Time out from music marketing, sonic branding and looking after…

Always been a big fan of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.

Teddy Pendergrass at his best…

Been contemplating the sound of bells. Not the whiskey (not a fan) the big things that hang from churches…

Now I am not someone who is a fan of campanology.

I am fascinated by the role that church bells have played within certain communities.

These seems to be three purposes for the bells. A time-keeper, a way of gathering people together and a signal for people to scatter.

The chiming of the bells have shaped many communities’ days. The bells were the community time-keeper.

When not setting time, certain chimes signaled a call to prayer, where the local community would gather.

Other sounds, out of sync with this fixed sonic calendar, would raise the alarm within the community, warning the townspeople or flooding, attack or other such dire situations.

Tip for brands thinking of a sonic identity
When considering the sound of your brand, consider the roles that sound will play. A simple bell has played numerous roles in certain societies for centuries. The danger for brands is that the sound you have presently might be sending out the wrong signal to your community. When you think you are gathering in your potential ‘community of brand fans’, you might actually be getting them to run away as fast as you can. It might be time to listen to your brand more carefully.

So the biggest fake fight for number 1 is thankfully now over. Rage Against the Machine is the Xmas number 1, instead of the X-Factor winner Joe something or other. We can all pat ourselves on the back to show how democracy and the power of crowds can overcome the establishment.

Power to the people? Ummm not quite.

It is all very amusing, but I have to wonder why normally sane people took on the challenge to STOP SIMON COWELL at all costs. The blogosphere was full of indignation (now self-congratulatory), to the point that he was almost blamed for the failure of the supposed leaders of the world achieving anything meaningful at Copenhagen. The indignation was almost worthy of a sequel of The Manchurian Candidate or some new Bond film, with guess who cast as the maniacal leader (called ‘number 1′ no doubt) of the SYCO organisation that plans to take over the world. However, I do wish people were more clear on what they were raging against…

If they wanted to put a decent track to the top, that’s fine. Lots to choose from. Yet that was not what is going on here. It was about STOPPING X-Factor domination of the charts. The guy who started this campaign was fed up with the Cowell dominance, and put forward a personal favourite. In itself, I applaud his actions. What cannot be denied is that he channeled his and other people’s anger at the right time and has proved that people WILL pay for music.

Yet their actions seemed utterly misplaced…

Three observations from me:

1 A return to the 50s.

All we are seeing is a swing back to the 50s in the UK where TV entertainment shows dominated and the sound of ‘popular’ music filled the air. For every person that has discerning music tastes, there are 10 people who quite like a song, but have no idea what it’s called and who it is by. Simon Cowell is aiming at the 10, not the 1. People who impulse buy at Tesco’s the ‘Best of Westlife’ or ‘100 best songs on Valentine’s Day’ are not going to worry about the ‘difficult second album’.

“Yes but” I hear you say, ” we cannot compare to the 50s, as we now have the net and everyone is connected”. True, the channels might be different, but the result is the same. Back in the 50s and 60s, it was the chitlin circuit in the U.S., the car radio and Pirate Radio in the UK that carried the rage. Now we have the net and mobile. Raging against mediocrity will always be around - thank Schlager music on anodyne TV in Germany for NEU, Harmonia and Kraftwerk. Just as in the 50s great music will emerge out of mediocrity.

2 A Generational Thing?

Grans and kids love Joe. He is more Cliff Richard, less Little Richard. It’s the 30/40/50somethings who are appalled. The guys who organised the Facebook campaign is in his 30s. Generations brought up on Protest Music are now protesting about Simon. Meanwhile, the kids love JedWard and the other ‘talents’ of the show. Young teens think that Stacey can actually sing. That’s ok, we all make our mistakes. The first album I ever bought was by Gary Glitter (called ‘Touch Me’ would you believe).

3 Raging Against the Music Machine?

This is the one that gets me. The rage is completely misplaced. For goodness sake, RATM are handled by Sony Music, as is Joe and all the other X-Factor folk. So this whole rage against the ‘music machine’ is just helping the mythical ‘machine’.

If people truly want to rage, then go and buy music of someone who has no label, but is doing it the DIY route. Support a local band. Support a young band who are trying to make fresh music whilst being surrounded by other teens who place more importance on the lives and loves of the X-Factor finalists. Support a band like MISHKIN, a great band from Leeds who are building a fanbase and a reputation for being ultra-positive (More Laugh At The Machine). Support a young singer like MIA ROSE who citizensound looks after. Two weeks up on youtube, and her video has been seen by 1.2m people in 206 countries. No label, no hype, lots of word of mouth.

