In just over a week, our post, “On Chart Integrity,” has attracted a ton of attention from bloggers, artists, and magazines. I am excited that we could start such a conversation about music, marketing, and integrity on the web.
To move it in a new direction we’ve removed the list of artists in the earlier post. Even though we’ve made it clear that it was impossible for us to identify the people creating the accounts & favoriting the content (nor was it possible to determine the relationship that those people have with the artists), it was still tempting for some readers to jump to conclusions.
Discussing such conclusions distracted us from the real question. Neil Cartwright, who works with Master Shortie, refocused the conversation by asking: “What is the difference between hype & promotion, when is it marketing or manipulation and where is the balance?“
Judging by the responses we’ve received to our earlier post, there are many answers to this question, some of which we seriously disagree with. We think the answer is simple: make great music and do the right thing. Work with people who will do the same.
Quality is hyperefficient, so much of the marketing will happen on its own. The rest will be about getting your amazing music out there in a way that’s consistent with you and how you work.
Where is that line for you? What is promotion and what’s manipulation?
Anthony Volodkin
Taylor McKnight
Zoya Feldman
Scott Kidder
Arkadiy Kukarkin
Anthony, the message that you’re sending with this post is so close to this article I literally just read that I thought you were quoting it. It’s a piece about the Rural Alberta Advantage, and how they became a “buzz” band quote-unquote “overnight” (tongue-in-cheek)… in summary, the article’s author says:
“It’s… simple; there is only three parts to it. Do something amazing. Have the right person or people see it or hear it. Let the word-of-mouth trickle through the internet.”
via http://hitsingularity.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/how-a-buzz-band-became-a-buzz-band-a-rural-alberta-advantage-case-study/
July 7, 2009 @ 9:15 am
I second Ryan’s post. Additionally, every time you’re setting up a promotion and you’re wondering if this could perceived as manipulation, it probably is.
July 7, 2009 @ 9:42 am
Seth Godin often talks up a similar set of questions. Being remarkable, rather than boring, allows ideas to spread.
Here’s one of his TED talks on the subject - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html
We write The Recommender blog with a strong, important factor - the subjects have to be of a good quality.
Writing about music that we think is remarkable. Quite simple.
All the best,
Mike
UK
July 7, 2009 @ 9:57 am
Whoa, that Rural Advantage link is excellent!
Yeah, Seth Godin is absolutely right, thought in practice hard to do, we noticed
July 7, 2009 @ 10:10 am
i agree, quality is hyper efficient, but thats assuming that your aware of all the quality that is out there. and manipulation? are people buying music they don’t want to listen to and going to shows that they don’t want to go to? is there something i’m not seeing? are there victims in this crime?
July 7, 2009 @ 11:41 am
Hey. This is all very funny. You’re all being manipulated and forced to listen to terrific music like Major Lazer. They’re so good. They’re like Justin Timberlake on acid. Fine, I won’t hate on here. But I was going to argue this whole manipulation v. promo and tell you that no one is forcing you to jam to anything you wouldn’t want to, but then I noticed that Major Lazer was a top search on here. No beef. Just saying. You are all being manipulated. BLAH.
July 7, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
I’ve always thought that callous calculation is the primary difference between the two terms. Or, to put it another way, since in the media world, speech IS action…
Promotion = saying what you think, and framing it to maximize results
Manipulation = saying what you think will maximize results.
This post, incidentally, is a great example of the former. Keeping the band list up in light of the reframed question, on the other hand, would have been manipulative. Good to see there’s still thoughtfulness and wisdom driving the machine.
July 7, 2009 @ 9:12 pm
‘HYPE’ the verb.
1. to stimulate, excite, or agitate
2. to create interest in by flamboyant or dramatic methods; promote or publicize showily: a promoter who knows how to hype a prizefight.
3. to intensify (advertising, promotion, or publicity) by ingenious or questionable claims, methods, etc. (usually fol. by up).
4. to trick; gull.
‘HYPE’ the noun.
5. exaggerated publicity; hoopla.
6. an ingenious or questionable claim, method, etc., used in advertising, promotion, or publicity to intensify the effect.
7. a swindle, deception, or trick.
When Major labels were allowed to count units shipped as being sold, they would ship enough units to be able to state they had a gold record. Funnily enough, people would then go out and buy it!
What I’m having trouble understanding, and maybe this is just me playing with semantics, is how you can set up a website and call it The Hype Machine, and then act shocked when a few dodgy artists use questionable methods to promote themselves on the site. This type of behaviour has always existed and will always exist. It’s bit like if you opened a bar and called it The Brothel, and then called the cops when some dude started pulling his pants down!
Anyway, good luck with the policing.
Cheers!
