The Biz
BUSiNESS & MARKETiNG
brief for this piece of writing;
to explain the main
differences between how
singers
should
market themselves in the US
and the UK.!
!
I was thinking of all of the
stories I could retell; of subtle
business and cultural
difference, of places you
s h o u l d g o , o f t h i n g s
you should do, and people
you should talk to
in your area. But then
it became apparent to me that
this localised knowledge is far
less relevant to today’s
musician than the musicians
of the past, for thanks to the
internet, the land and sea
borders we once held so
important for the purposes
Shirley Bassey
of differentiation do not exist
in the way that they used to.
Consumers certainly didn’t
want to leave the comfort of
their own homes in order to
discover new music now that
they didn’t have to, so neither
did the A&R reps. These new
technologies, shifts in
behaviour and changes in
values created a whole new
way of marketing one’s
music; one where location
d i d n ’ t r e a l l y m a t t e r a t
a l l . W h e t h e r
Smalltown, Alabama or New
York, New York, everybody
had the same chance.
Hoorah, I hear you cry. But is
this really a benefit in the
grand scheme of things?With
the original brief now left to
languish
in
the
doldrums (along with my Tom
Jones and Shirley Bassey
collections, may I add), I turn
my thoughts to today, and to
tomorrow. If marketing is less
about location than it was
before, what does really
matter when it comes to
getting you and your
voice noticed? How do you
rise above not only the noise
of a city, but the entire
creative output of the
internet? That can’t be an
easy task.!
Over the forthcoming issues
of iSing, together we’ll
discover exactly what is and
isn’t working for content
creators all over the
world. Notice the terminology
c h a n g e , t h e r e ? F o r
whether you are a singer or
a story-teller, the important
thing is that you create. We’ll
consider quality vs quantity
a s w e l l a s ‘ t h e g r o w t h
s t a g e ’ . W i t h b l o g g e r s
such as charlieissocoollike
and jacksgap having learnt by
doing it for real, with that
growth period available (even
now) for people to scrutinise,
we’ll ask ourselves whether
our own industry would be
so forgiving when it comes
to accepting that a product
does
n o t
arrive,
but grows. We’ll also question
whether singers around the
globe should be looking to
those bloggers for
inspiration. He might not
have been made famous by
a corporate entity, but Charlie
IMAGE
IMAGE
IMAGE
Swipe to read more!
iSing | issue 1
isingmag.com
»