Ha! Living with no genre...

[CS70]

Well, just got a "no, we won't pass your music" from the curator of a local (Norwegian) small internet radio, because he couldn't understand which kind of music we are doing and (verbatim) "what we wanted to achieve".

I can see where the man is coming from, with our music going from gentle acoustic to blues to pop to hard rock in the span of a few songs. We're breaking the big rule of "choose a genre and stick to it". Which is exactly the point with the band, after years of playing stuff "boxed", making music in whatever genre we like is ..liberating.

Still, made me a little sad. What we want to achieve is to make the music we want to hear, without being a blues band, a metal band, a singer-songwriter outfit or whatever X-band. We have a hidden sonic signature (most songs combine acoustic instruments with hi-gain stuff) but honestly it's not like a rule, it just happens (because once you have an acoustic guitar in the room, it wants to be used.. and same goes for a mesa-boogie with the gain turned to 13). It would almost have been better to hear "the songs suck".. (on second thought: no, it wouldn't ).

Luckily basically any other internet radio I've asked has passed the music, and we make enough jobs to be able to slowly gather fans and finance whatever production we want to do (since we're ingenious and we keep costs very low).

I'll get over it (since it's a feeling, maybe a songwriter-style song will come off it ) but the question: is there anywhere a list of music outlets (internet radios etc) where one can send music for say the UK or the US?

[VOLOVIA]

Hi CS70, I know exactly how you feel. Genre has and always be paramount because we are simple evolved apes that need to put everything in boxes to be able to cope with too much information. That's why xyz football team is 'known for its attacking style', although it has changed 25 managers, 3 owners and all the players ten times over. Stylist xyz is 'known' for h/is/er 'play with colours', even if this year s/he is doing all white frocks... etc. etc.

Music is the same, an artist/band has to represent a lifestyle, fashion, way of thinking, even politics, otherwise is MOR. You wrote a "good song"? Who cares. When (proficient) musicians tried to play what the hell they liked in the 70s, they were ridiculed and labelled 'prog', middle class (is that a derogatory term?) and pretentious, even though the music spanned from folk, jazz, rock and classical, because they could. Not all was gold, sure, but some, in my immodest opinion, represents the best popular music ever produced, from Genesis to Pink Floyd, to Weather Report, to PFM, even Jony Mitchell with Pastorious, folk and jazz! Try and team up Adele with Marcus Miller now... (or whoever the top jazz bass player is at the moment).

Rant from someone on the wrong side of 50? You bet!

[Frisonic]

middle class (is that a derogatory term?)

That depends on how well or badly the middle classes are behaving at the time. At the moment here in the UK they are behaving like a bunch of thieving gangsters, working their low interest/high inflation property racket. So yes, derogatory for now. I resigned in protest.

Genres? Please the market and conform to a recognised one or please yourself and create your own. If you chose to please yourself and the world still get's it then lucky you. It would make you something of a rarity.

[CS70]

Genres? Please the market and conform to a recognised one or please yourself and create your own. If you chose to please yourself and the world still get's it then lucky you. It would make you something of a rarity.

Of course - and I'm squarely in the second one. But it was odd to see a an internet radio being so tightened up. As a radio, it has approximately as much commercial appeal as my backside (which is to say, to avoid misunderstandings, none at all).

I mean, I would understand if I were to ask the national radio, but this was actually rather funny.

They became an internet channel tough, due to failing to get a license for air operation, and the guy who answered seems to want to profile himself as a radio exec. The need of boxes perhaps comes with wanting to give an image of a "serious" radio.

However, no matter: does a list of "approachable" radios exist, anyone?

[CS70]

Rant from someone on the wrong side of 50? You bet!

Haha, appreciated, Bugio. By the way, you Italian?

[Frisonic]

[ became an internet channel tough, due to failing to get a license for air operation, and the guy who answered seems to want to profile himself as a radio exec. The need of boxes perhaps comes with wanting to give an image of a "serious" radio.?