July 8, 2009 @ 11:23 am
After much consideration I’ve decided I am not so particularly bothered by this “cheating” as I was in the beginning. Because:
You can’t browse The Hype Machine for quality. What is quality in music anyway? What is it to you? The latter question may be the sufficient one. Personally, I generally don’t like using the word “quality” as I define it as something to describe purely the objective aspects of a track: the sound, the instrumentals, the complexity, the refinement of the handicraft etc. And that is no way of listening to music, speaking generally. If you ask me. Hence I don’t mind coming across a “cheating/cheated” artist/band because whatever I find on The Hype Machine will always be of some value to me - wether I like it or not. I like, no, LOVE listening to music I don’t like (which isn’t that common anyway) because guess what? I love listening to music and as always in life you gotta take the good with the bad (and of course we all want to live good lives, right? So the good will of course always be in majority when it comes to our attention).
So if a few producers or their fans or whatever have their way on multiple fake accounts and I listen to the tracks, I really don’t mind if it would so happen to be “shitty”, “crappy” or “undeserved of such attention” because I want to learn about the musicsphere (new term?) and then I’ll have to wade through the shit with a smile on my face and take a stroll in the shine of music I admire and love with an equally big if not bigger smile. That’s my way anyway.
However, I would appreciate having a system where I am ensured that the hearts are real and I can make a fair estimate of how many ACTUAL people have loved a song that’s on the chart or elsewhere. So there’s a point in Hypem’s measures here that I appreciate too.
But then again I don’t want a world where we consistently control and monitor everything, as I said in the previous post. There’s other, better things to put our energy into.
Yet, in the end, I think The Hype Machine were able to solve it in a simple, unpretentious and cool way. That automated new restrictions when creating an account or whatever, I don’t remember exactly but I think it was a fair and sqaure measure taken to ensure the authenticity of our beloved THM point system. Furthermore I think that making it a little harder to create an account might actually make people think more of the value of having an account and use it with care, you know, just overall. The credibility of a single account on THM is heightened and that’s great. Use your hearts wisely, people! They’re worth a lot!
Or you could just ignore the shit of what I’ve written so far above and go with my new proposal of a simplified score system:
Everyone, even those without an account on THM (or just skip those!) just type in the number of completely unlimited points (999999999999999… etc.) next to the track and do so as many times as they’d like. Count the total number of points and schmack them up in a list.
The artists/band with the most and best button mashers win.
Fair and square.
Hell yea, that is effing hardcore internet justice pow rite in da kissah 4 ya!
This is where you go: “sounds good to me!”
July 8, 2009 @ 12:26 pm
Andy says:
“When Major labels were allowed to count units shipped as being sold, they would ship enough units to be able to state they had a gold record. Funnily enough, people would then go out and buy it!
What I’m having trouble understanding, and maybe this is just me playing with semantics, is how you can set up a website and call it The Hype Machine, and then act shocked when a few dodgy artists use questionable methods to promote themselves on the site. This type of behaviour has always existed and will always exist. It’s bit like if you opened a bar and called it The Brothel, and then called the cops when some dude started pulling his pants down!
Anyway, good luck with the policing.
Cheers!”
that was the most sensible reply i’ve seen to all of this.
most of the rest of it was self righteous bullshit, a lynch mob mentality, people getting off on the drama. even some trying to insinuate that if you hyped your own stuff up then the music itself automatically sucks.
i guess hypemachine figured out it really was unfair to call the artists out by name, or they just got scared of the lawsuit threats.
if you’re just starting out as an artist, it’s really not a big deal to hype your own stuff up, especially in an atmosphere where hype means everything. it’s a dog eat dog world out here… quality music gets ignored all the time due to the lack of hype (says a lot about the majority, people are more likely to check out stuff that’s popular, and even convince themselves they like it because it is popular, not because they actually do. some people only check out the 1st page of popular on here, so if you want a chance of your stuff being heard it needs to end up on there). while some of the worst music gets attention, mostly just because it’s got a lot of hype (so many terrible, off measure, out of key mash ups get so much hype on here). so if you truly believe your music is good, and want a chance of it being heard, hype is the answer, otherwise you can easily stay off the radar. if it sucks, it sucks, hyped or not. at least it has a chance of being heard when it’s hyped up, just needs to make it on the radar. but hype certainly doesn’t mean it’s gonna have any lasting shelf-life.
people understand that, that’s why there’s no guilt felt for hyping their own stuff up.
July 8, 2009 @ 11:55 pm
Major Lazer are the next big thing, hyped to the max, Soulwax were a few years ago, and next week “Alchemists of Sound” are destined to be the next big thing…
its all relevant and all relative we should all enjoy, what web 2.0 brings to the table, especially for people that live miles from record stores..
http://alchemistsofsound.bandcamp.com
July 21, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
Thanks for the heads up on Alchemists of Sound they are fab, The album is wicked.
Thanks Again
August 3, 2009 @ 11:19 am
hmmm…Promotion has ALWAYS been a part of the music business: the spectrum ranges from the most basic (band members posting fliers on walls) to the most organized and potentially illegal (payola, label-funded indies).
It’s interesting how these discussions of “promotion” have consistent references to the concept of “manipulation” of the consumer…however, I believe such references are misguided as it is simply a matter of degrees. Without promotion…quality bands must depend on “luck” to make it.
http://kipmcc.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/buzz-bands-music-promotion-the-thin-lizzy-paradox/
August 6, 2009 @ 8:17 am