Well-Rounded Doesn't Cut
2007-08-18
Imagine the world's attention as a big foggy cloud. So thick you could cut it with a knife.
You want to cut through that foggy cloud, to call attention to your music.
Only problem is, if you're well-rounded, you can't cut through anything. You need to be sharp as a knife. Sharply defined.
Example: Your name is Mary and you put out an album called “My Songs”, and the cover is a picture of your face. The music is good quality, songs about your life, and when people ask what kind of music you do, you say “Oh, everything. All styles.”. You send the album out to be reviewed and nothing much happens. Doors aren't opening.
Imagine instead: Your name is Mary and you write 9 songs about food. You put out an album called “Sushi, Souffle, and Seven Other Songs about Food”. Maybe you recorded your vocals in the kitchen. Maybe you quit cooking school to be a musician. Yes it's a silly example, you see how this would be MUCH easier to promote.
You may be thinking, “But I have so much to offer the world, I can't just limit myself like that!” If you want to increase your chances of the world hearing your music at all, though, strongly consider stretching-out your musicial offerings to the world, and keeping each album focused clearly on one aspect of your music.
Notice the long careers of David Bowie, Madonna, Miles Davis, Paul Simon, and Elvis Costello to name a few. Each went through sharply-defined phases, treating each album as a project with a defined mission.
Here's some top-sellers at CD Baby:
Eileen Quinn. She's a full-time sailor. She writes songs about sailing. That's it. Five albums of them. And sailors LOVE it. She gets written-up in sailing magazines all the time.
Rondellus. Sabbatum. A traditional medieval music group from Estonia doing an album of Black Sabbath songs played on medieval instruments and sung in Latin.
4th25. American soldiers in Iraq wrote and recorded an album in their barracks on a cheap computer with a $100 mic, about what it's like to be over there at war.
Each of these albums got a LOT of press and a lot of sales, because they were sharply-defined, newsworthy, interesting to write about, easy to tell friends about.
this is an excellent point
very true points and with the computer it should be more easier to connect with your perspective fans with the various networks that are out there to assist your needs so this is a valid point to de-fine the course of action to grow progressively...
need land to sow need a boat to row need a gig to show need the truth to know that I am what I am and even if I didn't give a damn I still remain what I am so this is someone I have never tried to run from and without making too many man made plan things has bubbled along with a change from time to time to do what we said we all would try to become as that is redemption song feed the hungry and cloth the naked and heal the sickness of other by been a servant of the almighty for the good of humanity...
I searched the CDbaby website for the 4th25 American Soldiers in Iraq who recorded an album in their barracks using a $100 mic and a computer because I am on a project now about the same subject. I didn't find the album but I came across quite a few antiwar songs. The CDbaby website is quite extensive. I'll find it eventually and it will be interesting to compare what comes straight out the horse's mouth as opposed to what I feel it must be like. Thanks to Derek for all the advice about "been specific, well rounded don't sell and aim for the edges". But its a coincidence that you may think you got an exclusive idea, but discover that other people have felt the same way and expresed their feelings about the same subject.