All change for labels as branding dissolves. Your way to connect in a period of post-branding transition beckons
There are still labels doing great things although even the best have a poor run. The branding is meaningless though in a world when streaming sites auto suggest things based on your listening taste and you put in prompts to an AI looking for specific work based on your own taste knowledge. As your listening gets deeper putting “Blue Note” type artist in to a search engine or chatbot will only get you so far. But they are suggest factories and target you if you choose to be targeted.
I used to run lists of labels doing great things on this site. [If interested this year I don’t think ECM, ACT and Blue Note have done much of interest; but Naive, Edition, Smoke Sessions, Mack Avenue and Brownswood however are far more on song.]
But what I noticed and it is old news given that everything since breakfast is old online is that being on a traditional label – you know ones who focus more on physical product – isn’t that important beyond status, kudos and the siren call of filthy lucre. That is before the suits give you your coat when they get their abacus out again and realise that only 17 Vortex and 4 Eastside club loyal regulars bought your latest Schoenberg-meets-spang a-lang tentet slice of playfully ragged anti toe-tappery, Tone Alone.
As you delutter your stuff online storage is far handier with digital, isn’t it. These days I hardly ever listen to CDs. I think I did once or twice last year. And it’s been about 8 years since I last listened to vinyl. That switch to digital was very hard. But now I am happy to listen preferably through smart speakers and will try to get some new even more pukka ones soon next time I am in the right store.
Makers of music – what fans like me want
All fans, gig goers, followers of the scene, critics, pundits, casual browsers, even record collectors who know how to collect digital music in archives properly, want of an artist is I’d claim two things to begin with.
1 New recordings so at the very least we know that you are alive.
2 A chance to hear the makers live preferably within staggering, brief train or bus ride distance home.
Featuring Banksy on brushes – gotta have a gimmick
PERSONNEL With me it’s two things. The first is if I don’t know who the hell the leader is it’s good to clock anyone on the record whose name rings a bell. That’s the joy of, say, “featuring Banksy” on brushes as a bit of marketing chutzpah. That’s just to save me time in working out things. Half the time with jazz you have to spend ages familiarising yourself with new stuff and it all takes time and is often not worth it because what the artist is trying to say is too oblique, confusing and if truth be told dull.
ALBUM TITLE The second is the album title. There is an art in titling your album. I like tongue in cheek titles We’re Only It For The Money for instance; I also like bloody minded ones eg Latest Record Project Vol 1; but I like most of all one word unusual titles. Not just a touch of the verbals – noun too pleased? No a title like “Historicity” sounds fancy and works well. I suppose a good title appeals to the intellectual pretensions of the jazz listener. I’m not being funny, every jazz listener harbours a pretentiousness of some sort. Think about it if you are being pretentious you are also being a little aspirational about yourself which is good. You are not looking to be some sort of bottom feeder all the time slumming it from the vantage point of your mock squat and set the bar low. You want to better yourself, doncha? That’s my defence of pretentiousness over. It’s a long subject and I haven’t the time to bang on all day about it. I know that’s a relief.
What I don’t want or need is a press release or some sort of blurb to the fact that Doris Bloggs or young Joe Dan stepping out is the greatest thing since dinosaurs. To me it’s a waste of paper. There is room for publicists of course. They should speak to the journalist not send stuff out like spam. A short conversation works wonders. In my own experience recently one PR who I didn’t know took the trouble to ring me up. One out of the hundreds who send stuff in. He’s a bloody good PR even if some of the product he was hawking was fairly lame. It didn’t matter. Next time he’s on I’ll remember.
So to return to the point of this post, your platform could be your own platform or one run by some digital marketing wizkid who dresses like Sam Bankman-Fried but with more morals [not hard, that!] out for snacks down the Shoreditch mini-mart rather than banged up. Don’t they all! If I was an artist I’d set up a deal with some digital distributor and put my tracks up there. I’d put out a few singles and then the album. If I feel the need to promote it I’d do that by playing gigs. If fans asked me to provide CDs I’d do a small run. Ditto with vinyl. That’s it. The right attitude is needed. It’s having no expectations even when praise is showered on you, staying humble and not getting downhearted when the fickle public suddenly decide they prefer Laufey yet again. If it doesn’t work try something else and find another platform if you end up realising that album you slaved over got 3 streams, one of which was by ‘er indoors and the other yer nan who’s just discovered you on TikTok.
You must be logged in to post a comment.