Hello all,
As we're getting more artists joining the Vox community I thought it would be good to do a quick summary of what's required to make sure your music gets to us and is presented in the best possible way.
First of all, make sure you are in the A&R Group. This is essential. If you did not join via the Columbia or RCA entry page you will not have automatically been added to this group. To check simply click the 'Groups' link at the top of the page to see which groups you are a part of. If you are not a part of this group, simply click the link in this post and add yourself. This will ensure as you add music to your blog it's added to the group.
Next, upload music. Yes, it sounds quite simple but a lot of people are registering, then simply sending a private message with a link to another page with no actual details on their own blog. Uploading your music and other details into your page makes them easy for review by those within the label and wider community. It's a simple process, if you have problems getting your music online be sure to have a look at the Vox help section.
Write a post. If you're not wishing to regularly maintain a blog that's fine. However, it would be preferable if you could put details of yourself on the page, include pictures and video if you wish. This gives us at the label a much better idea of what you are like as an artist.
With regards to private messages to the label pages you are more than welcome to contact us. However, more recently we've experienced a high volume of messages. Many of which are simply 'check out my blog' which often prevent other queries and replies getting to us in reasonable time. If you've created your blog and are part of the A&R Group you music will be accessed and listened to those within the A&R community. If you have a query or following up on a recieved message and have waited a long time for a response please feel free to chase up with another message but please be aware we do receive lots of messages.
We have an email address for technical queries and help also which is onlinedemos@googlemail.com. This address is not for submissions via MP3, it's simple for technical queries, press enquries etc.
In the meantime we hope you have been enjoying using the service so far. If you have any suggestions improving the service please do get in touch. We're currently already working on a number of concepts suggested by the community.
CD
Critics Choice
UK recorded music industry association, The BPI, unveiled today a brand new award category for the UK's biggest and most prestigious awards ceremony The BRIT Awards 2008 with MasterCard.
The 'Critics Choice' Award will focus on new British acts the critics are tipping to break through in 2008. The shortlist and eventual winner will be chosen by a team of experts made up of music critics from national newspapers, major music magazines and music websites as well as heads of music at major radio and TV stations. The 'Critics Choice' Award will be open to artists signed to a label who are set to release their debut albums in 2008.
Ged Doherty, Chairman of The BRITs Committee commented, "The BRITs continue their support for up and coming British talent by creating this new award. It's a fabulous idea and I can't wait to see who our panel of experts deem to be their choice for 2008."
BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor added: "The BRITs is a great platform to profile the pick of the past year's established and new artists to a wider domestic and international audience. This new category allows us to use the UK's premier music event to profile even more emerging UK talent."
The results for this award will be revealed exclusively on the new BRITs website (at www.brits.co.uk <http://www.brits.co.uk/> ), when it goes live on 10th December 2007.
Here, the BRIT Critics' tips for tomorrow will be unveiled, listing the top three artists or bands the critics are backing to break through in 2008 - as well as the overall winner - the BRIT Critics' Choice for 2008.
The Critics Choice Winner will collect their award at The BRITs main show, February 20 - live on ITV1 as well as perform live at the BRITs Nominations Launch Party. This year, the first hot ticket of the year, the BRITs Nominations Party, will be staged at London's Roundhouse in Camden on Monday, January 14 and broadcast on ITV2 at 8pm that same night.
In response to suggestions from the community (namely Kang and others), a couple of new elements have been added.
There is now a Calendar which anyone can add their gig dates to. No registration/log in is required. Simply add your details and everyone will be able to see when and where you are playing. So please take a look, see what you think.
Also, there were suggestions of a 'listened to' flag to show when Columbia/RCA/A&R have listened to a track. It's near impossible to give detailed comments on every track. But a simple when it was listened to and by who message seems like a good idea. So as of today I'm trying out something new that will generate a time stamp and signature as something is listened to by one of us. It's simply text at the moment but I will see if I can get some kind of embed graphic.
More details to follow.
Hello,
Something wonderfully different with this particular track. 'Boxes Burning's endearing vocal sound with beat box rhythms stood out a while a go as something worth listening to again and again (I've got this one one my MP3).
I've messaged Flinders a few times and he seems, like many of the artists in the community, working hard, getting heaps of gigs and has got various good promo through radio, compilations and good coverage online.
I was also impressed by his balcony TV appearance. A youtube channel I've heard loads about in recent months that Nigel Place introduced me to. Well worth checking out.
