OK SO Jango reported yesterday that I had spun all 2500 plays I bought for Smile.dk's "Doki Doki" single. They had 317 "fave" votes, 50 are needed to be put into rotation. Well, I guess that was pretty successful. I smiled to myself. then I noticed a little report "Overlap" - I clicked on that and it showed me who else people who liked Smile.dk were listening too. #1 was Aqua. Well, duh. I had linked their music to Aqua so when someone liked Aqua Smile.dk would eventually play on their Jango station.
#2 was Hannah Montana. WTF? Really? Hannah Montana? I would have NEVER added her as a link to Smile.dk. I mean, relally, come on. After that were people like Avril Laveigne (sp? whatevah!) MAriah Carey, Miley Cyrus (hye, wait a minute...) all people I would have never thought of. Ever. So, what the hell, $50 more bucks to buy another 2000 spins. Have to see if it makes any difference. That was 10 am. It is now 3 pm, they have played the song another 120 times using the new link to people I added (Cyrus etc). Smile.dk's faves went from 317 to 327. Not bad, ok.
Then I just happened to slip over to amazon where the download had been stalled in the 15k range for the past week. It was at #1,318. And has stayed there for three hours.
Was it Jango? I dunno, Smile.dk di dplay at an Anime convention 2 weeks ago to 10,000 people, but I doubt it's just due to that.
I don't think Jango will Save The Music Industry or anything, but I can think of worse ways to waste $50.
Filling out a form for Beatport they asked what was our release sked like for the next 6 months. Hmmmm,well, in the best possible world....(D) = digital only 1. Spray – Children of a Laser God Deluxe (with a second disc of remixes) (eurodisco) 2. Synthetic Dance Music 2 (fea. Pacific!, Yelle, DJ Keri, Heaven 17, -subject to contracts-) *mostly electro- bargain sampler meant to give a taste of current electronic pop)(D) 3. Empire State Human fea. Wolfgang Flur of Kraftwerk –“Melancholic Afro” Remix EP (D) 4. DJ Keri “Beautiful Girl” Remix single fea mixes from Russ Harris, DJ Michael Anegelo & the Dream Krew, 3 Bad Boys, Cotton & Gin, Qubiq and others. (House- mixes are tribal, circuit, hiphop, electroc)(D) 5. Cotton & Gin “Platine “ EP (breakbeats)(D) 6. Leonard T “Robot After All” single/mixes – deep house – mixes TBD.(D) 7. the Garland Cult - new album TBD – pop dance/euro dance (D) 8. Smile.dk – Butterfly 09” Eurohouse/bubblegum disco(D) 9. Various – “A Decade o fNinthwave” remixes of ninthwave catalog – synthpop/electro mostly. (D) 10. the Modern – Industrial Revenge (reissue of their debut [which was released as being by The Matinee Club, long story…. with remixes on a second disc) Produced by Stephen Hauge (New Order, others).
There is so much good music these days it makes my head spin. I have been shoving songs into an iTunes playlist for a couple of weeks now intending to make a CD for my car. Well, I did that today and there were 3.5 hours o fmusic.
Here is the first CD's worth - with comments
Mowgli's Road 4:10 Marina & The Diamonds you MUST check her out - http://www.myspace.com/marinaandthediamonds New In Town (Fred Falke remix) 7:29 Little Boots -Her new album should rock -http://www.myspace.com/littlebootsmusic Pas Fait En Chocolat 2:20 Tricot Machine http://www.myspace.com/tricotmachine Metropolis (The Twelves remix) 4:04 Cicada http://www.myspace.com/cicada1 Time To Let Go (Lindstrom Remix) 10:58 Sally Shapiro Obessions 3:38 Marina & The Diamonds Meddle 3:17 Little Boots Bulletproof 3:28 La Roux -- This is even better than her current single, by a mile,! Your Disco Needs You (Casino Radio & Club Mix) 3:40 Kylie Minogue -old I know Seventeen 3:02 Marina & the Diamonds The Fear 3:27 Lily Allen ---look, this album is really very good, you should own it --- Dog Days Are Over 4:11 Florence and the Machine -BRILLIANT STUFF F*** You 3:43 Lily Allen It's A Cause Des Garçons (Riot In Belgium remix) 4:33 Yelle La Musique 4:27 Riot in Belgium Murder On The Dancefloor 3:51 Sophie Ellis-Bextor Chick Lit (Danger TV Remix Edit) 3:51 We Are Scientists Meddle (Old Money Edit) 5:03 Little Boots
ok, so some stuff is old, the Ellis-Baxtor for example, but a lot is new too.
Mystrey solved, maybe. Why did the needle move on Cotton and Gin? Well maybe Indiefeed is to blame! They (or more precisely Chris McDonald, thanks Chris!) Featured C&G's "Intergalatic Life" March 26 as one of their free download. A number of blogs pick up the indiefeed for their blogs (I am going to try and add it here).
