Please Self-Release Me, Let Me Go

I think what we're disagreeing on is what exactly "properly" constitutes.

Quick question:

Would you have a problem with a person who just wanted to release music professionally?  I mean record and mix things himself and sell them as individual mp3s, but have no packaging, no artwork, no liner notes, no bells and whistles, and other than a website, no other means of promotion?  Could such an act be taken seriously?  Why or why not?

And who is this JLocke fellow? 

JL, I don't think anyone here is against independent musicians at all, certainly I'm not.  I spend a GREAT DEAL of my free time helping these people get noticed, reviewed, and heard by an audience.  I certainly do not believe they are any "less than their contracted peers" in any personal way.  But it is fair to judge the final product on its merits or lack of them, just as we would a contracted artist.  

Epignosis wrote: I think what we're disagreeing on is what exactly "properly" constitutes.

Then we also disagree on what "professionally" means too

Epignosis wrote: Quick question: Would you have a problem with a person who just wanted to release music professionally?  I mean record and mix things himself and sell them as individual mp3s, but have no packaging, no artwork, no liner notes, no bells and whistles, and other than a website, no other means of promotion?  Could such an act be taken seriously?  Why or why not?

My quick question would be "Why?"

What is this artist trying to achieve in doing this? They obviously aren't trying to reach any potential listeners, make money or even cover/recover costs. They are not making any effort to sell anything so why even bother trying to sell it at all? Why not burn it to CDR, delete the master, put the CDR in a box, seal it in Duck Tape and put it in the back of the wardrobe? Because that is exactly the same as putting it on a nondescript webpage on some random website somewhere in the WWW without any bells and whistles to announce its presence. Unless people know where to find it, what it is and why they should bother looking for it then they aren't going to try. Regardless of how wonderful the music is, people need a reason to want to hear it, with thousands of releases each week idle curiosity is not enough.

If that artist is assuming that their music stands of falls on its own merits, that the music speaks for itself and hasn't the need for fancy packaging and promotion, then they need to prove that. Sitting waiting for the world to flock to their door is going going to do the trick.

Edited by Dean - February 01 2010 at 19:48

I think as an self-releasing artist, that one can get lots of help from the web on self releasing a record.
All from artwork to musical production, you might even be lucky enough to find someone who does the layout, mixing job for you and by this making it more professional.
There are tons of good offers on the web to make ones music available and if you do a lot of work and a lot of giggin you will get sucsess (if the talent is there in the first place).

But allmost all new bands that self release will face the brand amateur on one more aspects of theire record as in most cases the pro's usually know what theire doing.

But as I said if the artist use forums and trade knowlegde with other artist, enthusiasts I think they can get far on theire own productions.

just my 2 cents

Dean wrote: Epignosis wrote: Quick question: Would you have a problem with a person who just wanted to release music professionally?  I mean record and mix things himself and sell them as individual mp3s, but have no packaging, no artwork, no liner notes, no bells and whistles, and other than a website, no other means of promotion?  Could such an act be taken seriously?  Why or why not? My quick question would be "Why?" What is this artist trying to achieve in doing this? They obviously aren't trying to reach any potential listeners, make money or even cover/recover costs. They are not making any effort to sell anything so why even bother trying to sell it at all? Why not burn it to CDR, delete the master, put the CDR in a box, seal it in Duck Tape and put it in the back of the wardrobe? Because that is exactly the same as putting it on a nondescript webpage on some random website somewhere in the WWW without any bells and whistles to announce its presence. Unless people know where to find it, what it is and why they should bother looking for it then they aren't going to try. Regardless of how wonderful the music is, people need a reason to want to hear it, with thousands of releases each week idle curiosity is not enough. If that artist is assuming that their music stands of falls on its own merits, that the music speaks for itself and hasn't the need for fancy packaging and promotion, then they need to prove that. Sitting waiting for the world to flock to their door is going going to do the trick. Could such an act be take seriously? *shrug* Who knows? As you can deduce from the hundreds of words I've drivelled into this thread, I probably wouldn't without some pretty good reason to want to.   Now, as an dadaist example of anti-packaging I can see some mileage in this if they then contrived to make a big issue out of it and use that as subvert-overt-obvert-covert marketing ploy, but frankly that idea has been done to death several times over (and I didn't believe it then either).