Anyway, have a look and take a listen to the below and lets hear what you think.
Hello,
As we approach the 3000 mark I thought it would be a good time to talk on the method of submitting your material.
Firstly, especially over the past two months, the quality of submissions has been excellent resulting in representatives from A&R listening to many tracks and seeing artists live as a result. We are currently looking at several artists who we feel have potential.
When creating your blog it is important to know how to best present your material. Many of you are using your blog as a promotional tool of your work and to help build your online presence. In doing this attracting the attention of the labels. When doing this, regular posts are essential with new content added all the time. Be this new tracks, rehearsal/live video or interviews etc. These create the most interesting style of blog and often build a solid subscribership quite easily which can create a 'buzz' around your work. Adding neighbours and contacting other Vox users is the easiest way to build your own community.
If you're main motivation is to access the ears of those within the labels the most important thing to consider is the quality of the material you're submitting. Don't send a message to the label asking for someone to listen, but also say "I'm still working on this" or "With real money this will sound great". Only submit what you feel is your best work that you're 100% proud of. This doesn't necessarily mean the production has to be flawless. Once you feel that your potential submission is representative of what you can achieve then upload as soon as you can.
Once uploaded, your tracks are available in the central A&R area where the new submissions are listened to. It's easy for us to listen to each track and visit the blog of those which catch our attention. This is when first impressions are important. Often we will visit a blog on the strength of a track and there is nothing there, except that track. The very minimum contents of your blog should be:
Audio - Some people don't upload before contacting us, do this first.
Info on yourself - This could be in the 'About Me' section or simply a post summing up. Give details of what you've achieved in the past. Maybe people you've worked with, radio, big gigs etc.
Pictures - It's nice to know what you look like :-)
Please don't simply register a blog and send a message along the lines of "Check out Myspace - www..." with nothing on your blog. The main reason for us using this platform is so we can quickly go through new submissions, review them internally and use the tools that are available to us. Directing to external sites wont allow us to do this. However, please do incorporate your myspace or any of your other sites into the 'My Links' section, in addition to your populated blog. That way we can access more information about you and use the platform internally.
Finally, regarding comments on material. We launched this for demo submissions through a community rather than a feedback/critique site. Take a look at the FAQ we released at the start of this project for further details which can also be accessed via RCA's and Columbia's landing pages. We can quickly access and listen to new submissions whilst having a simple way of contacting the artist. Plus we can easily forward material around internally. We do comment on where we can but currently it's impossible for us to comment on every track submission as we want to spend as much time going through the new material as we can.
Quick tip on embed's
It is now possible to add third party embeddable widgets in your sidebar aswell as your posts. So if you wish to add a hit counter to monitor traffic, slideshows, other media players etc you can do this here. This can help you monitor traffic and also encourage further interaction with your blogs.
New Additions:
A Grazr widget has been added to the sidebar so you can explore some of our other staff blogs. The additional links section also includes some of the artists we've been listening to recently.
thanks
RCAD
Hello,
Got someone for you all to have a listen to, she's got a lot to say so I'll keep my bit down to a minimum.
- A new addition to the format today though. Aswell as presenting an artist for you to listen to, there will now be links to some of the other tracks that the A&R staff here have commented on. See the bottom of this post for more details.
Kayla is 20 years old and has been working hard a her music career for a while now. She's been playing venues around London and the SE including the Jazz Cafe, click here for some footage from that gig.
Here are the tracks, have a listen and see what you think:
Ladykiller
Looking at your bio you mention you came from the Brit School. What's the most important thing you've learned recently that the Brit School couldn't teach you?
The main thing I’ve learnt since leaving The BRIT School is the truth about the music industry as a whole. That’s something that no-one can be taught in a lesson or on paper. We had industry lesson’s but the fact is the music industry, as I’ve experienced it, is just not that straight forward. It’s a cut throat business where only the strongest and most determined survive. Sorry to sound so dramatic but there’s a lot of truth in that statement, you have to be up for the challenge. You need patience, drive, ambition, determination and commitment. There’s no real way to explain to or teach someone about how the music industry works or how to get your big break. Its all a game of chance and you’ve really got to build a thick skin if you want in.
It seems everyone now wants a musical career, do you think that this is a good thing or are a lot of people simply getting into it for potentially the wrong reasons?
I’m a bit in the middle about that. I think its always a positive thing to have more people trying make music their long term career. There are so many genre’s and ideas to explore that having more people try new things and develop new sounds is nothing but a good thing but only if they are in it for the right reasons.
