When dealing with new bands, one mistake we often see is deciding what kind of music to make based primarily on what sells. Make no mistake: the best business decision you can make is the best artistic decision you can make - perform and record what you like.
Though this might not be intuitive at first, the commercial viability of very good Iranian folk music is vastly superior to that of mediocre pop. It is because the quality of the music matters more than the type of music.
Though the market for quality electronic flamenco may be small, there is no market for mediocre anything, even pop (unless you can afford massive payola, which you can't ;P ). You can only assure good quality if it is something you are very, very in to, as we'll see.
Creating something unique also helps with what marketers call differentiation. When there aren't many bands like yours, there aren't many bands you can be compared directly with. If you loath the idea of hearing your band described as “kinda like The Pixies, but the drumming isn't as clever” then you understand the appeal of differentiation.
Good Cooks Taste Their Soup
You cannot read minds. The only thing you know for sure is what you like, and you can be reasonably certain that others exist who like what you like. No one is really that unique. Only by pleasing your self will you truly please others.
Let's say that there is a grunge revival going through your country, but you have only a half-hearted interest in it. If you try to "cash-in" on this craze, you won't be sure when you're doing a good job or when you're doing a bad job. Though it's normally good business sense to watch for crazes and music is no exception, it is also good business sense to take opportunities that match your core competencies and not ones that aren't at odds.
There's a type of music you love listening to. Your friends are afraid of asking you about its history because you'll tell them. This is what you should strive to make. To think of it another way: feedback from fans and friends is few and far between, but when jamming or recording, the feedback from your own tastes should be a constant. If you remove your own tastes from the equation, you will be lost (but don't remove the tastes of others, either!)
Take The Road Less Trampled By
Do any of these sounds familiar:
“Dove isn't Soap”
“Dyson: the only vacuum that doesn't lose suction”
“We're not a religion, we're a way of life”
“Helio: don't call us a mobile phone”
These are all classic examples of product differentiation and it's a concept you, as a creative musician can use! They (fans, critics, promoters) love to categorize, clump and do anything they can to remove what's special about you. When that happens, you're just like band A, but with vocals like band B, and you have X people in your fan base. You want to fight being just a list item as much as you can. When you're defining genres rather than rehashing them, you're doing just that.
The other aspect of differentiation is to not compete directly with the big guys. When you try to be “pop”, you're competing directly with the marketing muscle and studio finesse of all those radio-friendly hit-makers. If that doesn't scare you, you are my new hero!
Business Models For Your Music
Big record labels focus on business models that fit best with radio-friendly types of music – large advertising dollars, comprehensive brick-and-mortar distribution, and all the luxuries a wide fan base affords. So, what if the kind of music you want to make isn't popular enough to work with this business model? Here are a few strategies you can use to make money from it:
Be Nice To Your Fans
If your fans are smaller in number, you have a greater ability to reach out to them. Hey, you have an advantage over those shiny pop acts, don't you? Einsturzende Neubauten's last couple of albums have been made in collaboration with their fans. They charge fans for the privilege of working directly with the artists and deliver some of their best work to date (I'm sure some readers who dig harshness may argue that their early albums remain unsurpassed). In the process, they make money from their very loyal and very pleased fans.
Depending on how many fans you have, it may even be practical for you to get to know them. They will voluntarily tell you the kinds of music they like, and you, in turn can tailor your next albums to your intimate target market.
The key to making money when you have a smaller number of fans is to get more money out of your few fans. Before you recoil in horror at such thoughts of price-gouging, consider this: if you really are as good as those pop acts with many times more fans and you have fewer fans, chances are they are more loyal fans, eager to buy and proudly wear merchandise. In other words, your appear is deep, rather than wide. If this describes you, you can provide more services for your fans and nice treats like limited releases.
Some bands, such as COIL, release limited editions of albums and slowly release them to the public, often in arrays of differently colored vinyl and interesting artwork. They are not tricking their fans, who are quite aware of this practice, but instead delighting them with so many interesting COIL merch and rare, collectible releases to choose from.
Find The Right Venue For Your Music
Not all music is made for the same purpose. General-purpose radio-friendly music is made for dancing to, singing along to, listening to in your car, etc. Some people make music that doesn't fit well for one or more of these purposes and the trick is in finding where your songs do shine! Many tutorials for musicians will tell you to focus on verse-chorus songs with easy to understand lyrics about universal human experiences. There are good grounds for not outright rejecting these suggestions, but keep this in mind: classical music violates this radio-friendly formula and many CDs are produced of the latest, greatest classical recordings every year; Sony even has a division dedicated to classical music CDs. It's because different genres are in effect different art forms and sometimes have different rules.
Look at other people making the kind of music you're making. They might have figured it out for you. If you're music is more instrumental oriented music, you might find venues in soundtrack or car commercial music (note the tendency of car commercials to cut out of the music before the lyrics). If your music is more about entertaining live shows, then you could focus on doing many live shows, making money that way and perhaps even giving CDs and MP3s away to fans.
We hope that you reading this get the basic idea that it's the quality of the music that ultimately determines its commercial viability and for that reason, you should mold your business model to your music, not the other way around. Furthermore, if your music tastes results in you making something off-beat or strange, you should see the opportunities in the off-beat, rather than just looking at the weaknesses from a music industry exec's perspective. Artistic integrity and good business are bestest friends!
If you have any comments, feel free to e-mail webmaster@band-collab.net or post replies to this blog at band-collab.net.
Additional Resources:
http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/glossary/product.htm
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract...
http://www.gigwise.com/news/29115/wilco-give-away-free-download