You explain much in these sentences. His motivation is perhaps not to provide a radio station but rather to prove to people who might employ him to do so that he can. Which would make his primary audience… Oh well. You don't want to be somebody else's cannon fodder. On to the next one!

[VOLOVIA]

Yep, me Italian is..

[VOLOVIA]

"can of worms" subject here... well, what about the girl at the bank's counter with a degree in economics and daughter of a school teacher and a IT consultant. Is she

behaving like a bunch of thieving gangsters

?
In the unnecessary Anglo-Saxon way of classifying humans, she would be probably part of the lower-middle class stratum. What about if she marries a top surgeon and she becomes the bank manager through her merits? Does she become middle-upper class and evil? Or you just mean the upper-middle class lot bordering on aristocracy who go to Eton/Oxbridge the evil ones?
Going back to the girl in the example, would her successful singing daughter become an example of the boring "middle class" non-artists?

As a curio, since you

resigned in protest

, have you gone through a dis-education program with forced reading of tabloids and a diet of daytime ITV and chips? A bit flippant and superficial I know, but sorry, but the subject fascinates me.

[CS70]

Yep, me Italian is..

Cool - we are in two!

[CS70]

On to the next one!

Indeed!

[themarqueeyears]

It's hard to have your cake and eat it - as they say.

I applaud you for making music the way you want - my favourite artsits like Sting also move around genre's exploring different styles. I also get bored with just one genre in my own music making.

BUT ....

If you want to access mass media portals like radio and TV then by definaition you want to enter the "game" and therefore you have to play by the rules of the "game" - as frustrating as they are.

Of course the secret is to do as an artist like Sting has done - have your success with a single genre, make a name for yourselves and then you can do exactly what you want and everyone will lap it up.

Martketing is exactly that .... matching products to markets, we're either are happy with a few fans who get what we're about or we package ourselves up in neat little boxes so that we can be mass consummed. Bit cr*p really - but that's how it's always been.

Anyone fancy a slice of cake

[JSantos]

There will always be an audience for your music. That I really believe in. Music is for everyone to hear.

And hey, maybe you sound a bit progressive. Changing genres can confuse people, but people who may love prog or a unique sound to their music will definitely love your music.

Would want to listen to your stuff though. Sounds interesting!

[Frisonic]

"can of worms" subject here... well, what about the girl at the bank's counter with a degree in economics and daughter of a school teacher and a IT consultant. Is she

behaving like a bunch of thieving gangsters

?
In the unnecessary Anglo-Saxon way of classifying humans, she would be probably part of the lower-middle class stratum. What about if she marries a top surgeon and she becomes the bank manager through her merits? Does she become middle-upper class and evil? Or you just mean the upper-middle class lot bordering on aristocracy who go to Eton/Oxbridge the evil ones?
Going back to the girl in the example, would her successful singing daughter become an example of the boring "middle class" non-artists?

As a curio, since you

resigned in protest

, have you gone through a dis-education program with forced reading of tabloids and a diet of daytime ITV and chips? A bit flippant and superficial I know, but sorry, but the subject fascinates me.

I avoid being middle class, upper, lower or otherwise, by not indulging in rigged property markets. Its very simple. And since I started making that stand 25 years ago I have come to realise how our middle classes love to shell out blame but can't take any criticism directed at themselves. Anyway, by my book the singer is 'arts and crafts'. Unless she buys property in a rigged market. In which case she simply becomes another middle class gangster. You are the one who started going on about 'class' which has no place in this thread. But you give yourself away through your thoroughly disparaging comments about people who do not conform to your class aspirations. All people who rent eat chips whilst watching afternoon television and reading tabloids? Really? Are you in fact some kind of snob? Probably not your fault. I have found that owning property and feeling smug about their thieving ways does that to people.

Be fascinated about the subject elsewhere. This is not the lounge. Unless that is you want to argue that living outside the class system is akin to living outside a recognised musical genre?