We live in a society that’s obsessed with celebrity right now so there are many people that want a career in music just so they can get a chance to parade down a red carpet every other week or be in the best dressed list with a footballer on their arm in their favourite magazine. Becoming a part of the music industry for the purpose of gaining celebrity seems to be the more likely reason for many and I do not agree with that at all. Having a platform to share your music with the public is a privilege that far too many people have been allowed to abuse .There aren’t enough singer/songwriters or actual musicians being signed right now. Label’s need to wise up and start signing acts with the potential to achieve longevity in the music industry not acts with the potential to have one or two top ten singles who then fizzle out and end up on a reality TV show. That’s not what music is about for me.
Judging from your background, and listening to the recordings, you're quite comfortable in the studio. What advice could you give for those entering recording for the first time?
My advice would be to practice the song or songs your recording before you go to the studio. In most cases, studio sessions can be costly so you want to be able to make the most of the time you have. By practicing your songs before your session, your time can used more productively. You spend less time recording the same vocal and trying to achieve a “good take”. With practice you know your song and how you best deliver it.
At the same time it’s a good idea to try new things. I’ve found that, at times, the best results are achieved by being spontaneous and just going for it. Your allowed to make mistakes and get things wrong in the studio. It’s the best place to find ways to make your vocal performance sound better and also to add to or take away from whats already there. It’s all about capturing a great sound while your there so I’d say try to be well practiced but also be open to new ideas.
How have you been promoting yourself and what have you found to be most useful online and offline?
I like to mix it up a bit as far as promotion is concerned. I have found that the internet is a brilliant place to promote my work. I can make contact with people all over the world that might not have heard of me otherwise. I found sites like Vox.com and MySpace to be very helpful. I’ve made some great contacts and have quite a loyal following. People all over the world have listened to my music, know who I am and love what I’m doing. That kind of promotion, without the aid of a record company, is also priceless.
Offline I’ve found that doing gigs is also another great way to promote my material and myself as an artist. You never know who your performing to, you’ll find the most unexpected people in the most unexpected places. So every performance is an opportunity to gain more following and to catch the eyes and ears of that one person or those people that could change everything. Even just going to a lot of live gigs is a good way to promote yourself. Not only are you keeping up with what the music scene currently has on offer but you can get talking to all kinds of people. They could be your regular music lover, a scout from a booking agencey or even an A&R from a lable. Who knows. What is clear is that both live performaces and web pages are a brilliant way to promote my music.
What are your honest thoughts on this blogging platform and similar?
I think that its great. These days its very difficult to gain recognition from the people that you need to take notice, i.e. the public, record lables, producers and so on. You can’t just walk into a lable, sing your songs and get signed anymore . Many of the top major labels are merging and, as a result, are signing fewer acts, so your left with a limited number of options available to you in order to have someone at a lable pay attention. Blogging pages, like this one, are a great way of giving someone a quick insight into what you are about and what you have to offer. People can listen to your tracks, read up on your back ground, your experience and also get some insight into the person behind the songs. They spark an interest in people to want to find out more about the artist. I think pages like this one are a breath of fresh air and are very important to artists and the future of the music industry.
What would be the one piece of advice you would give someone when presenting their material to a label, and promoting themselves?
My advice would be to know you product, your musical direction and your market. I’ve found that labels would prefere to sign an act wherein the workload and financial investment required from them is significantly reduced. Very rarely do you hear of labels offering development deals these days which is a real shame but is, nonetheless, a fact so I would say do your best to cut down the artist development side of things. Try to show that there is an obvious following and or clear public interest in what your doing. That way the label knows there is a market for your product. Know your story, how you want to be portrayed to the public and where you want to go with your career. The most profitable kind of artist is an artist with the potential to maintain longetivity within the music business and keep a continuous cash flow coming. Labels want to profit from siging an act, this is business at the end of the day so do your best to ensure your showing your potential to do that. Get people talking about you, knowing who you are and what your doing. If you have a solid product that people believe in then the rest is, potentially, history. I would also advise artists to get writing. Being able to write your own songs is a big plus.Not only is it better from a marketing prespective(the public are hearing the thoughts and feelings of the artists not the thoughts and feelings of there person who wrote to song for the artist) but its far more cost effective not to have to hire writers. Being able to write songs is also a plus in the sense that it opens up opportunity for the lable to also bring a publishing deal to the table. Therein lies an additional profit for both artist and lable.Like I said, this is business at the end of the day so get your business thinking caps on! :-)
Have a listen, see what you think. Also, what do you think on her view of working as an artist in the busniness?What have been your experiences of promoting yourself and what do you find works.
