The one thing you probably aren’t thinking while watching the Grammys is “wow, look at this amazing showcase for independent music.” (Last night, I expect you were thinking something more along the lines of, “I was supposed to get 3D glasses for this? Augh! I’m dizzy! Switch it off!”)

But keep score, and independent artists and labels are a huge part of the Grammy Award-winning roster. And with indies invading even the most mainstream of music events, that’s a strong indication of how big a part of the industry independent music is becoming. (Side note: yes, I’m aware that the definition of “indie” is murky at best. But looking at the broad trend, there’s still something here. There’s a difference between an artist self-releasing and being on RCA; examples below. In short, this may not be what most of us would call “indie,” but it’s a big shift away from the traditional role of the “major.”)

Want an example? How about “Album of the Year” Taylor Swift’s Fearless? And it’s not incidental that Taylor Swift thanked said label for allowing her to write all her own songs. (My own personal fandom of Taylor Swift ranks up there somewhere with Kanye West’s, but I think that’s worth noting.)

One of the groups keeping score at the Grammy Awards is A2IM, a not-for-profit that represents the independent music community. This year, says A2IM, some 43 awards can be considered “indie,” including the categories Pop, Rock, Alternative, Country, New Age, Jazz, Gospel, Tropical Latin, Tejano, Norteno, Bando, Americana, Bluegrass, Blues, Folk, Hawaiian, Native American, Zydeco/Cajun, World, Spoken Word, Comedy, Surround Sound, & Classical genres, and also scored for Best Recording Package.

Artists (aside from Taylor Swift) include PHOENIX, Steve Earle, and one of my long-time personal favorites, Buckwheat Zydeco. Looking over the list, I see quite a few indie selections. Rounder Records alone won Best Pop Instrumental Performance (Béla Fleck), Best Bluegrass Album (winner Steve Martin — yes, that Steve Martin — and nominee Rhonda Vincent), and two nominations for a Woody Guthrie re-issue. Rounder last year won best album of 2009 for “Raising Sand.”

Electronic music gets just one category, and that was won by Lady Gaga. (Interscope, her label, is part of Universal so, erm, definitely not indie.) But nominee The Crystal Method went their own way with Divided by Night, releasing on their own Tiny E Records. When I talked to the duo in the spring, they talked about how important it was to focus on their own creative muse rather than the demands of a major label.

Being an independent artist isn’t necessarily the right decision for every artist. Imogen Heap is signed to RCA. But being an artist who’s independently-minded, too, can be important.

I think it’s a really powerful statement that Imogen Heap won a Grammy for “Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical” for her record Ellipse. It’s rare for artists engineering their own albums to win, period, and this is a profoundly dude-dominated category, to boot. Whoever you’re signed to, you know it’s the artists who are motivated who can achieve the most. Imogen Heap’s savvy use of Twitter, her connection with her fans, and her ability to manage her own career must make the folks at RCA and Megaphonic Records very, very happy. And incidentally, even this demonstrates the way the majors themselves have changed: a lot of the majors have gone to small imprints that operate with the agility of the indie labels.

Discussion of Imogen Heap’s win on her fan forums

It’s a new world out there – even if we still have those dorky 3D glasses from the 50s.

The full list:
http://www.grammy.com/nominees

*Disclaimer: I can’t actually stand the Grammys, generally speaking. But that’s why I looked for something interesting to pull out of it, which this, to me, was. It means even at the awards ceremony that’s the greatest expression of major label power, major label power is waning. I’m sure I won’t be misunderstood, of course, that each commenter will read with great care all the nuances of what I’m saying.

Trent Reznor posted yesterday that the Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication reissue is “how you sell music today”. As a rebuttal to the usual “that only works for established artists” replies, he’s followed this up with an extended post on what artists who haven’t reached the Beasties or NIN level of profile can do to get established.

NIN’s $300 deluxe edition of Ghosts sold out in under two days, grossing $750,000. The first week combined sales grossed $1.6million, despite being released for free under a Creative Commons license. (Photo CC Nick Humphries)

Having been part of a reasonably high profile band with an album released through the label system, Trent’s post reads like a list of “how I wish it had been”. Every point he makes is absolutely spot on. The article is filled with active verbs. Make. Give. Sell. Share. Release. Start. Engage. Film. This is the crux of how creators succeed in the digital age: They do things. Rather than waiting for someone else to tell them how to make money from a product that can be easily garnered for free, the people who are doing well are making it up as they go along, trying new things. You know… being creative.

As a web developer, director and general creative tech geek, Trent’s closers are especially poignant:

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on – like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace – it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content – pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any – Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

Check out the rest of the article.

For digital artists, a lot of the web and technological networking comes easier than to rock bands. When a laptop is part of your rig, hopefully you understand computers better than someone who exclusively hits their instrument with sticks (SPD20s aside), because you use the computer for music regularly. Ed.: This is a simple fact – if you’re a digital artist, regardless of your instrument, you spend more time behind the screen than people who are conventional instruments – so you should have no excuse for making the most of that technology once the production and performance phase are done. -PK We’re also in the middle of a huge mobile web expansion phase. Now that everyone has web enabled computers in their pockets, what you can do while you’re out there playing shows is getting better and better; I just spent the evening configuring an online store which can be administered via its own iPhone app. If this had been available two years ago, a whole lot more CD orders would have been delivered on time.

Giving some solid metrics to bolster Trent’s advice, Michael Masnick’s (founder of Techdirt) recent presentation at the NARM 2009 conference is truly fantastic.

NARM 2009 State Of The Industry: Michael Masnick from NARM on Vimeo.

The presentation is quite long at 31 minutes, but he breaks it up with 515 slides, so it feels punchy. It expands on many of the points Trent makes, and touches on some themes we’ve been interested in here at CDM. Interestingly, he gives some revenue and sales statistics on the Nine Inch Nails “Ghosts” release: $1.6 million gross in the first week, from an album which was released for free under a Creative Commons license.

Having been quite deeply involved in the “old” way of doing things, and having experimented in the last year with faster, cheaper live performance videography and similarly streamlined “studio” production, I feel that I’m replete with the kool aid, and comfortable with a future in which I’m not looking for “a contract”. In fact, this evening I called my bandmate over and convinced him that the album we’re about to record and shoot will be released entirely under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Finished tracks and stems, music videos and source files, animation sprites, live footage, album artwork, and whatever else we create.

I’ve long believed that “free” and “open” is a big part of the future of creative industries. The label system has kept creators and fans at arms length. Last year I was a rightsholder on an album which spent a week in the top 5 sellers on iTunes in Australia. I know nothing about any of the listeners who put it there. Next album release, I want to know all of those fans by name.