It has been impressed upon me that I've got to market myself, promote the brand, etc. It makes sense and it's the world we live in. The question then becomes how? Generally, you're young when you start down this path and your audience is young too, but the idea that I can still market myself to the young is both counter-productive and to be honest, a little creepy.
The other route is based on the idea that you should market to those who share a love of the music of known artists that you sound like or emulate. That seems reasonable except that the groups and artists I like or whose music I've drawn inspiration from, their fans are probably not that into artists they've never heard of and aren't interested in hearing something that sounds like their favorite music when they can just go back and listen to the tracks from their favorite bands catalog. Why should I listen to someone who sounds like the Beatles when I can just listen to the Beatles?
The third option is the genre route; meaning which genre do I fit into. The problem there is the music I make is basically pop-rock stuff with some country and americana thrown in when I go acoustic. And pop-rock has fractured into literally a minefield of sub-genres from the genera of pop and rock, not to mention country, folk, americana, jazz, ECM, hip-hop, rap, and bluegrass. Somehow I have to decide where I fit in in this miasma of choices.
It makes my head hurt.
But that's the nature of music today. Mostly it's just music played on guitars, keyboards, and drums. I like to throw in dream-pop, electric folk, indie rock; I play a lot of different stuff, but I do have my own sound, which is important; sometimes more important than a particular description.
Still, we march on; we figure it out; we have day jobs.
Maybe I should focus on tee shirts?
No comments:
Post a Comment