Make music for you fans, not yourself.

Apologies up front because this is a rant…

Stop concerning yourself with the minutia in the mix and start thinking about what’s important. What might that be you ask? It’s the song.

Your fans don’t care if the hi-hat is a tad too low in the last bar of the third verse. They don’t care that the last note of an arpeggiated guitar run during the outro is a little too loud. Nobody hears this except for you, the artist. Let me, the mix engineer, make these calls. This is what I do. I MIX music so that it translates the best it can to all formats and to all audiences.

Some of the best advice I have ever received came from my mentor and engineer extraordinaire, Cliff “Cliffy” Zellman. During many, many mixing sessions when producers or artists were obsessing over the most finite of things he would turn to me and say “Lopes, it doesn’t really matter and nobody cares.” Meaning that your fans are not listening to those elements in the track. They are listening to two things, the melody and groove – that’s about it.

I understand that this is your art and that you want it to be perfect, but who are you making it for? Yourself or your fans? If you’re making it for yourself you may want to ask yourself one simple question. How many copies are YOU going to buy? My guess is that your answer is zero.

“The trio crafts songs that modernize 60s garage rock and 1970s New York punk, putting a spin on pop structure that draws comparisons to Talking Heads, Gang of Four and The Cars, with hints of Suicide and a synth-free Devo.”

Facts on File, Mastered by Dave Lopez @ CrazyEye Music Services.

This record is really going to make some noise when it’s released in March 2012 so keep your ears open for it.

You can read the full article at FilterMagazine.com – Discover The Undiscovered: Facts On File.

Just days after adding Apps, Spotify has given it's Radio feature a major makeover that takes aim at Pandora. In fact, with unlimited skips, Spotify one-ups Pandora who limits track skips on all accounts.** Spotify Radio will be available to free users and subscribers. New features include:

• Unlimited Stations - Choose a track, artist or genre and Spotify instantly creates a station of similar music. There is no limit to the number of stations users can create.
• Unlimited Skips - This feature has not been available to Pandora free users.
• All-new intelligent recommendation engine - Spotify offered no details regarding the technology powering their new recommendation engine.  Is it The Echo Nest? Proprietary?
• Unlimited access to 15 million tracks.
• Available to all - Spotify Radio will be available to both free users and subscribers.
  

Spotify Radio will be rolled out over the next few days along with Apps. Spotify has 10 million active users and 2.5 million paying subscribers across 12 countries.

**Pandora Skip Limits:

"Free Pandora accounts permit 6 skips per hour per station, for up to 12 total skips per day across all stations. The daily skip limit helps us prevent having to pay royalties on songs that are not being heard."

"A skip is considered to be a skipped song, a Thumbs-down rating, or choosing "I'm tired of this track" in the menu of the music player."

"Licensing is one of the most expensive aspects of providing the service, and we must pay the full royalties for a song, even if it only plays for a few seconds."

"Upgrading to Pandora One will remove the daily skip limit (although the 6 skips per hour per station limit will remain in place). "

Perry Farrell recently upset Brazilian music fans with a comment about their knowledge of music. Though this is bad pr for Lollapalooza's first run at Brazil, it also points to music opportunities in emerging markets for styles of music that are more popular abroad than in the States. All indie musicians - old school or avant garde - would benefit from exploring the possibilities.

Though Perry Farrell claims he didn't actually play "Ugly American" and state that Brazilians are "uneducated about music", the press seems to have missed his earlier derogatory comments at the recent Billboard Touring Conference:

"When we first got there they're like, "Can you bring The Cure?" It made me realize they are, let's call it two years behind, it sounded like even more...The point is that they're going to catch up so quickly to the rest of the world. We're bringing such sophisticated music."

Ok, so despite my respect for Perry Farrell, he is also an arrogant jerk who doesn't understand how to market music in emerging markets. But his comments are also a reminder that emerging markets, such as Brazil, India and China, may well be receptive to forms of music that are not currently as trendy in the States though that shouldn't put off artists with a bunch of whatever they rate you with at Pitchfork!