[CS70]

It's hard to have your cake and eat it - as they say.

Yes, of course. Have no problem with that, it was just that it hadn't happened before and it was kinda unexpected.

Anyone know a good list of internet radios?

[CS70]

There will always be an audience for your music. That I really believe in. Music is for everyone to hear.

And hey, maybe you sound a bit progressive. Changing genres can confuse people, but people who may love prog or a unique sound to their music will definitely love your music.

Would want to listen to your stuff though. Sounds interesting!

Yeah and honestly, the main reason for doing music to me is to be able to find and be with other good musicians. I make the songs I'd like to hear, if anyone else likes them it's a bonus. What is good is to get back the money for keepin' doing them, but that doesn't really take much in these days of wonders.

Most of the stuff we play live is yet to be recorded, but we managed to put down a few songs and do videos for a couple of them - just click the link in my signature and there's a player on the website

[VOLOVIA]

You are right, this is not the place to discuss this matter, although I don't think I started it... (are we in a playground?). I meant the "chips & day TV/tabloid combo " with irony as response to your "leaving the MC club in protest", but let's leave it at that.

Back to topic, I invite everyone who wants to be in the 'music business' to watch "the Dragons' Den" (or read market economics), and see how even great products (they could be 'songs') are rejected on the ground of market potential and competition. One has to wear both hats: the inspired 'artist' when in the evening composes the 'best song' in the world, AND 'businessman' in the morning when realises that: 1] taking it to the 'market' is exceptionally hard; 2] promoting it would cost a fortune; 3] an extraordinary amount of luck and serendipity is crucial; 4] the realisation that maybe the world DOES NOT need yet another verse-chorus-mid8- masterpiece, unless sold as part of a much more interesting package (incredible vocal talent, and/or image, etc.). It's realpolitik I am afraid.

[CS70]

the realisation that maybe the world DOES NOT need yet another verse-chorus-mid8- masterpiece, unless sold as part of a much more interesting package (incredible vocal talent, and/or image, etc.). It's realpolitik I am afraid.

Oh, but it does: there's millions of new people born every year, and the new masterpiece has actually a better hand with new people, just because it's not an *old* masterpiece. Until the old one gets re-discovered and becomes new again, for a while. Otherwise the music business would have stopped 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and so it would have book writing and basically any art.

Wait 20-30 years from now for a comeback of Gangam Style and Party Rock Anthem

[Frisonic]

You are right, this is not the place to discuss this matter, although I don't think I started it... (are we in a playground?). I meant the "chips & day TV/tabloid combo " with irony as response to your "leaving the MC club in protest", but let's leave it at that.

Its clear what you meant.

Dragons Den? That's undiluted reality television and has nothing whatsoever to do with market economics. Watch it for entertainment purposes by all means but it is not meant to be taken seriously (I know people do). As songwriters and performing musicians we trade in intellectual property and the performance thereof. Most likely that's going to be a niche thing. Too niche for the market? The market isn't there to help us. Its there to help itself and an orderly menu of genres helps it to do that. But it is there to be exploited. We have our niches and the market has its genres. How comfortably our niche fits into the glove of a recognise genre is either going to be a matter of luck, assuming you are being true to yourself, or design if what you are doing is trying to satisfy the hallmarks of a genre. I like to think the song written for its own sake is generally going to resonate better than the song written to sound like somebody else's. But it may be more difficult for it to sit comfortably in a playlist for someone, a DJ, who isn't creating IP but simply broadcasting to an audience who have a very specific idea of what it is they want to listen to. So a lot of people get along quite happily just copying each other with similar sounding music and dumb lyrics slapped on top (to make it sound like an actual song whilst not confusing or challenging anybody too much). Audiences have been proven to quite like that kind of content and who are we to argue with what they say they like? So then, what to do?

I like that old adage that art is something you do for yourself whilst craft is what you do for other people.

