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Last week I read about Die Antwoord on the Birthday Party Berlin blog. The first time I watched their video, I was immediately convinced I had witnessed something I needed to share, to spread. Apparently I wasn’t the only one… One week later and the blogosphere is blowing up with posts about Die Antwoord.

In one day, they have doubled their Facebook fans from 5.000 to 10.000 and it seems like they’re still picking up steam, with blogs like Boing Boing, Dlisted and Mad Decent writing about them. Why is that? It is very simple. Die Antwoord is unique. They offer something fresh, in a remarkable way… In the digital age, where we can share all the music we want, being remarkable is THE most important characteristic for a band, group, musician, producer, etc. You have to be worth talking about.

So what did they do? Not much. They created a unique concept (or maybe this is just an extension of their personalities), uploaded their songs to YouTube, do a lot of performing and try to get people to spread the word. That’s probably why they give away music at live shows: “First 100 zeflings thru the door get a free hand-drawn full-length $O$ album (16 tracks) burned by die fokken rap-rave meesters NINJA en YO-LANDI.”

That’s it! Do something remarkable, connect with the fans and give them a reason to buy. Their album is due soon on Magnetron Music and I expect it to sell quite well for a debut, but of course it will be downloaded for free much more often… The “reason to buy” for now is going to be their live performances until they’ve built a considerable fanbase and they can start applying freemium on a bigger scale.

So who else are doing this? In The Netherlands we have an act which is quite similar, which also generated a lot of buzz when they first came to the scene; De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig. They’re actually label mates of Die Antwoord, just like a bunch of other great acts.

Another act that the music industry can learn from in my eyes, is MENEO, although MENEO is a bit less reachable for fans. Same goes for belladonnakillz.

Anyway, to conclude this post… I suggest you head over to the website of Die Antwoord and listen to their album. You can stream it in its entirety on there.

ONE TO WATCH!

Recently I released a paper titled the best practices of the online promotion of new musical content. I pushed it through some networks and sent it to contacts I’ve made while studying the music business and the results have been phenomenal. Giving away something good for free really does work! Some highlights.

I submitted it to Techdirt, probably my favourite technology blog, where Mike Masnick blogged about it. This blog post was then mentioned in the daily newsletter of the ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

It was also posted to the great Make It In Music blog, as a guestpost. Students of the music business course at the NYU were given this paper to read. Someone is even making a Spanish version of it to increase the reach of the paper, especially in Latin America. Thanks Pp! I’ve also been spreading it around LinkedIn with some pretty good results.

Wow!

To be honest, part of the strategy of my thesis was to build some momentum, release it, make it go viral and brand myself as an expert on this topic, but even this paper is making some ripples.

The ironic thing is that in the paper I say that giving away something of value for free can be a great promotional tool… especially if what you’re giving away is easily reproduced and easy to share. The reception of the paper proves exactly that.

Extremely motivated to get that thesis done asap and start utilizing the momentum I’ve built! More soon!

P.S. If you’d like to read the paper, click here for the PDF.

As the regular readers of my blog probably know, I’m writing my graduation thesis about the future of music distribution. Due to some setbacks and unforseen circumstances, this thesis has suffered some delays. However, using the knowledge and insight I gained in the past month, while studying my thesis’ topic, I have compiled a paper called the Best Practices of the Online Promotion of New Musical Content.

It looks at artists like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, Mos Def, and Groove Armada, and analyzes what they’ve been doing right and wrong and why they’ve been doing it in the first place.

So while you wait for the thesis and the launch of FutureOfMusicDistribution.com, how about going through this 20 page paper?

To download and read the whole paper, just use this link:

http://www.basbasbas.com/online_promotion_of_new_musical_content-Bas_Grasmayer.pdf

And feel free to redistribute it, it’s licensed under a Creative Commons license!

Love,
Bas