If you're interested in emerging markets, there are a number of ways to start building ties and creating a fanbase:

YouTube

60% of YouTube's video views come from audiences that "select a language other than English as the site’s display language." When I was blogging about hip hop fulltime, I began to get contacts from all over the world and most of them had a YouTube presence. So YouTube can be both a way of offering your music to emerging markets and of networking with artists in emerging markets who will help spread the word.

Mobile

I recently discussed 88tc88, a Hypebot sponsor that can help get your music on mobile phones in China. But mobile music is growing across emerging markets, especially as web users leapfrog past pc's and go straight to mobile.

News about mobile music growth in such markets ranges from a Juniper Research report that singles out China and India, Business analyst Mark Little discussing Google Music as potentially strong in emerging markets due to Android and a recent TNS survey pointing to mobile as the first portal for many consumers in developing markets.

Touring

Charlotta Hedman is currently doing a series of posts on emerging markets at Music 4.5 including an interview with a promoter in India. Such a contact can make a huge difference if you're planning on touring abroad but I am also in touch with Aaron Gibson who visited a relative currently in China and set up a show while there that got a great response. I'll be speaking more with him for Hypebot quite soon.

The U.S. government also sponsors musicians in programs like American Music Abroad and hip hop has been one of the genres frequently supported by such programs.

Obviously this post simply scratches the surface. If you're familiar with any of the above approaches to emerging markets, please be in touch. I will be speaking with Aaron Gibson about his experiences and looking for other opportunities to explore this topic, especially if we get a show of interest from Hypebot readers.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Discussions of DIY and indie music often center around how to conduct business and build a livelihood without signing with a major label. However, as we all know, the DIY and indie ranks are full of people who play music because they have to and take care of business inasmuch as it facilitates their art. That approach is the focus of the documentary "Blood, Sweat + Vinyl: DIY in the 21st Century" and filmmaker Kenneth Thomas has done an excellent job of capturing that perspective.

Blood, Sweat + Vinyl: DIY in the 21st Century (Trailer)

Blood, Sweat + Vinyl, directed by Kenneth Thomas of The Scourge Productions, takes a look at 20 bands and visual artists connected by 3 record labels, Hydra Head, Neurot, and Constellation, and an association with heavy and prog rock though that doesn't communicate much about this great documentary. Composed of interviews and pieces of live performance with much of the music being shot in 2006, Blood, Sweat + Vinyl features such bands as Neurosis, ISIS, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Pelican, Oxbow, Evangelista, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Cave In.

In addition to introducing me to a lot of music with which I was unfamiliar, I found the documentary full of insights into what drives these artists and business people, some of which are shared in the above trailer.

Thoughts about the business included:

"we just want to make music with our friends"

"the really important and great music would be made anyway, whether or not there was any money to be made. for those people business gets in the way."

"independent is meaningless cause it's not independent"

"big labels feel like a mistake"

"this music isn't going to sell at a level that would work on a major"

"people who signed us did not have commercialism as a guiding ethos"

From a business perspective, the record labels are of particular interest and they all share a focus on putting out music they like and basing business on "good faith relationships" without a dependence on contracts. Though some discussion slips in related to funding, Blood, Sweat + Vinyl tends to leave out the topic of money. My main disappointment was not finding out more about how their operations are funded and not knowing if any of these people actually make a living in the music business.  But, for most viewers, such questions are probably beside the point.

Blood, Sweat + Vinyl definitely captures the spirit of artists who do what they do because they care and, whether or not they find success in a business sense, will probably keep doing it as long as they can because no other path is as worthwhile.

Currently Blood, Sweat + Vinyl is working the film festival circuit and is available in a 2 DVD Box Set with the documentary plus an Extras DVD of live performances. Other options are on the way and you can also check out some footage from the Extras DVD as well as live performance outtakes.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.