Epignosis wrote: Why should an artist feel obligated to share his work with the world? Perhaps he's content simply knowing he's created, and is content that only some people would witness his creation.  Not everyone is interested in all the exposure.  Perhaps he fancies his work a humble treasure that only a few find and even fewer delight in. And perhaps the ten dollars he earns from some mp3 sales goes toward a small and simple- perhaps even potable- reward.

Then such an artist has no cause to be concerned about whatever I think, or by anything I've said thus far since evidently the subject of this thread does not apply to them.

Nakatira wrote: I think as an self-releasing artist, that one can get lots of help from the web on self releasing a record. All from artwork to musical production, you might even be lucky enough to find someone who does the layout, mixing job for you and by this making it more professional. There are tons of good offers on the web to make ones music available and if you do a lot of work and a lot of giggin you will get sucsess (if the talent is there in the first place). But allmost all new bands that self release will face the brand amateur on one more aspects of theire record as in most cases the pro's usually know what theire doing. But as I said if the artist use forums and trade knowlegde with other artist, enthusiasts I think they can get far on theire own productions. just my 2 cents

The biggest problem with music is that you cannot tell what it is that people like, and you cannot tell what is going to be fashionable until after the event. It's a very fluid thing.

debrewguy wrote: in essence, the crap to so-so to mediocre to good to great to genius ratios are still the same. The problem is that there is just much much more in each category. Strangely, for me anyway, is the way that I now believe that many local scenes, even in the smaller places, they often have bands in any number of genres that are as good as anything outside the top ranks. I.E. why buy Hedley when i can buy Fear of Lipstick ? And while this is not related to prog, I picked up the latest Megadeth album - Endgame, and Iron Giant's (from here in Moncton) debut - No Longer Sleeping . I like the Iron Giant album better. And the few albums I have from Les Paiens are the only jazz or jazz rock albums that I listen to outside the big names like Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck etc ...

An interesting development Claude, (eventhough you have mentioned this before I hadn't made the connection with what I am saying here until now), what you are suggesting is that the broadening, far reaching Internet has (for you at least) shrunken the discovery of music to a narrow local microcosm rather than opened it up to the whole world. (and that narrow microcosm does not necessarily mean geographic). This echoes what Rishloo said on their MySpace blog about self-release limiting "the scope of our reach"  - you can only sell an album to someone once and you can play live to the same audience a number of times (and sell them t-shirts and other mercandise along with the admission ticket), but you cannot play live to all the people who buy your albums or reach new audiences who would buy the album if they heard you play live.

I tried to read through the gist of this, I think Dean is on a very good and thoughtful track here. If you have been on this forum for a while you'll know that we don't always agree and we can gladly fill 15 pages almost instantly arguing about trivial nonsense, ha ha, but I think Dean's put a lot of thought into this and is being very thorough here.

I'm a pro musician from way back and have seen major changes in the 'industry' since I started, some bad, some good.

I really think it boils down to doing what I try to do, POLICE YOURSELF. I have been self-producing my own music since the early 90s. I stopped a couple years ago because, due to financial problems, I could no longer afford the latest technology.

Although I'll gladly throw my music up on myspace and use it as demos to get gigs or attract other musicians, I never felt like my music should be presented as the same as those who I really admire. It's not because of any lack in playing technique or skills, or lack of musical vision, or even production values, although at this point a lot of my work lacks that modern state of the art sound.

There is something I admire about those artists who are not constantly shouting, 'look at me'. Self promotion takes on an ugliness after a while that I can not be a part of. In the punk rock days it was flyers that would cover a whole neighborhood, with DJs it was literally mountains of self-produced mix tapes, and now it's everybody and their sister with a band on myspace.

I know a band here in Memphis that has this elaborate web page, but the guitarist really can't play, it's sad really.

My advice, don't be the guy at the party who has to tell all the jokes and not give anyone else a chance. Give a hard look at your music, compare it to people you really like, play them back to back.

Do you really need to push your music on the world and say look at me, when really what you have done is made a nice demo for you and loved ones to enjoy and possibly score some gigs at the local dive.

Edited by Easy Money - February 02 2010 at 08:18