next2friendsblog.com

As an independent musical artist I’ve been scratching my head a little lately. So, I know why I make music, that’s not the problem. The problem is I haven’t been sure what to do with all this recorded music I create. Now, for a while, the answer that has been bouncing around my head was to just give it away, recorded music is free now anyway. But what about the dream of making a living as a musician?

Well, I’ve been pleased to discover that at least someone is trying something that could help. A joint venture by Downtown Records and Peter Rojas, RCRD LBL launched yesterday, and by my estimation, looks like at least one answer to how musicians could possibly make money in today’s free music market.

What I liked immediately was that the site was fairly easy to navigate. I’d give it about a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Artists were prominently displayed. It took me a minute to understand that the tabs at the top were for the labels represented, but I figured it out eventuallys. I understood immediately what the widgets on the side were for and how to use them. Further, you could “Grab” any of them to your iGoogle or Dashboard or other web application, probably the coolest feature in my opinion. It’s a great way for fans to keep tabs on an artist and also for an artist to broadcast their moves. And finally, I appreciate how the advertising sponserships are minimized. There was no confusion between RCRD LBL content verses advertising content. In fact, ads are just part of the widgets.

I understand that they are touting this as a blog and perhaps that is what drives my criticism of the site. It doesn’t look very sophisticated, but then again, it probably isn’t. It seems to carry several blog type-characteristics like the swelling or shrinking words to represent how often different genres of music are represented. But perhaps this is also due to the fact that they are spending their money where I think they should; on the artists. Artists get between $500 to $5000 per song that is made available. One drawback is that this fee is paid one time, up front, thus making it impossible for a band or artist to generate a great deal of money off of a “hit” on the site.

I don’t know if this is the answer but personally, I am for anyone willing to try something different in this shaky world of music making. The dream of supporting oneself creating original music definitely got harder with proliferation of music downloading, I understand that, but I applaud RCRD LBL for giving something new a try. I’m anxious to see if it takes hold!

Hans Erik
Content Marketing Director
Hans@Next2Friends.com
www.Next2Friends.com