More and more these days, the music of independent unsigned music artists is integrated into our daily lives. Creative music licensing. It’s pretty much everywhere – on TV, obviously on the radio (online and traditional formats), at the gas pump, in department stores, grocery stores, the list goes on and on.
Thanks to insomnia, just in one day while flipping through channels I heard a few of our friend’s bands on TV (which will remain the most popular vehicle for song placements for quite some time to come) as I attempted to clear out my DVR’s recordings.
This was a few months ago, and I’d initially planned to publish this post at that time (if you can believe it, that was back in January) after having had a similar encounter with an all too familiar soundtrack comprised of more friend’s bands which included: Spider Problem’s “Cha, Cha” on some “Gossip Girl” teaser, Bang Sugar Bang’s “Where’s the Fun in That?” on a re-run of “The Hills” (I think it was a re-run I hadn’t seen that show in eons?), and of course with Samsung having gone the way of Sprint with featuring a local LA band late last year, (The Happy Hollows) on their Google Phone Commercial (Sprint featured iO Echo on their Palm Pre commercial). Just because the programming isn’t quality (but then again, I’m also not necessarily the target market of the shows mentioned), that doesn’t mean the music getting played isn’t and people won’t take notice of it.
I’m sure there was a lot more that I didn’t catch. In fact a couple of years ago I couldn’t watch many of the shows on TV without hearing a band I knew on shows. This will only become more and more true for years to come. Some of those that I recall included, but aren’t limited to: The New Fidelity, Silver Needle, Bang Sugar Bang, The Mulhollands, The Waking Hours, and The Automatic Music Explosion all on the WB and MTV, Get Set Go on Grey’s Anatomy (they even made the soundtrack)– those are just some I can think of off the top of my head, the list goes on and on. I won’t even get started on films.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but songs have a tendency to stick in my head. Name of song and artist not always so much. At least not at first listen, unless I happen to know them personally or it’s all over the place (an example from earlier in the year, Phoenix’s “Listomania”). At times all I can remember is a few of the lyrics, and those lyrics won’t get out of my head. I want to hear them again.
So what do I do?
Hope that episode plays again and they announce the artist name and song title?
No. Even if the episode airs again they may not give the band/artist credit (shows and commercials are getting so much better about this though).
Hope that I hear the song on the radio?
Tough chance. I rarely listen to the radio, but even if I did there’s a rare chance that I would happen to catch an “indie” artist’s music on KLOS 95.5 or any of those other stations. I might possibly hear it on KCRW 88.9, but I’d have to listen to it all day. I’d have a much better chance of catching it on an internet radio station like www.kexp.org, or somafm.com that has more freedom (and usually better taste) to play these independent artists.
So again, what do I do?!
What I do, is an online search of just those lyrics that I can remember. Half of the time I can find the song and then either proceed to check out more music from this artist/band and possibly purchase that track and maybe more tracks if they’re available for purchase somewhere convenient (preferably iTunes, Amazon, or the band’s site).
However, it’s the other half of the time that worries me. The other half of the time, when I don’t locate the song I’m looking for via a quick search of the lyrics. I will rarely spend much time searching for this info, although I will sometimes enlist the help of others with this, but this is only if I really want to hear the song again.
The failed searches tell me that there are still that many independent artists that take the time to go through the process of getting into the song placement game of licensing and publishing, yet don’t really take advantage of all of the benefits that these placements could potentially bring them.
In my world, chances are if I send the lyrics that I can remember of the song I can’t identify to some friends or try to sing it to them (no one should be subjected to this type of torture) or tell them what show it was on they may know who the artist/band is.
Heck, I may even know the person responsible for putting that song in that commercial, film, or show.
However, as much as we sometimes tend to live in the small bubble that Los Angeles can turn into there are hundreds of millions of residents in not only other cities in California alone, but in the other 49 other states (approximately 304 million in 2009) in the U.S. alone, not to mention all of those other countries that also have access to viewing the same programming that we get. Wouldn’t you want to make it as easy as possible for someone who is into your music to find it?
Well putting your lyrics on a website dedicated to housing them, is in my book a smart move. This way if a person types in a few of your song’s lyrics into a search engine, the results will typically include your song as an option to check out. Add your lyrics to a few of these sites and your chances of having your song found will increase. This isn’t Vegas, the odds are in your favor.
To digress a little, I never understood why back when CD’s were how we primarily purchased music, artists and bands didn’t all include lyrics to their songs. I know that it’s sometimes hard for an artist/band to put something so personal such as lyrics out there, but this day in age it really is something to consider. To me a great song is only as good as it’s lyrics. Lyrics are one of the most powerful tools a band/aritist has in it’s arsenal. If your lyrics can resonate with people to the point where they can at the very least relate to what you were feeling when you wrote them, then you are well on your way to gaining some die-hard fans. Most of my favorite all-time songs are my favorites due to certain lyrics within the body of the song. These artists made me feel something (whether it be happiness, nostalgia, regret, sympathy, sadness, or even anger). One day I may share some of these with you, but that is not the focus of this post today.
Another thing I also realized once I got older and became more familiar with the printing/replication/duplication process than I’d ever hoped to, was that it was probably primarily due to the costs that would be incurred for printing cd booklets with multiple pages, as printing lyrics out could add up.
The majority of consumers, however, will probably have stopped buying cd’s long before you’re ready to stop playing music. Most of us have had the internet around for most of our lives and are either familiar enough with it to navigate our way around it easily enough to accomplish such a simple task like posting those lyrics. If you can create a blog posting or create a Facebook event/message promoting your latest release or show then you can easily put your lyrics on one of the sites that house lyrics. All it takes is some time, some copying and pasting, a few clicks and that’s it.
In addition, putting your lyrics on these sites I believe, for the most part is a free service. I don’t know exactly which would be the better one to post them on, but I’m sure that is something you can find out with a little research. The main ones that seem to pop up when I do searches are www.lyrics.com, www.sing365.com, www.azlyrics.com, and www.songlyrics.com.
I’m not saying you should post every song you’ve ever written, however, those that you are actively promoting or currently have licensed/published should take precedence.
If only all aspects of being a music artist could be as simple as that. Yes, it’s yet another thing you must find the time to do, and generally you should only have to do it once per song per site and I think just getting the lyrics onto one of the more popular sites might suffice. It’s just a matter of figuring out which is the most visible.
An even better idea would be to put lyrics on your own site as well, because when did added traffic/hits to their site ever hurt a band or artist?
I hope the next time someone in Iowa goes to Google your song lyrics because they heard you on that episode of “The Real World,” they can find your song and then buy your music and proceed to tell their friends about you.
photo originally published here
I adore that site layout ! How do you make it!? It is rather good.