If you're interested in how the other side works, have a look at Ged's blog this week where Anna, Goodbooks' manager has guest posted about what happens within the label with the release of an album.
Ok, as mentioned above here are some of the tracks our A&R guys have been listening to:
Jo and the Flood - Which Way Do You Come From
Hello,
So the festival season is in full swing, I'm sure many of you braved Glastonbury. Did you remember to take wellies? I've already been sent a lot of stories regarding the festival, none of which I can publish. Though keep sending them and I'll be sure to link to them or republish here if they're not too bad. Been sent a few horrific ones involving Potaloo pranks, ugh. There are a few posts from our lot regarding the festival, have a look at this one and this one. I'm sure there are other's floating about out there.
Ok, got an oddly named band here 'Absent Elk' and they're not even Candian.
Every track I've heard sounds really polished and has a great sense of contrast and texture in the production. But I'm not going to waffle too much this time. Have a listen to:
Let's start with the most obvious question (I'm not very imaginative), what influences are within your band?
"All 5 members have very different taste in music, but we still tend to agree when it comes to creating our own. Somehow the different styles just seem to slot together. We like to think we have a dynamic/varied style, and these differences in music taste are probably the main reason that we often end up heading such contrasting directions within a track. As a collective rule though, we are probably influenced by anything which moves us, physically or mentally."
What's been the best gig so far?
"Every new show feels better than the last, so long as the sound system/engineer is decent. We are quite particular about the big sound we aim for. A bad engineer can really destroy the vibe in the music, and remove a lot of impact."
I've seen a few badly engineered gigs recently, it can really destroy the gig. How do you write new material? Is it the work of one songwriter or do you work through ideas collectively for example?
"A track can appear from anywhere and anyone. Usually a member will bring one small part (eg. a riff, a bassline, a beat, a vocal etc), which the rest of us then build on layer-by-layer, until we have a song … by improvisation. Sometimes Kjetil (our frontman) will just arrive at a jam with an almost complete acoustic song, and we just work on band arrangement, writing additionaly instrument parts, filling gaps, making gaps, building dynamics, chopping and changing etc. We’ve also been known to write entire pieces of music instrumentally when Kjetil hasn’t been around, or before he joined the band, that he has then written a vocal to later. It all just happens naturally really, and almost subconciously"
How do you promote yourselves?
"Like everybody these days, we have a myspace. It’s a pretty handy tool. We also have a mailing list. The most powerful thing still though, is word of mouth …making music that appeals to people. That way it can promote itself, to a certain extent. That’s the theory anyway!"
Hopefully this post may aid the word of mouth theory. :-). What do you think a lot of bands should do, but don't?
*"Concentrate on writing a song. Lots of bands seem to focuse on the style, rather than the song that lays beneath all the current scratchy production fads and funny outfits. There seems to be a real ‘form over function’ thing going on right now. People usually master their wardrobe and ‘attitude’ a long time before they master their craft."
I'm seeing a lot of comments on the blogs along those lines actually. I'm thinking now people are more empowered than ever to distribute themselves, some people may loose sight of the artistic side to a degree.
(Many thanks to the band for contributing on here, I will be posting more interviews soon.)
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*What do you think out there on this? Are we experiencing one of the biggest artistic melting pots as regards expression in music and other media, or is the internet being swamped with wannabe's with funny hair?
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I don't know the names of all the band members but apparently the band found Kjetil (singer) at a local beer festival in Brighton.
Hopefully they'll read this and leave a comment telling us their names.
So lets hear what you think. Sounds like they're promoting themselves in the way most bands are these days, do you think they could do more?
Keep the good stuff coming in, this week has been a good week for submissions and I've been forwarding a lot on to A&R which is a relief after a dry spell last week.
Be sure to say hello to the band, chat about their music maybe ask them about yours?
RCAD
I'll be sure to celebrate this evening. :-)
It's great to see a steady stream of submissions coming in and the contributions made by the artists. There's still plenty more developments to be made here and from the feedback we're getting from the community I'm getting excited to see what this looks like by the 3000 mark.
