Saturday

March Top 10 Unsigned Demos



Fanta Jack - Aaau House (Original)
Location: Russia
Link: http://soundcloud.com/fantajack

Slap in the Bass - The African (Original)
Location: Hungary
Link: http://www.myspace.com/slapinthebassm...

Shooting Horses - Jungle People (Original)
Location: UK
Link: http://soundcloud.com/shootinghorses09

Studio Brussels - America (Original)
Location: UK
Link: http://soundcloud.com/studiobrussels

Billione - Hero Guitar (Original)
Location: Russia
Link: http://soundcloud.com/billione

Nu Raverz - Inside Out (Original)
Location: UK
Link: http://soundcloud.com/nu-raverz

Dan Boadan - Shores (Original)
Loctation: UK
Link: http://soundcloud.com/danboadan

Kraymer - It's a Daft Thing (Original)
Location: UK
Link: http://www.myspace.com/kraymermusic

Kaykoh - Bust Your Windows (Original)
Location: UK
Link: http://www.myspace.com/irep_uk

Exzo - Up in Smoke Letters (Original)
Location: Russia
Link: http://soundcloud.com/pashaexzo


Monday

February Top 10 Unsigned Demos




Riddim Jacker - Ya Hear Me
Link: Soundcloud
Location: UK

Killafornia - Stutter
Link: Myspace
Location: Australia
Look @ F meets Cappucino - Tomorrow
Link: Soundcloud
Location: Italy

Slap in the Bass - We are Slappers
Link: Myspace
Location: Hungary

Justin James - We Came to Party ft Jay MC
Link: Myspace
Location: USA

Fanta Jack - East Coast
Link: PromoDJ
Location: Russia


Dermot Bateman - Bang Bang Rosie
Link: Myspace
Location: Ireland

Hot Mess - P.A.R.T.Y
Link: Myspace
Location: USA

Joey Funk - Gangsta Party
Link: Myspace
Location: USA

B-Freaqz - Right Now
Link: Website
Location: Spain

The Battle for your Ears - Myspace vs Soundcloud



"In the Blue Corner, having registered his 100 millionth member and from the United States of America Tom "Myspace" Anderson! And in the Orange Corner, weighing in with 350,000 members from Sweden/Germany, Alex "& Erik" Soundcloud!"

So I thought I would share my opinion with you on something...

I have seen a major shift recently in the weapon of choice for musicians online (in the dance music sphere anyway) towards Soundcloud.

I love everything about Soundcloud. The branding, the cool players, the nice looking waves, the friendly error messages and the fact that a basic account is free.

But can it really contend with a heavyweight like Myspace, and can it be seen as a possible successor?

Certainly Facebook does not have a sniff when it comes to being a hub for Music, and although the social aspect of online activity in the main seems to have moved to Facebook and Twitter, Myspace have always clinged to their status as a "space for music"

New Myspace Music

Recently Myspace invested one or two dollars in a brand new all singing and dancing music streaming system, to try and cope with the ever encroaching Spotify, Napster, Last FM and the like.

Meanwhile, away from all this pop music orientated frenzy and glossy advertising, Soundcloud has been quietly asserting itself as a standard in a market that Myspace seems to have forgotten about - Dance Music.

I think this is the reason that Myspace profiles of artists and labels within our scene are beginning to look more and more tired without the day to day maintenance and activity. Spam messages build up in comments sections, blogs become stale, and music players get dusty.

In a further effort to modernise, Myspace installed traffic reporting modules into music profiles, and I think this will end up being their worst enemy. For the first time, you can accurately see who is looking at your profile, where in the World they are from and how long they are there for.

The Venga Digital Myspace is receiving precious little traffic, and I am seeing a real dip in the amount of plays on dance music artists' music players literally like 10% of the amount I was seeing this time last year, which bhegs the question - why are we spending resources keeping it up, and duplicating work that we're already doing on Soundcloud, Facebook and on the homepage?

Would we be better just sticking a big banner up there saying "Sorry, we've moved"??

For what it's worth, I surf Soundcloud profiles where I used to surf Myspace Music profiles, and I catch up with friends on Facebook when I used to speak to them on Myspace.

To be honest, I rarely use Myspace... and I am feeling that the same is ringing true for other artists and labels.

The problem is with Myspace, is that it is dated and cumbersome, you can only operate within Myspace. If you are on Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter, Youtube you can feed your activity to any other profile, integrate it with other applications and combine them all! Myspace has no such exportable features, and again it is another potential nail in a coffin.

Myspace does have one saving grace... it is personalisable and gives brand presence, and unless Soundcloud start letting you loose with "Pimp my Profile" backgrounds (unlikely) it may just about survive, in lieu of the artist having a web site themselves.

It is funny that all artists and labels used to have fancy websites, then they ditched them all for social media sites, where now I think the smart money is on resurrecting the website (or using a blogspot/wordpress blog you can customise) and using it as a central point to feed blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud and Youtube into it.

Interested to hear any thoughts on the above, do you use Myspace any more?