If like the founders of the RATM campaign, you wanted to get your favourite song to number 1, then cool. But I can’t help feeling that a lot of people who voted for RATM were acting more like a bunch of students demonstrating their revolutionary politics by handing in their term work 2 days late. This was not ’sticking it to the man’.

If I was Sony Music, I would be cracking open the champagne right now. Genius job done. Love X-Factor - Sony wins. Hate X-Factor - Sony wins.

I guess one person who might have reason to rage more than anyone is Guy Hands. All that money spent on EMI thinking his business knowledge can sort out these ‘music folk’. Look where that’s got him. If only he realised that the music business will live and die on one thing and that is that MUSIC IS IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE. Give them music they love in a way that fairly compensates the creator for their efforts, and the world is all good.

Since citizensound set up, we have been providing more and more help to artists: From old school A&R services to fanbase management, from songwriting help to brand sponsorship and revenue generation ideas. Which is why we set up our Artist Development division.

Then we met MIA ROSE, a talented singer/songwriter and a youtube phenomenon. Besides being the most subscribed to musician on youtube in the UK, she also features on the Top 5 all-time list globally on youtube. Since she started 3 years ago, she has had over 100 million views on the net, with each video she puts up gaining well over a 1m views. Her fanbase is 50% teenager, 50% adult. A brand’s dream.

And then we met around 7 weeks ago and hit it off.

So here we are representing her. Paul Martin worked with MIA ROSE in the studio alongside honorary citizen and producer Tyrell to record her Xmas single. The citizen Nick Watt meanwhile got moving on the management of the digital presence and online revenue strategy with the help of new citizen Martim. Our Lisbon based citizen, Mariana Duarte Silva, started handling things in MIA ROSE’s home country Portugal. Meanwhile, Simon and myself got working on the brand opportunities.

citizensound as A&R, executive producer, revenue generator, promotional agent, digital strategist, fanbase co-ordinator and a lot more. Yet critically, it is the energy and ideas of MIA ROSE herself that makes this really work.

Ideas flow from her as easy as popular songs and videos. Plus she is open to ideas fro mus and her fanbase too.

In the last six weeks we have organised:

• A competition for 5 London based fans to join her for a day out in London (Thanks to Visit London, The London Eye, The Original Tour open top bus company, Ripley’s London). A 6th fan turned up all the way from Poland!
• Live video chats, the first of which got 27 countries online (from U.S and Peru through Europe to India, Dubai and Malaysia) and 8,000 messages in 90 minutes.
• Fan competition to design the record sleeve for the Xmas Single.
• MIA ROSE being signed to Models 1, the most respected model agency in the UK under their celebrity division

But to promote the single, we needed a video. Thanks to friends out in Brazil, MIA ROSE headed off to Rio to shoot an atypical Xmas video.

Last night the video went up on MIA ROSE’s youtube channel.

Here is the video:

In the first 12 hours, this video has achieved these stunning stats:

8,372 views

1,513 ratings

In only the first 6 hours, this video achieved:

Number 2 - Top Rated Today - Music GLOBAL

Number 2 - Top Rated This Week - Music UK

Number 8 - Top Rated This Week - Music GLOBAL

Number 3 - Most Discussed (any topic) Today - UK

Top 50  - Most Viewed Today - GLOBAL, UK, Germany, Canada

Top 100 - Most Viewed Today - Brazil, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Ireland

Now the trick is to convert online popularity into sales for this hugely popular youtube artist.

No marketing budget, no machine. Just MIA ROSE, us and her fans spreading the word.

Might not involve safety pins and shouting, but still VERY VERY DIY.

Robert Wolf, London musician and drumming teacher to my son, is finishing up his album right now. Getting noticed is a big challenge for every musician, but there was something he said to me today that really resonated.

He said is is going to make his music

sound irresistible

How many musicians aim for that?

In fact, how many brands aim to sound irresistible these days?

Well, we at citizensound are on a mission to help brands sound irresistible to their consumers and help musicians sound irresistible to their fans.

So I guess we want to sound irresistible too…

here is our sound by the way…

Citizen Dub by citizensound

Once upon a time, artists struggled with the perfect running order of the songs for the LP (that’s a big round flat bit of plastic that sound came out of when it came in contact with a needle, and often came packaged in hideously/beautifully designed cardboard).

