If you are still unsure how a more effective use of sound can help build brand equity, then listen to this new offering from those people at Axe. Get past the adolescent maleness of the clip, and focus on how sound has been brilliantly utilised to shape the consumer experience.  Use headphones when listening to the clip.

After all, as citizensound keeps on saying, brand experience doesn’t have to be just visual.

I spoke a while back at a conference in Lisbon (Radio Congresso) on the future of music. I set the debate within the context of music not being the same thing as ‘music business’. At so many music conferences, the discussion all too often centres on trying to re-configure business models that are bust. When putting music into a wider historical context, we see that there is only thing that is important: The relationship between musician and music-lover. By focusing on this, new ideas emerge for musicians to achieve success - however they define success.

I will expand on some of the charts within the presentation at a later date, but hope it spurs a thought or two from others…

Above is the presentation set to a bit of lovely music from Steve Lawson

If you just want to look at the slides one by one, below I have put the slideshare version…

So I have arrived at the R@dio em Congresso conference in Lisbon.

The event is set to bring academics and practitioners together to investigate the future of radio in the digital world.

I have had some great chats with Nik Goodman, a UK based media consultant who works with radio stations and other media brands advising them on programming and content. Very interesting guy. Am looking forward to his panel (even though it is on at 1800!).

I am on a panel with Sony Music, MTV, a newspaper, a guy from live and Kalaf from Buraka Som Systema. We are talking about music in a digital world.

Right off to listen to how blogs, podcasts and social media can be marketing tools for radio (!)

“Le Chronophone’ 1910 by Leon Gaumont.

As seen at the fantastic musee des arts et metiers in Paris.

I caught a glimpse of GLEE last night on TV (no really only a glimpse). It had the Glee club member singing with a group of kids who were also signing the words to Imagine. All very nice and all that, but I couldn’t help but think of the glorious Sia who delivered one of her many beautiful songs Soon We’ll Be Found whilst signing…

Here is SIA in action on the BBC’s show Later with Jools Holland in the UK.

When we describe the business value of Sonic Branding to clients, inevitably conversation gets round to comparing our approach to creating the sonic identity of a brand to the work involved in creating the VISUAL identity of a brand.

There is nothing more visual in the visual identity of a brand than the font. And I love fonts. Be they the classics like:

ones used on album covers,

even a musician’s own hand-writing… (found here if you want to contact them Morrissey)

I recently came across this fantastic offering by those clever people at typeradio, a radio channel on type and design, based out of Den Haag. I recently listened to a insightful discussion they had with Phil Baines.

Typeradio’s position is simple:

Type is speech on paper.

Typeradio is speech on type.

The Sound of fonts. lovely.

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…

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.

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…