Sometimes it is very difficult to know what kind of promotion works and what doesn’t. In the end word of mouth is everything. I have done very little to promote Spray recently, yet they continue to sell a lot of stuff.
Other times I do try to push releases a lot. I am ramping up pushing the new Empire State Human CD for example. So far I have 1. Mailed out Cds to a number of goth/electro websites (sideline, Regen, Outburn, etc.) 2. Added a track to Jango.com (only a few plays so far) 3. Gotten two other blogs who appear on the Hypem list to add remixes of “Melancholic Afro” (not sure they have actually added them yet, but when they do I will add a link) 4. Purchased a banner ad on Sideline
I am really trying to get blogs to add a remix of Melancholic Afro as a free download – this way people can hear the music but it doesn’t necessarily involve giving away an album track.
We’ll have to see if I can move the needle on Audio gothic
I have gotten two small moves on other releases
1. Smile.dk – so far as of April 6 Amazon has sold more copies of their Cd than all of last month (March). Part of this may be people getting excited about the Sarucon event next weekend (April 10-12). Smile.dk plays two nights there, up to 10,000 people are expected to attend the Anime convention. So I am hoping next weekend and next week to see a big bump.
But also I purchased 2500 plays on Jango for the Smile.dk song “Doki Doki.” So far they have played it 188 times and 51 people have “liked” it, which means it gets added to Jango’s regular rotation. I suspect that a few people on Jango were Smile fans and maybe not aware of the album so this is why Amazon got such a big hit, why the needle moved for Amazon sales.
2. More puzzling is Cotton & Gin. In the past week they have sold 3 copies of the song “Intergalactic Life” on iTunes. Not much, no, but it’s the first thing they’ve sold after being out for a couple of months. With Cotton & Gin we tried something different. We gave away both the EP and the single on their blog, in fact I am pretty sure almost all of those tracks are still up, for free. We also made three videos. The first of which (see below) got some traction because people were curious about the use of old Ub Iwerks animation. A second video, for Good Things, got featured on the LArgeweekend blog, but that did not get much of a bump.
The video for Intergalactic Life (see below) got 7 hits, pretty sure most of those were me checking to make sure it played well on YouTube.
Then last night I get an email from youtube saying a comment had been made on the video. So I went there and , lo, all-of-a-sudden there are 21 plays.
So my question is what moved the needle? I guess randomly 14 people could have clicked on the video but not sure 3 random people would have purchased the track from iTunes within 4 days, not for song that is not getting any play anywhere (except Youtube now).
I have googled the song to see if a blog featured it, but no luck.
Funny, and frustrating. How do I make it happen again, how to I make sure that others can use the same way to hear the music when I don’t know how they heard it to begin with?
OK- so this season has been, like many, kinda lame. Then in swished Adam Lambert, singing Tears of a Clown like nothing I had ever heard. Then last night, to return to the Tears theme, he tackled "Mad World." Wow, really? Is American Idol really going to let him pick decent songs (all the other 80s hits, a defacto 80s night since it was Year You Were Born night - were really horrible choices - "All She Wants to Do Is Dance"? uh, ok, that song is about production, not songwriting, even Don Henly would agree).
anyway, Glambert really did the song justice- not as huanting as Gary Jules' version, but a lot better than what might have been.
I still think he should have done Smalltown Boy ;-)
Ok, been very busy here with a lot of projects, but I have a few things to update to you guys about:
The new Empire State Human cd came in this week. A Different drum should have it by the weekend. Amazon has it for pre order [Audio Gothic]. All around pre orders for this Cd were the best we’ve ever had except for Smile.dk, even better than Heaven 17 (!) We’ve sold about 1200 Heaven 17 cds in the past three years, so we’ll see.
Reaction to the album has been very good. Reviews should start popping up in the next few weeks.
ESH’s remix contest on laptoprockers.com finished up. Go here for results. Ninthwave will release an EP of the five best (as picked by the band) very soon.
Hey! If you have a favorite blog let me know about it (slow@ninthwaverecords.com) - there are so many out there (ahem!) that I figure the best ones to try and reach out to are the ones fans of ninthwave go to.
I also have the pleasure of telling you that we just signed a new act, Leonard T (his myspace page). He is old skool synthpop with all the bells and whistles. I know that you guys will love his album. Details to follow.
Cotton and Gin are thisclose to finishing up another EP, this one with guitars in every song (!)
Alan Replica has gotten at least one of his songs placed in a new movie about men and testosterone (don’t ask, I have no idea, really!) I will let you know how that goes.
Smile.dk play an anime convention this next weekend (April 11th) details on their website.
OK, now back to listening to more of the 55 remixes of Melancholic Afro that laptoprockers got in their contest….
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