slotMusic.org | Press Release

See also GearLog, which notes that SanDisk previously did a free promotional SD of music

Wired News asks, “but why?”, to which I’d answer – it might well be easier to load music onto a phone in parts of the world other than the US, you might more easily distribute videos, and artists looking to increase the value of their CDs could innovate on revitalizing album art.

First, let’s start with the players, as that’s basically the big news here.

Hardware: SanDisk, the folks who invented flash storage and make more of it than anyone else

Labels: A huge set of the majors – EMI Music (which includes the likes of Angel, Capitol, Blue Note, and Astrelwerks), Sony BMG, Warner Music (including Atlantic, Nonesuch, Rhino), and the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group

Retailers: Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and other US retailers, with Europe to follow – keeping in mind, Wal-Mart remains the biggest brick-and-mortar seller in the US

When it’s happening: Exact date TBA, but officially by the holidays

Which artists: Most likely, lots of them. An EMI representative who spoke with CDM confirmed two chart-topping examples: Coldplay’s Viva la Vida and Kate Perry’s One of the Boys.

Now, you’d be right to be skeptical of how this format will be received, but it’s certainly a big distribution play with that arrangement of labels and retailers.

The hardware in question is basically SanDisk’s tiny removable flash memory format microSD, rebranded and repackaged as slotMusic. (A representative of SanDisk tells us there are some other subtle technological differences; more on that soon.) The important thing about this is that the hardware you buy has no DRM on it at all; it’s just standard flash memory you can plug into phones and mobile devices, or, via a tiny included USB sleeve, a computer.

SanDisk’s format specifies DRM-free, 320 kpbs MP3s as the music format. Gruvi, SanDisk’s previous attempt at turning their lucrative flash memory business into a music format was a miserable failure, but by contrast, it was locked with DRM features and, excepting a big release by the Rolling Stones, lacked support from labels and retailers. (I see Gruvi has even been largely erased from SanDisk’s website.)

What’s the Business Angle?

My colleague Eoin Rossney sent me this story under a headline on Ireland’s SiliconRepublic.com that screams “SanDisk and big labels in tech deal that could save the music business.” That’s obviously hyperbolic, but it’s also wrong. To me, it seems to be about three things:

1. It’s an experiment. Music labels want their music everywhere they can get it – as, frankly, they should; that’s their job.

2. It’s a massive end run around iTunes. Remember, part of what helped prompt some of the more stubborn labels to remove DRM was the realization that their DRM deal with Apple had placed Apple in the position of dominating download sales for the device most people owned.

3. Most phones aren’t iPhones. Labels will continue to do business with iTunes because iTunes is selling their music – but they’d be nuts to turn their back on the rest of the mobile phone market, which is far bigger. The press release notes 1.2 billion phones are due to ship this year, a number Apple can’t approach even with all their iPods and iPhones put together. In fact, it’s hard to wonder if, on a global scale, iPod won’t slip into the shadows with the number of increasingly multimedia-savvy phones out there.

Despite the hip factor of the iPhone, Apple has a tiny slice of an exploding global market for mobile devices. Instead of using a cable and a fancy vendor-specific store, you can just give people music they can pop directly into their phone, which – from vendors other than Apple – typically has a microSD slot. And as I noted last week, Apple’s alternative is a store/software sync arrangement that they control exclusively.

Music Everywhere, and Back on Objects

I’m not sure slotSD will be the “new CD,” or that it even needs to be. I think it’s better to see this as one of a variety of options you’ll see for music distribution. And, of course, even slotSD is best understood in the context of a growing amount of music showing up on flash memory, because it combines the flexibility of digital formats with physical objects.

“This is one of many initiatives to make our music available in as many different forms as possible,” Jeanne Meyer of EMI Music tells CDM. “Our big MO is to experiment with as many as possible.”

EMI, for one, has a record of trying just this sort of thing. There was a re-release of Radiohead’s studio albums on memory stick, though that seemed to cause some controversy. EMI has even toyed with big retail, with a release of UK superstar Robbie Williams at England’s own big box, The Carphone Warehouse. (It’d be interesting to know what sales were like.)

