Jeremy Welt: Jblogg New Ratios

NEW URBAN MUSIC PLAYLIST – ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2009

Its great to hear new urban/hip-hop music that is inspiring and innovative. I gave up on looking for new Urban music because everything sounded the same for the last few years. I made this playlist from the new issue of xxl magazine, covering their “freshman 10” list of new Artists. As I was reading the article, I headed over to Imeem and made a playlist with each Artist in the article. Almost every Artist from the article was in there and xxl’s picks were right on! Traditional media can still be a better filter, even if their medium is becoming old.

With Imeem and Myspace having robust legal libraries of streaming on demand music, why would any article or review about new music not be turned into an instant playlist using these services and linked to from article? Tap into the pre-approved streaming music where in theory everyone gets paid.

On my Imeem page, I have weekly playlists I pull from sources like billboard, big champagne, and more.

Webby Connect Conference Excitement

Im at the Webby Connect conference in Dana Point today, and once again The Webby team brought together some great minds in new media and got real discussions going. I wouldn’t normally Blog about a web conference but the panels today touched on some interesting trends in emerging creativity and new media culture.

The discussion was not the “buzz” of the moment typical of web conferences. Top notch panelist explored some deeper concepts and added creativity and honesty to their presentations

here is a quick recap of stuff that excited me:

Internet Dark Arts: The Underbelly
An incredible discussion on the underbelly of viral tricks, wikiedia, spam, and those affiliate programs pushing Viagra!
Virgil Griffith Showed off wikiscanner2. If your new to wikiscanner, check it out here. It shows you who’s editing wikipedia pages with a focus on exposing how things really work behind the scenes of Wikipidea. Companies battle eachother to change info on profiles.

Virigil also showed what he loosely called an “online lie detector”. Essentially taking the transcripts from politcal speeches or testimonies and doing some slick data visualization with common words and terms that would indicate a person is “lying” or more loosely, have something to hide!
Check it out in action here with the Gonzales testimony run through the filter.

Steve Kirsh gave some insight into Spam! Everyone should here this guy speak and I finally learned how it all works.
According to Steve 93% of all emails sent is “spam”!

Check out his site – http://www.skirsch.com/

Sweeps Week: Every Week Online
I think it was panelist Mark D’Arcy – SVP / Chief Creative Officer, Time Warner Global Media Group. who made great point after great point

“Television and Online are in Parallel – not separate”
“More people are watching TV than ever before”

A second panelist commented that Face time with “Screens” is increasing overall not necessarily TV viewership. This is a subtle but interesting concept – that more and more of our time is spent in front of some sort of screen. I like starting from that simple assumption as I build out ideas…

“Talent Is Not Increasing”
this is debatable but I think Mark’s point is true. The type of A level talent is not increasing as fast as consumption, and I agree with what I think was his intent – true talent is still a precious commodity.

Designers and Their Elastic Minds

Peter Frankfurt had a lot very creative and interesting things to say about some of the multimedia art/tech projects he’s worked on. I never head of him or his company, but I’d like to learn more! He was very involved in the pre-cog sequences and the visual interfaces for the movie “Minority Report”.

His concept for “New City” is a fresh look at virtual worlds, and he described it as “the world’s first architecturally considered virtual environment”. New City was a featured exhibit at the critically acclaimed show Design and the Elastic Mind at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Watch the video for it here!

Cya Soon!

Fall playlist – New Racheal Y, Oasis, Murs and more!

A killer mix of new artists from Warner Bros (where I work). I think this mix shows that big labels can support amazing creativity. More than happy to work on aspects of the new media campaigns for each of these artists.

RACHAEL YAMAGATA
OASIS
JOSIAH LEMING
MURS
LIGHTS
MEGHAN SMITH
THE SPILL CANVAS

OASIS WIDGET – LISTEN TO NEW MUSIC AND GET A FREE OASIS SHIRT!

If we could just get people to LISTEN to the new Oasis album, they would love it! Great albums, and not enough outlets to get the the word out. The idea was simple – incentive fans to hear the new music, and reward them in an authentic way, that would also spread the word and re-brand the band.

So check out the Oasis Widget, listen to six songs, and you can get a free classic Oasis t-shirt! Strength of idea is really the music, not the free shirt – I believe in this as a very strong body of work.

We also have their merchandise rights (online and tour!), so it creates buzz for merch, and builds databse of new customers.

Ultimatley, it was supposed to be a random givaway so the promotion would last longer. Due to tech issues, the widget was incorrectly set up to go to the first 3000 fans, which we of course went viral instantly, and crashed our store! So we’re fine tuning the idea. Would love any thoughts on this idea, and how to make it better. Send me your thoughts and I will send you an Oasis shirt – but you should still listen to the tracks – its worth it!
jbloggmusic@gmail.com

OASIS “DIG OUT YOUR SOUL”

Rachael Yamagata Live at Borders with new N96

My first time trying out the new N96 at a Rachael Yamagata instore at Borders! The n96 is similar to the N95, (upgraded to 16 gigs and a 5 mp camera) but with much better form factor and a lighter weight design. Zoom also seems better and clearer at close range, however you can still hear the annoying click when you use the zoom….
n96
Not my best footage – lights seem to trick camera into a hazy picture, but her band creates a nice mood with the Intro, then a Beautiful song “Sunday” from her new album Elephants

Verizon Wireless College Tour 2008

Went to Baltimore last Weekend to see LIGHTS, on the Verizon Wireless College Tour 2008.
Headliners were Boys Like Girls, and Cute is What We Aim For. My first time seeing LIGHTS live, and I was impressed. The songs show how good they are live, she looks amazing, and she has a live energy that enhances the music. LIGHTS connected with the crowd right away.