Anyway, music. Rather than cramming 3 or 4 artists per blog it's been suggested to dedicate a blog per artist and simply blog more often. Fair enough, here's the blog on 51 Breaks.
On joining the community in May, their two submitted tracks quickly stood out from the rest of that weeks submissions.
Overall, 51 Break's sound consists of a richly layered style of production with tight vocal harmonies over synth beds with strong chrouses. Will be interesting to see how this is translated into their live performance as there is a great deal going on in the tracks. If any of you have seem them live recently be sure to mention it here as I'm curious to find out. Will try and make it to a gig soon.
51 breaks like to keep it in the family as the lineup consist of brothers Colin and Michael Turner, cousin Tom Harman with adopted random Sam Jones. On record, sound very tight overall and from the sound they're already paired up with a decent producer.
Marc tells me that they're trying to push through the rock stage of their writing into something with more of a dance influence citing the likes of Bloc Party and Klaxons as inspiration. Seeing where they're at now it would be interesting to see how this evolves. Whether productions become more sparse to accomdate a beat driven sound, or stick with their thick blanket of tracked guitar textures and compressed vocal harmonies.
Just the two tracks at the moment though I'm told there is more to come. Have a listen to Blueprints and Dirty Hands, and leave a few messages here on your thoughts of the tracks. I'd also be interested in hearing what you want to see included here, or what developments you'd like to see in the way music is handled/displayed/experienced within Vox.
The band:
Michael Turner - Vocals/Keys
Sam Jones - Guitar/Vocals/Percussion
Tom Harman - Bass
Marc Turner - Drums
Gigs:
27/06/2007 - Firebug, Leicester
28/06/2007 - Pendant Club, Loughborough
21/07/2007 - Bar Academy - Birmingham
Extra Stuff:
Escape - an earlier song performed in rehearsal
For your listening pleasure.
It's a wonderful sunny day here in London, really does feel like summer for once. I'm still searching for my personal 'summer anthem' so maybe you can help with that.
A lot has been going on as regards the online demos behind the scenes. Still getting various bits and pieces together to make sure this works in the best possible way. As developments happen I'll post them here.
So we've got nearly 1,700 artist blogs now and we're hearing more and more great music. The submissions process is established and sits alongside our other A&R activities. I'm getting feedback from the other A&R staff at the label and I see comments being left on tracks. Which is good to see.
It's also great to see some of the orignal artists who registered early on resurfacing with new material often, one of whome, Freddy I've mentioned below.
Have a listen to the below, I've really enjoyed the submissions I've been listening to this week and it's a shame I can't post them all.
Freddy has heaps of talent as a songwriter and a producer, I'd have a listen to all of his stuff, but start with Apart and Let it Go.
I don't know much about Broken Daylight except they're from the Westcountry. The World Spins stuck out for me, strong chrous and a good feel to the track. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on this one too.
For those of you into the Acoustic/Singer Songwriter side of the community should have a listen to the wonderfully mellow Morning Warning Chours from Rececca Mosley. She has a fair few reviews posted in her profile, which describe her music probably far better than I could. :-)
That's it for now, though I have a whole heap of other tracks that I'll direct you to over the coming weeks. Be sure to say hi and visit the artists' blogs I've mentioned. Maybe leave a comment or two.
Hope all is good with you.
RCA
Hello,
So what is going on in the RCA community, got lots of PM's which is great. Still going through them (managed about 200 at the weekend). Don't panic when it comes to whether your music is being listened to or not. If it's within the community it's available to everyone, and there's a lot of us now.
Now were working on the media player too, it will be even easier for people to experience your music. This is something I am looking into further and wish to develop. As things happen I'll let you know via here.
I spend a lot of time listening to the tracks from the communities and there are a lot of great tracks in here. I really appriciate the recommendations from other artists, that shows a passion for what we're trying to acheive. So thanks to those who have.
I wanted to share with you some of the things I've been listening to of late, to see what you think.
Jon Trowbridge's Words Don't Fail Me Now has a really strong chrous and great vocal melody. Have a listen, see what you think. I really like this one.
Mashinmusic's Slingshot feat. Jah 7 - Check out this guy's profile, quite a story and his stuff is worth a listen to. Have a look through his blog and say hello. Leave some comments on here aswell if you really want to tell us what you think.
Piper Saint should satisfy those of you who like their grungy punk to have a nice polish production-wise, have a listen to Please Dont. Female fronted with a couple of stomping tracks in there. Stong, uninhibted vocal with a really tight band.
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