Consequence of Sound has a useful Album Release calendar that they put together, which gives people a heads up as to what releases are coming up and when.  Their release calendar can be found HERE.  If you’re a music journalist, it’s useful, because it allows you to plan ahead in terms of knowing what releases to […]

I was talking with a friend about songwriting credits the other day, probably an outgrowth of the Lizzo trademark controversy, and have been thinking about the term “singer-songwriter” – a phrase that I in fact use for myself. It’s funny because I think in actual usage, the image that comes to mind is a person […]

As I’ve used it before, the phenomenon of monetization of word of mouth refers to the practice whereby Facebook and other social media downgrade artistic media posts, forcing the artist to pay for advertisement in order get exposure for their work. The name “monetization of word of mouth” refers to the fact that Facebook literally […]

I would say I’m more spiritual than religious about socialism. But I was thinking the other day about how many socialist goals are difficult to align directly with things that musicians, and in particular singer-songwriters, want at first glance. For instance the concept of a union doesn’t obviously apply to singer-songwriters who work a bunch […]

The question I initially asked was whether St. Lenox had any competition in terms of critically acclaimed male Asian-American indie music acts in the United States. Hypothetically not a difficult task, since the indie category is so freakin broad as to render it not really a genre. In this case, the requirements are (1) Asian-American […]

I had an idea for playing shows, though it would take some time to carry out. The songs available at karaoke are a vast wilderness of perfectly good instrumentals with great chord progressions ready for songwriting. Given this, it is not difficult to write a new song with new lyrics based off of a karaoke […]

Should musicians play a Sofar event? The answer is that they should, if it is rational from an opportunity cost standpoint. For most musicians the answer to that question is probably yes, independent of whatever investment monies Sofar happens to secure. [Note: Investment is neither revenue nor profit]. If your average Sofar musician were to […]

Album Of the Year is a site that tabulates numbers for records that have been reviewed by a limited set of outlets, much like Metacritic, except they appear not to use a special weighting rubric to adjust the ratings of various outlets (or at least they initially did not) and moreover limit their outlet selection […]

There’s an ongoing push in some music circles to declare that the album is either dead or irrelevant, given the preference in consumers to absorb music by individual tracks versus by albums.  The argument, at least as its been trotted out lately, has been something to the effect of, “well, if the consumer absorbs music […]

The method for doing business as an independent musician has been shifting quite a bit over the past few years.  I’ve been trying very hard to diagnose the problem, and how to figure out a solution for it, but it’s a very complicated issue.  I think I’ve figured out one of the sources of problems, […]