Here is some footge I filmed with my phone and posted to my You Tube Channel.

Here is what She filmed with a Nokia N95, and then edited on her laptop. The music is also by LIGHTS!

Myspace Music vs Imeem Pt 2

The Myspace site is still buggy, and from the commerce side, buy links still dont show up for most artists. Slow on the big fixes!

From a promotional standpoint, they do seem to be getting lots of traffic – many of the bands I work on are having higher than normal play counts (if its workign and tracking them properly!)

Jason Reeves (Warner Bros) got hundreds of thousands of new plays in a few days, during a feature on Tom’s Playlist. The Featured playlists area is a good way to discover new music.

In response to Myspace music, Imeem changed their site and focused on the basics. Home page is now blog style, and I like the cleaner design. Their Browse, and Chart’s of top songs and playlists is also improved. Their basic playlist tools, and music service is unchanged.

Here are recent articles on the Myspace Music Launch, and Imeem’s site.

Indies upset with Myspace Music Launch:

Hypebot
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/09/the-competition.html

Rollingstone.com – MySpace Music Takes on iTunes
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23356455/myspace_music_takes_on_itunes
The only thing they used from my interviews was “not groundbreaking” but I guess thats echoing what i’ve said here….

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/02/myspace.music.unfair.on.indies

MYSPACE vs IMEEM – nice analaysis on this blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/aniyer/archive/2008/10/03/myspace-music-v-imeem.aspx?

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3775361/Doubts+Loom+Over+MySpace+Music+Strategy.htm

Data – What You Need to Know about Myspace Music Strategy

E-marketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006599

MySpace Music Points Way To Free Music Economy
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/myspace-music-p.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/01/bmoasis101.xml

Forbes.com video
http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/2008/09/whats-up-with-m.html

Throwing Sheep
http://www.throwingsheep.com/blog/?p=12

Myspace Music vs Imeem pt 1

The new Myspace music launched last week, and now that some of the dust settled, I put my OCT playlist in both Imeem and Myspace Music’s new playlist tool. Most of the debate has been about the indie labels not being in the Myspace launch, but I haven’t seen many evaluations of the myspace music service itself.

PLAYLISTING

First off the Myspace launch was and still is Buggy. I know from many fans and artists, there are many complaints about the “closed” ecosystem. You cant just upload whatever you want anymore – fingerprinting technology is in place now!

But the ability to make playlists from a ton of full length tracks is impressive. I find the Myspace tool easier to use than Imeem’s tool, but I cant seem to find any way to embed the Myspace player (although the pop up player is a nice addition!)

Ill post more in pt 2 on the nuances between the two services, and more about how the fingerprinting works.

For now – enjoy my new playlist and let me know which service works for you! – jbloggmusic@gmail.com

SAME PLAYLIST ON MYSPACE MUSIC

Transparency and Mystery

Jack White created something incredible with his band The Racounteurs. Their live shows have the fire of Led Zepplin and the Who. They change up their set, improvise, and are touring behind Consolers of the Lonely, one of the best albums in the last ten years.

This band is hardly transparent the way new media blogs, and “indie” artists talk about today – no twittering from Jack White.

I was sitting with some fine folks from Zappos, the kings of transparency and customer service, and as we discussed Twitter and the ecommerce biz, I was making the point that some bands should not be “transparent”. A bold instance on Mystery and perfecting ones musical craft should be allowed. (I DO think they convinced my boss to start twittering!)

Awhile back at the Henry Fonda Theatre (and again, last week at the Greek), I watched The Raconteurs improvise an extended intro to one of my favorite songs from their new album and I was blown away by the direction they took the song live. The fact they dared to explore new (old?) textures to a song I loved was mysterious, and at the same time transparent, revealing the hidden melodies within the song and perhaps how the song was created in the first place. Old school transparency – were just going to Rock!

Twenty years from now I hope the Raconteurs Mystery, and approach to music, will make them a legend as fans hunt down, search, and try and interpret the bands motive to the musical scraps and clips left behind.

New LIGHTS Video

A kick start to the LIGHTS campaign – an amazing video to a beautiful track.

Im going to Baltimore on Friday to get the campaign rolling. I will be turning her on to the latest tools for communicating with fans. Your opinions for the Top 3 tools artist’s should use to communicate with their fans?

LIGHTS – music and multimedia wonder woman

Im working with a new artist called LIGHTS! She is a very special artist that I believe will be very succesfull, and will help shape the profile of a musical/new media artist in todays musical ecosystem. She has a vision for herself beyond just her songs, across multiple mediums, and modes of expression.

I get to be a part of the process and join momentum she’s already built on her own. Working on this should be an innovative adventure, and I hope to break new ground in helping her to achieve her vision.

Check out these clips, listen to three tracks,

LIGHTS EP SAMPLER

Lights Tour Announcement from Crystal Caves….

The Police Wrigley Field

Met all of my friends in Chicago for the fourth of July, and the POLICE, live, after all these years! My friend got busted for pot before the show and went to jail! The Chicago Police were not joking around. I was innocent but in handcuffs to for awhile, but they had nothing on me and had to let let me go!

So from the seventh row – here are some great clips!