Well, the record company's goin' out of businessThe lyrical excerpt above was taken from a song released back in 1980, in a time when radio stations were the primary gatekeepers to musical popularity, with the fate of a song's success determined by airplay. It would take another 20 years for the tide to turn.
They price the records too damn high
And the boys in the band could use some assistance
Get a daytime job just to get by
Well, the P.D.'s, they won't play the record
They're too worried about that book
And the D.J.'s, they all hate the song
But they're in love with the hook
-- John Mellencamp, "Cheap Shot", Nothin' Matters and What if it Did?, Riva
NPR's Weekend Edition had an interesting story on Sunday about how the internet has changed the way musicians promote themselves. Focusing on Canadian musician Dallas Green, the story details how he has used the net to promote his solo efforts under the name City and Colour, and some of the lessons he has learned bear relevance to corporate blogging.
The record label knew that they couldn't count on getting on the airwaves, so Green started promoting through interviews and music giveaways.
The head of marketing at Green's label, Jeremy Maciak, testifies to the importance of the long tail:
"Any sort of blog we felt with even 100 readers or even less was worth our time," Maciak says. "As media is more and more fractionalized, you can't afford to not be any place."Blogging for search falls into this same category. Getting your content out there on a regular basis helps to elevate your profile, even if your blog isn't considered a focal point for thought leadership. You're not gunning for reputaiton among peers. You're trying to be found by potential customers.
Reading further on down:
But this constant promotion and attention to fans is the new business model for music. A record's success is no longer judged by the first week's sales.
"It's about a slow build and having that intricate and honest conversation with our fans and potential audience," Maciak says. "Sometimes that takes months, years, to build."
By the same token, corporate blogging isn't just a short-term campaign, it requires a long term commitment because search engines ascribe authority to content age.
Finally, the article notes:
Think of a corporate blog as a live performance by your company. A chance for your customer to get to know you in the real. Slick PR campaigns that attempt to hide away shoddy quality goods and services with a flashy image won't get very far because word-of-mouth has a rapid mechanism for coutering disinformation.For fans there is an upside to the new model: Today's musicians must do more live performances, and record companies can no longer hide mediocre artists with lots of in-studio special effects.
As I read the paragraph about this new model, I was reminded of another song from the same era as "Cheap Shot", namely the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star." It was the inaugural song for Mtv, a cable/satellite channel that at the time looked like a threat to radio's role as pop power broker.
While Mtv helped to usher in countless New Wave and Hair Band acts in the 80s, it took on a different focus in the 90s, phasing out video music and VJs in favor of reality and celebrity profile programming. That transition gave rise to the preference for flashy acts whose lack of real talent was compensated for by digtial postprocessing.
Blogging and other conversational forms of music promotion may well help to bring an end to an era that was so fixated on style over substance. I figured it would only be appropriate to herald the occasion by pulling out a live performance of "Video Killed the Radio Star", recorded in 2004 by the Buggles, including the original backup vocalists.
The performance is strikingly good, wouldn't you say?