Of course, you can easily download files. Physical media is all about the object. A SanDisk representative confirms that labels are planning physical liner notes and album art in the package. You can also expect the memory to be loaded with digital extras, in the form of artwork, videos, and the like. Given the middling quality of online video, and the fact that bandwidth costs aren’t going down at the rate many had hoped, I think that could mean higher quality and more access to video via physical formats than online.

Indie Artists and Digital Contents

So, I imagine for many of you not on Sony BMG, and listening to many artists who aren’t, this won’t be terribly earth-shaking news. But I do know SanDisk reassures CDM that they have worked with indies in the past on various promotional projects.

What can artists do with a format like this? Well, they can load it up with goodies that might actually be otherwise rack up bandwidth costs. One excellent example of an artist experimenting with this format is Sound Tribe Sector 9. They sent their latest release, Peaceblaster, to me. It’s loaded up not only with the files for the album, but extra images, podcasts, a screensaver, and videos. We saw these kinds of extras squeezed onto CDs at one point via formats like Enhanced CD, but there’s no question it’s more convenient on USB stick.

I think the big challenge will be how to make these contents interesting and unique, and even with bandwidth costs comparing unfavorably against increasingly high-definition media, how to compete with online alternatives.

Somehow, I imagine the slotMusic format winding up being a plain-vanilla blister pack that, stuck in a dull music department in Best Buy, just confuses consumers. I’m happy to be proven wrong there. But there is, in the meantime, plenty of room for independent artists and labels to innovate with short-run releases and ideas for what to pack inside the digital media that no one has thought of yet. And while majors have earned the skepticism of consumers and artists alike, I wouldn’t be surprised to see majors being more adventurous – especially once they discover that, in addition to the perils digital media pose, there could be a significant profit payoff for those experiments.

Actually, forget everything I’ve said in this entire article, and let me sum it up in one line:

If physical distribution brings art back to album releases, it’s a good thing, and it’ll work.

The generation of music lovers staring into album art wasn’t wrong.

I usually try to steer clear of the marketing crud, but this is too bizarre to pass up. Taco Bell, anxious to jump on this whole “indie music” bandwagon, is using the only currency it has: combinations of refried beans, cheese, rehydrated ground meat, and tortillas.

Here’s the plan: they find 100 bands, and give them $500 in Taco Bell food while they’re on tour — just in case the burritos were the one thing breaking your tour budget. (Okay, there is that whole fuel cost and lodging thing, but get some bikes and a tent and you should be fine.)

The grand prize: the kind of fame that can only come from including hot sauce packets in your marketing plan. And to think, all this time people have been chasing music press and blogs and word of mouth and such. PR helpfully tell us that they’ll get “a well-known indie rock producer” to record the single. (Wait — aren’t “indie” and “well-known producer” supposed to be mutually exclusive?) But it’s really the hot sauce packets that seal the deal:

The singles will then be promoted on www.feedthebeat.com and through online advertising and in-store efforts in the Spring of 2009, as the Web site address will be featured on Taco Bell’s iconic Sauce Packet, which reaches more than 208 million people in about a month.

Oddly, talking about this has only made me hungry. I know, I know — I’ll try to find a real burrito, not a Taco Bell.

If a CDM reader happens to win this, we’ll be proud to see your name in lights extra spicy.

feedthebeat.com

Reader Mark notes that, as covered in Pitchfork, Girl Talk got the right idea after last year’s contest and shared their taco winnings with fans. Now that’s good publicity.

Readers: got better ideas for viral condiment marketing? (Oooh, wait, I shouldn’t say the word “viral” in the same breath as a fast food joint, should I?)

You can be making incredible music, but if no one knows about it you probably won’t be making it for very long. Having a good project name is the first step to getting publicity and having your music heard by a large amount of people.

Don’t be difficult. It has to be easy to pronounce and say over the phone. Try to avoid using numbers for letters (leet speak) since it will confuse people. Yes, there are exceptions like “!!!,” μ-siq, and whatnot, but the object is to make it easy for the press to write about you and for people to talk about you. While you’re welcome to choose a difficult name, it’s only going to make the rest of your publicity efforts that much harder.

