5 Current Trends in Music
To get your career moving, you have to be aware of the trends in music.
We don’t mean what type of music is selling or what type of clothes you should wear. We’re talking about trends in the music marketplace. This will help you decide the best way to market and promote your music.
Here are 5 examples of the current trends in music that you should be aware of and they all are good news for the musician or band that’s just getting started.
1. Digital downloads are outselling CDs. This is good news for the new and unsigned musician. Why? Because you don’t have to spend a ton of money on manufacturing a CD.
2. Playing music live makes more money than recorded music. It used to be that the money was in the royalties from recorded music. Tours lost money and were only done so that fans would buy more records. No so now. In fact, it is the complete opposite. With file sharing and digital royalty rules changing all the time, the profits are in live gigs. It used to be that record labels didn’t give the bands money until they were paid back for their investment in the record. Now that money is all yours to do with it as you see fit.
3. Websites and social networking pages rule. You need to create a buzz on the internet to stimulate sales. It used to be that you had to hire a PR firm to get your name in the press. A lot of PR firms are way behind on figuring this stuff out. You can do it yourself.
4. YouTube not MTV. A whole generation took its musical cue from MTV. Now it’s YouTube. You can make your own music video and people search the site to find new music. No more perfectly choreographed, well toned pretty boys and girls, now people are happy with amateurish footage so long as the music is cool. More good news for you! Grab a friend’s video camera and start experimenting.
5. Individual songs, not albums. In the golden age of rock and roll, bands put out an album which usually consisted of one or two hits, some songs that the band really liked (but were told by their record company the public wouldn’t like), and a couple of filler songs. The fans would buy the albums to hear everything in their musical repertoire and to show loyalty. Not anymore. Now fans buy one song at a time and will buy more only if the song appeals to them. This can get you selling your music faster because you can post one song at a time and not wait for an entire album’s worth of music to be finished. Plus it’s good news for the fans because they aren’t forced to buy a whole album for an inflated price and only like one tune.
This is what’s going on today, but trends change. Keep abreast of what’s going on in the music industry to find the best way to get your music to the masses. And how, you may ask, can you keep ahead of the crowd with this music marketing stuff? Why, by regularly visiting and reading the articles at the Music Marketing Center, of course.
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