live…. mmmhmm. Yeah so all of that is very do-able if Jay-Z is managing you, but for the rest of us it may take some time.
Luckily Ariel and her friends at Cyber PR put out a sweet pdf which lays down some more reasonable and actionable plans that can help you get exposure. It has many great ideas from indie artists and industry types who know what they are doing. I think it goes very well with The New Rockstar Philosophy. I would suggest you download both and then go play Saturday Night Live.
Have you noticed that Twitter evolved to a new level recently? It’s not a news story that you have Twitter. Everyone does. But what this next level of Twitter is doing, is making the experience of Twitter more customizable and personal. You can use this to your advantage as an artist. So here are 3 Twitter apps that you should check out and see if they work for you:
- TweetDeck - Tweet Deck is very good at organizing your Twitter world and giving it a sense of community that most don’t get with logging onto the Twitter page. Understanding what’s going on in your Twitter world will help you start conversations and answer back at people who may be trying to talk to you. The point is to stay connected and TweetDeck helps with that.
- Twibbon – Twibbon is like a tattoo for your twitter picture (avatar). If you belong to something, a group, a tribe, whatevs, you want to show that association. Plunk a poppy on your avatar to remember the veterans, or a NY Yankees logo to show the world that you have bad taste in sports teams. In both cases you’re spreading a message and saying something about yourself.
BANDS DO THIS: Create a logo, join Twibbon, and get your followers to show their support by tattooing your logo on their face.
- Tweet For a Track – This is pretty self explanatory. You post your music, then you tweet about it, your fans wanting the track must then tweet for that track (ah, ah, see that? Clever right?). I haven’t had a chance to use this app myself but it appears to be a pretty innovative way of sharing your music.
Wow! Wasn’t that the just the Top of the tops!? Maybe… there is a lot going on for Twitter these days… and yet with all this hubub, word is that Twitter’s growth is stalling, and its number pale in comparison to Fbook. So it still appears that you need to be active in more than one social media network to get the most out of this internet thing everyone keeps talking ’bout.
I’m going to see U2 on Wednesday. It’s my first show even though I’ve been a fan for close to 10 years. These guys are a band I need to see, a band I’m more than willing to travel for. There are very few bands that I would travel to go see (besides a festival), but I’m flying to go see one band for one show. It got me thinking on the degree of connection an artist can have with a person.
I’m a frugal guy, but it didn’t really phase me when I realized how much I was spending on this trip. I’ll be spending over $600 on one show (tickets, flights, merch, accommodation, food/drinks, etc..). A casual U2 fan would think that’s a ridiculous waste of money, but then the guy who’s been following the band for the eastern leg of the tour would say that’s pretty cheap.
The music has to really mean something to someone to inspire that kind of dedication. It has to affect them beyond the sweetness of a catchy tune. Once an artist has created that kind of connection with a person, that person will gladly hand over money to you, even if you obviously don’t need the money.
It’s not easy to have that kind of impact, and I don’t have all the answers on how to build it, but a good place to start is by offering the world something unique, honest, and real.
Talking about true fans, take a look at this video of U2’s Dublin show. People from all over the world flew to Dublin to see that show.
Download The NewRockStarPhilosophy eBook. It’s FREE!
Subscribe to the NRP Feed