Steer clear of profanity. While James Fucking Friedman has a somewhat high profile, whenever he gets listed in local papers that don’t allow profanity they star out either the entire middle word or just use stars after the F. People will get confused–”Did they star out ‘Faggot,’ ‘Fucking,’ or ‘Fellatio’? Should I Google for James Star Star Star?” Also profanity limits the types of publications that will feature you. While XLR8R and URB are magazines that are pretty laid back about their language, you might one day discover that your music has an interesting crossover audience (be it mountain climbers or acoustic engineers) and you want to make it easy for those types of journalists to approach you and write about you and your music.

It sounds good. Pick three of your favorite names. Say them out loud. Ask some friends what they think and notice how they respond. Do they laugh out loud when you’re aiming for a super serious image (”Abfahrt Hinwil” might cause some giggling)? It may sound obvious, but electronic musicians who tend to work alone and communicate through their computers could use some IRL human feedback once in a while.

No one else has it. While I wouldn’t say you should register for a trademark just yet, you should research as best you can if anyone else is using your name. You don’t want to shell out money for a domain name and spend years growing your project and fan base just to be hit with a cease and desist or worse, a lawsuit (look at Dan Snaith’s Caribou (formerly Manitoba) debacle.) Do some web searches to see if you can determine if anyone’s using your name. The US Patent office has an online search engine called TESS where you can search for trademarks in use. Search for all the words in your desired name, and then search for each one alone and see if they return anything similar. If you’re considering trademarking your name, it’s a very good idea but it will cost you a few hundred bucks. You can file online and read more here: http://www.uspto.gov.

It can be you, as long as you’re not already in use. You can use your own name as long as it’s not in use already and you won’t be confused for someone else. Can you imagine being the second Derrick May in Detroit? You might get a huge turnout for your first gig but the promoter and venue will hate you after the riot of pissed off people who thought they bought tickets to see one of the godfathers of Detroit techno. This second Derrick May in question used his middle name instead to avoid confusion, resulting in Derrick Michael.

Webify it. Get a domain name when you’ve settled on your choice. Although you might just want to use Myspace as your website, Myspace is not press-friendly, and if you adopt that early-90s bad-website look with repeating graphic as the background or garish colors it’s going to be unreadable (and incredibly annoying). Plus, with your own website you have total control over your image and don’t have to worry about deleting comments and photos posted by jerks. Then check to see if your choice is a domain in use already. I got lucky because mine is a completely made up word (Quantazelle) so the domain was available. If it’s not, see if you can add “music” “sounds,” or something else to the end of it and then grab it. If not, you might consider finding a different name, but it’s not a deal killer. While you might want to opt for something clever as your domain name, you want to make it easy for people to find information about you. A web search for your project name should return your site as one of the first results because your name is in the domain itself.

Some ideas for generating project names:

Take a passage from a favorite work of literature or a poem,. For example, “Joy Division” is from The House of Dolls by Karol Cetinsky.

Use an anagram. Aphex Twin relied heavily on this to name many of his songs. “Acrid Avid Jam Shred” on I Care Because You Do is an anagram of “Richard D. James”. Here’s an online anagram generator to experiment with: wordsmith.org/anagram.

Try playing with this emo-band name generator: www.bandnamemaker.com

Check out this tool for generating band names: www.greatnameforaband.com. On my first try I got “Galacticide” which is actually really cool.

Here’s another one: www.bandlookup.com. I put in “bandpass’ and got such gems as “Bandpass Disorder” and “Half-Ass Bandpass.”

Create an alias by generating combinations of male or female names with last names: kleimo.com/random. An example of this in action is “Malcom Kipe” who is actually Nautilis aka Skyler McGlothlin.

Take a hint from the Dada-ist poetry methods of William S. Burrows and do a “cut-up.” Grab a newspaper or any other sliceable piece of literature and cut out a bunch of words from it. Then toss them on a flat surface and see what interesting combinations happen.

Make a portmanteau. “Devo” is a concatenation of “de-evolution.” “Quantazelle” is a combination of “Quantum and Gazelle.”

Create a phrase that congers up imagery of what your music sounds like, such as “Explosions in the Sky.” It’s a little difficult if you’re not a poetic or literary type, but you can ask other people for help. Just say “If you could think of an image that sounds like my music, what would it be?” Gathering a group of people in a room together along with some alcohol or other relaxing substance is a very conducive environment for name generating.

So now that you’re better equipped for the first part of your publicity efforts, why don’t you get started on that brainstorming? Good luck!