January Top 10 Unsigned Demos





Yeah Woho! - I Wanna Love You
Link: Myspace
Location: Sweden

Mikey Dalton & Ted Nilsson - Face The Fact
Link: Myspace Myspace
Location: UK
Flash Mode - Your Groove
Link: Myspace
Location: Australia

Andrey Inchakov - Get out of My House
Link: Myspace
Location: Russia

Kamei - Hot
Link: Myspace
Location: Brazil

Aquilaganja - Mc Wobbler
Link: Myspace
Location: UK


Prowley Burglars - You Like
Link: Myspace
Location: Netherlands

Nu Raverz - Get Your Groove
Link: Myspace
Location: UK

Bonn Lewis - Role Reversal
Link: Myspace
Location: UK

Angry Saw - Kung Foo
Link: Website
Location: Russia

Sunday

Pro Showcase - It's Elementary, Mr Watson


We caught up with (currently London-based) South African purveyour of wibbly house groovers Kyle Watson for a quick chin wag in the latest in our "Pro Showcase" features.

We have a bunch of these ready to go live, so keep an eye on the blog and/or follow it in the right there!

As in most music "scenes", the Electro, Fidget, Jackin, whatever-you-wanna-call-it house scene has an element of "same same" about it; similar sounds, samples, synth presets etc.

The Kyle Watson style certainly does not fall into that bracket however, and it's that genuine originality that stands hm out from the crowd in my opinion.

So hi-fives and pats on the backs out the way, let's get down to bizniz....


Don - We'll start how we always start.... Describe your sound in 3 words?
Kyle Watson - Makes You Shuffle!

... sure does, and if you had one nugget of advice for unsigned dance music producers, what would it be?
Try from the start to focus on original works rather than making yourself available for endless remixes. Much more respect can be earned from songwriting from scratch than working from remix parts.

The question on everyone's lips (?!), what is your favourite VST Plugin?
I've really been experimenting a lot with Tone2's Gladiator, it's wicked for modulation and you can get pretty much any sound out of it that you want.

And who is(are) your tips for 2010? Which producers have your backing?
An artist that I met at a gig in Bristol called Eats Everything. He is making some really fresh stuff that's bouncy, techy and jacking all in one!

And what's next for you? What does the short-term future hold for Kyle Watson?
Release-wise I've got a three track EP lined up for release in January 2010 on Dandy Kid Records, as well as a collaboration EP that will be going out on Jack Union later this year. I'm booked to play the launch of Sketch Records at London's Ministry of Sound in early February, should be a good one.

Awesome, 2010 is waiting for you!

Catch up with Kyle, and sign up for his mailing list on his Myspace... and look out for him hitting this year where it hurts!

Until Next Time...




Don.

Dance Music Download Stores Market Share



If you are anything like me, and are interested in geeky stats relating to our wonderful scene, then you may find this post useful.

I thought I would compile a (sort of) definitive chart of market share for Digital Downloads. I say "sort of" definitive, because clearly it is only Venga Digital stats, and clearly therefore only a niche statistic range. But I would hazard a guess that you would get similar figures throughout the "Electro House" defined scene.

There has been much ado recently about the demise of some digital stores. DJDownload collapsed last year, and this year already there has been a few stores that have fallen.

It is my opinion (and my opinion only) that Beatport is the Daddy of Digital Download stores for Dance Music. They have a sizeable market share, and the figures you see below I would guess would ring true throughout all Dance Music genres. The Beatport Juggernaught shows no sign of stopping, and I often wonder how other stores survive on such a slim market share.

So on to the stats then. I have just realised that this post has no real "point" so forgive me for that, however it is demonstrating market share, and I have never seen such a pie chart, so I guess that counts for something. The sample by the way is large, and contains info on 18 months worth of statements in case you were wondering about skewed figures:




















































































Digital Store

Percentage

Beatport

69.48%

Itunes

9.51%

DJDownload

8.74%

Juno

5.81%

Stompy

2.40%

Trackitdown

1.72%

Napster

0.59%

Emusic

0.42%

Xpressbeats

0.25%

Traxsource

0.22%

Amazon

0.15%

Dancetracks

0.13%

Wasabeat

0.10%

247

0.09%

Digitaltunes

0.09%

Gigacrate

0.07%

Beatsdigital

0.04%

Boomkat

0.04%

7Digital

0.04%



Alas... there is a point to this, I guess the point is there is more to life than Beatport alone. According to these figures you can increase revenue by 40% if you are distributing to other stores than just Beatport.

So all you guys that have distributors, stick with it - that 15% you pay to them you are earning back in increased royalties.

Please drop me a comment if you found this post of use... or whether you thought it was a bit too nerdy, and I would be interested to hear any stories that would backup the stats above!

Until then....



Don.

Monday

December Top 10 Unsigned Demos




Danny Soundz & Caffeine ft Mr Eyes - Blast Off
Link: Myspace
Location: USA

Riddim Jacker - Ba Di So
Link: Facebook
Location: UK
Zifra - Let's Twist Again
Link: Myspace
Location: Russia

Anton Triplet - The Story Of Love
Link: MixedBy
Location: Russia

Exzo vs Drankypunky - Drastic
Link: Website
Location: Russia

Rossco - Skank Ya Feet
Link: Facebook
Location: UK


Attack Yourself! - Bang Gang (Ghosts of Venice Remix)
Link: Myspace
Location: UK

Paul Beltrami vs Dat Boy - My City
Link: Myspace
Location: UK

Jayvin Mena - Fidget Swirls
Link: Myspace
Location: Netherlands

Vex - In Da House
Link: Soundcloud
Location: Canada