Random observations, teachings and musings of a well trained cubicle superhero.
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Friday, June 01, 2007
June 1, 2007
New Music in New Ways
Jay, a.k.a. “The Cubicle Superhero”, is a self-professed tech junkie with a passion for music and culture 
Email Jay
The sun is shining; weather is sweet, yeah. The season of parks, picnics and outdoor parties is upon us. I couldn't be happier. My WiFi reaches my BBQ, and a set of outdoor speakers connected to my laptop are gleefully blaring my Rogers Yahoo! LaunchCast radio stream to my crazy patio guests.
On Saturday July 29 it's Rogers that will be playing host to me and my friends during the Rogers Picnic at Historic Fort York. It's an outdoor music festival with some amazing bands like The Roots and Bedouin Soundclash. As I started digging into the research on some of the artists performing this year, I was amazed by the innovative ways music labels, artists and fans were using technology. Although I've done some work in radio over the years, the Cubicle Superhero is primarily a technology fiend, not a music journalist, so bear with me.
We'll Make You Famous
Take Bedouin Soundclash for example. Their success has been aided in many ways by their Internet presence. The band's song "When the night feels my Song" contains one of the most infectious hooks ever recorded. So when I first heard the track on the Rogers Yahoo! LauchCast service, I hit the net to find out who the band was, and where I could find the song. I found not only the band's webpage, but a Wikipedia listing, a MySpace feed, a Facebook group, a video on YouTube, and several song listings on the Rogers Yahoo! Music service. This is the kind of attention that led Bedouin to their 2006 Juno award win for Best New Group. There are other examples as well, like England's Arctic Monkeys. Their live bootleg made it across the pond, resulting in unprecedented first day record sales fueled by blog-propagated hype.
The MP3 Blog
In some senses, music on the web is close to coming full circle. Before the crazy days of Napster, illicit sites would post reviews and audio files for free download. Broadband has opened the doors to both a higher quality of audio encoding, and commentary itself. Sites like Fluxblog and Music-for-Robots legitimized the genre, and brought integrity to the space. The labels took notice and supported what they considered a new marketing channel, with varying degrees of success.
PodCast Groovin'
In past articles, our ex-Tech Mate Neera introduced us to blogs and PodCasting.
Like shortwave pirate radio, anyone can record a PodCast radio show on any topic and send it out into the ether. Producers weave recordings while discussing their eclectic musical niche and post "feeds" for download. These links work much like those you can add to your Rogers Homepage and MyWeb, but instead of adding headlines from other sites, "podcatching" software like Juice downloads the show's file.
Beyond the Airwaves
Traditional radio is also turning to the web to expand its audience, advertisements and all. Sophisticated streaming radio players embedded into the station's webpage broadcast much further than any antenna mast could. Radio plays a big role in introducing users to new music, and stations like the UK's BBC 6Music and Minnesota's awesome MPR give us a faraway glimpse into their music scene.
Tech Mash-ups
All these individual and separate channels are also being forced together using emerging web technologies. Upstart service The Hype Machine indexes these various blogs and makes the music posts searchable by song or artist. Results are playable with the click of a button. Of course, posting these songs without paying royalty fees is definitely a legal grey area, so links tend to have a short life span. If the file or website has been removed since the link was found, the song will not play.
On the up and up
Record labels are getting into the act as well, in a concession to fans. Many labels are themselves providing free legal copies of songs on their own sites, or as press kits for magazines. CMJ and Fader magazine's blogs are two excellent examples of this Artist-Label-Magazine collaboration. MP3 blogs are also tending to point their articles to a copy of a song posted to YouTube. This saves users the cost of allowing thousands of people to pull the file off their web server and the liability of hosting the file.
For the most part, the recording industry is happy to accept the free publicity for their new and emerging artists. Let's face it; these are generally artists that couldn't afford to tour across the country and the Internet is the perfect forum to get their music out. It's also great opportunity for music fans to expand their scope beyond commercial radio and introduce themselves to new artists.
Are you interested in using your computer for more than just email? TechMate Jay wants your questions for an upcoming Q&A article!
Jay, a.k.a. “The Cubicle Superhero”, is a self-professed tech junkie with a passion for music and culture Email JayOn Saturday July 29 it's Rogers that will be playing host to me and my friends during the Rogers Picnic at Historic Fort York. It's an outdoor music festival with some amazing bands like The Roots and Bedouin Soundclash. As I started digging into the research on some of the artists performing this year, I was amazed by the innovative ways music labels, artists and fans were using technology. Although I've done some work in radio over the years, the Cubicle Superhero is primarily a technology fiend, not a music journalist, so bear with me.
We'll Make You Famous
Take Bedouin Soundclash for example. Their success has been aided in many ways by their Internet presence. The band's song "When the night feels my Song" contains one of the most infectious hooks ever recorded. So when I first heard the track on the Rogers Yahoo! LauchCast service, I hit the net to find out who the band was, and where I could find the song. I found not only the band's webpage, but a Wikipedia listing, a MySpace feed, a Facebook group, a video on YouTube, and several song listings on the Rogers Yahoo! Music service. This is the kind of attention that led Bedouin to their 2006 Juno award win for Best New Group. There are other examples as well, like England's Arctic Monkeys. Their live bootleg made it across the pond, resulting in unprecedented first day record sales fueled by blog-propagated hype.
The MP3 Blog
In some senses, music on the web is close to coming full circle. Before the crazy days of Napster, illicit sites would post reviews and audio files for free download. Broadband has opened the doors to both a higher quality of audio encoding, and commentary itself. Sites like Fluxblog and Music-for-Robots legitimized the genre, and brought integrity to the space. The labels took notice and supported what they considered a new marketing channel, with varying degrees of success.
PodCast Groovin'
In past articles, our ex-Tech Mate Neera introduced us to blogs and PodCasting.
Like shortwave pirate radio, anyone can record a PodCast radio show on any topic and send it out into the ether. Producers weave recordings while discussing their eclectic musical niche and post "feeds" for download. These links work much like those you can add to your Rogers Homepage and MyWeb, but instead of adding headlines from other sites, "podcatching" software like Juice downloads the show's file.
Beyond the Airwaves
Traditional radio is also turning to the web to expand its audience, advertisements and all. Sophisticated streaming radio players embedded into the station's webpage broadcast much further than any antenna mast could. Radio plays a big role in introducing users to new music, and stations like the UK's BBC 6Music and Minnesota's awesome MPR give us a faraway glimpse into their music scene.
Tech Mash-ups
All these individual and separate channels are also being forced together using emerging web technologies. Upstart service The Hype Machine indexes these various blogs and makes the music posts searchable by song or artist. Results are playable with the click of a button. Of course, posting these songs without paying royalty fees is definitely a legal grey area, so links tend to have a short life span. If the file or website has been removed since the link was found, the song will not play.
On the up and up
Record labels are getting into the act as well, in a concession to fans. Many labels are themselves providing free legal copies of songs on their own sites, or as press kits for magazines. CMJ and Fader magazine's blogs are two excellent examples of this Artist-Label-Magazine collaboration. MP3 blogs are also tending to point their articles to a copy of a song posted to YouTube. This saves users the cost of allowing thousands of people to pull the file off their web server and the liability of hosting the file.
For the most part, the recording industry is happy to accept the free publicity for their new and emerging artists. Let's face it; these are generally artists that couldn't afford to tour across the country and the Internet is the perfect forum to get their music out. It's also great opportunity for music fans to expand their scope beyond commercial radio and introduce themselves to new artists.
Are you interested in using your computer for more than just email? TechMate Jay wants your questions for an upcoming Q&A article!
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