Which songs should be on side 1, which on side 2? What should open, what should close?

Then CDs turned the two-sided experience into one long experience or a hop/skip/jump experience as people decided whether they liked a track after the first few notes…

Now we have an artist like Zero7 (Zer07?) putting their album up on soundcloud to allow the fans to have a good listen to the album before they buy. Can’t argue against that. But what are the fans listening to? Do they listen to the full album all the way through?

Well, initial results shows that fans a little bit lazy or pushed for time.

There is a clear falling off of listening as you head down the tracklisting. So what do you do if you are a band who wants people to listen to all of your tracks (if you didn’t care, then why put them out in the first place?!)

One simple thing really for starters. Mix it up. Flip the running order on soundcloud and other services and see whether that gets more people listening to track 10 vs track 1. Subjectivity suggests that first track isn’t always going to be the one that defines a fan’s relationship to you. Mix up the listing on myspace.

For many artists the running order will continue to be important. However, if you want fans to discover your music, be warned that they might buy into it that readily. Introducing your music to them might need a little flexibility on your part…

Been around for a while but still the concept of a restaurant that shuts off your ability to view food is a splendid thing.

The Nocti Vagus restaurant in Berlin provides an  experience of food that demands you to depend on your sense of smell, taste, sound and touch. Much like Gordon Ramsay goes on about a chef needing to the food they cook, so we as customers place much emphasis on how food looks rather than how it tastes/smells/sounds/feels.

There is something wonderful about this restaurant that gets people to focus on the importance and joy of food, rather than the superficiality of ‘first appearance’.

There is also much to gain from this restaurant for those marketers who wish to utilise the power of all senses in their engagement with customers.

Mind you, I still hate celery and cherries, blindfold or not…

Spending some time in Lisbon recently. A city that could be defined sonically by the cars rumbling over the bridge, the sound of the Tram bell, or this, the sound of a man calling out for people to buy the lottery ticket near to the fantastic Santa Justa lift…

I have been experiencing the highs and lows of easyjet recently.

The Easyjet Low:

A 1950 flight from Madrid to London Gatwick gets delayed for 70 minutes because the guys checking the tickets at the Gate let on a passenger who was heading to Luton, not Gatwick. It took a while for the ‘extra’ passenger to be tracked down and taken off the flight. We get to Gatwick as the thunderstorm hits the airport, so we get redirected to Stanstead! There, the pilot parks up then offers the passengers two choices:

Option 1: We fuel up and take off immediately for Gatwick (the weather had cleared by this time)

Option 2: We get off at Stanstead then take coaches back to Gatwick.

As all hell breaks loose on the plane, with people at the front dictating terms to the pilot, whilst we sit at the back, the pilot then announces that three people want to get off the plane (Probably live in North London and couldn’t believe their luck!) He says he cannot force them to sit on the plane, so therefore EVERYONE has to disembark. So we then face another long wait for a bus to take us to the terminal, then a longer queue to get through Passport control (well it was around 2a.m. by now). Oh and no bus waiting for us. Given I had my car at Gatwick, i had no choice but to get in a cab firm who thought Xmas had come early (Yeah mate, that will be £128 to Gatwick…). Shared the cab with three others, got my car and got home around 4:45a.m.

The EasyJet high
This week I flew from Lisbon to Paris with Easyjet. As we were taxiing towards the terminal, Easyjet put on this music

The Sound of Easyjet
Now this is clearly the Sound of EASYJET that the company wants to leave with us. Uptempo, positive, fun. This would have worked for me but for two things…
First, it conflicts with other sounds of easyjet I head on their planes (so no consistency)
Second, I still hear that crazy pilot in my head offering passengers that choice…

When we say that we help brands and organisations with their sonic brand identity, we cover everything…even parties!

Those lovely people at the IAA UK chapter (and Michael ‘Prince fan’ Toedman particularly) asked us to deliver some great music for the 80s themed Summer Ball.

We had Nelly, Nuno and our very own citizen Paul Martin playing the sounds covering lots of great sounds (cool ones and simply ones that you have to dance to). Talking of which here is a little clip…

Not sure what I can say about some of the dance moves going on…

A selection of some of the faces there…

Mariana loved this look…

Is that Meike and a dayglo friend?

Meanwhile citizen Mariana shares the spotlight with Kate Williams of Columbus Media

And the suave sophisticated folks from Publieurope prepare for the dancefloor

More photos found here