[Exalted Wombat]

Well, just got a "no, we won't pass your music" from the curator of a local (Norwegian) small internet radio, because he couldn't understand which kind of music we are doing and (verbatim) "what we wanted to achieve".

I can see where the man is coming from...

Obviously Scandanavia, with that wonderfully earnest reasoning A commercial station would have refused you because they can't sell advertising without offering a tightly focussed audience demographic.

I can think of nothing worse than listening to 10 songs in the same genre one after another. But audiences seem to like knowing what they're going to get. I wonder if your fans really like everything, or just wait until another of "their" type of song comes round? I hope it's the former!

[CS70]

A commercial station would have refused you because they can't sell advertising without offering a tightly focussed audience demographic.

Yes indeed.

I can think of nothing worse than listening to 10 songs in the same genre one after another. But audiences seem to like knowing what they're going to get. I wonder if your fans really like everything, or just wait until another of "their" type of song comes round? I hope it's the former!

Ha, no I think you have a point - most people get extremely enthusiastic, but only about a few of them at a time.

There's the acoustic tracks who appeal more to males between 35 and 50 in UK and US and the hard rock ones who apparently are very strong with women from 20 to 35 in south america! (I should have known where I was 20!) Which is really funny since I'd have imagined exactly the opposite.

Also when we play live, there are always different favorites to different people - couple weeks ago a group of people came by after a gig and said the song they'd like the most was one called "White Snow" - (a bluesy-vibed angst-laden song)... I was really surprised as so far I thought was only really liked by myself, the Hammond organ player who guested in it, a half-drunken lady who had been on a show a year ago and the song's mastering engineer. And of course praise from half-drunken ladies and mastering engineers is notoriously suspicious).

It is what it is. I could not stick to a genre even if I tried, and to me to get enough into the spirit of a given genre and mix and match, both technically on guitar and vocals, and stylistically (like playing nylon on a song with an hip-hoppish vibe or recording hard rock drums with a single overhead) is just too much fun. Life's too short for anything else - I want to get ideas, turn them into a song and put them on tape (or whatever) as long as I'm alive. It's prize big enough.

But once we've recorded more of the stuff, one idea is to make a collection album called "Acoustic", another called "Rock", another called "Pop" and so forth.

However, how much I enjoy these conversations, it'd be cool if someone had any info of internet radios which are approachable and have more listeners than the population of Coxville, Indiana.

[Dynamic Mike]

I can think of nothing worse than listening to 10 songs in the same genre one after another. But audiences seem to like knowing what they're going to get. I wonder if your fans really like everything, or just wait until another of "their" type of song comes round? I hope it's the former!

Everyone under 40 listens with 'shuffle' turned on. Maybe the OP could argue 'shuffle' is a new genre?

[shufflebeat]

Everyone under 40 listens with 'shuffle' turned on. Maybe the OP could argue 'shuffle' is a new genre?

[CS70]

Everyone under 40 listens with 'shuffle' turned on. Maybe the OP could argue 'shuffle' is a new genre?

You know what, that's what I do and that's what I thought as well.. especially internet radios!

[Afilado]

These days labels needs to know exactly which box your music would fit in. If you're "House", you're "House", full stop. You may have hints of this or that, but you're obliged to fit the box. By no means can you say today "my music is a crossover between this and that". Bands like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd would be unimaginable these days, they would be considered too experimental.

What you can do, is to have several projects, under different names. Let's say you group blues and rock to a "Rockband" project, metal to "Metal" project and so on. Each one with its own website, soundcloud, fan base, etc.

[MarkOne]

When (proficient) musicians tried to play what the hell they liked in the 70s, they were ridiculed and labelled 'prog', middle class (is that a derogatory term?) and pretentious

That's just post-punk revisionist history. The album charts, reader's polls, platinum records, and sell-out arena tours suggest something else entirely

Of course, once the apparatchiks at the NME got their way, and playing proficiently in Ab min became a crime, then those musicians were ridiculed and labelled 'prog', middle class and pretentious.