Le blog du Baron

20/03/2008: THE RIGHT WAY TO BE PRESENT ON THE NET

I will be spending the next week or so in Singapore (more on that another time) so do not expect much blogging in that period.

But first I leave you with an excellent paper from TED DEMOPOULOS about the importance of ensuring a strong internet presence and how to achieve this:

Download effective-internet-presence.pdf

Although not written specifically for musician, a lot of points certainly apply nonetheless particularly on the need to establish strong and memorable branding.

Having some experience in marketing, this is something I have grown increasingly convinced of: in the (not so far away) future the music business will be more about establishing and marketing brands in 360° fashion than selling songs. But we'll come back to this soon enough ...

technorati tags: Ted Demopoulos branding memorability effective internet presence
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17/03/2008: CAN BLOG BUZZ IMPROVE YOUR SALES ?

Billboard.bizz reported recently here on to a new study from researchers at New York University. Prof Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang sampled 108 albums released between Jan/March of 2007 and evaluated that blog chatter can triple album sales (using Amazon.com rankings).

In short when an album got mention in more than 40 legitimate blog posts, sales were 3x the average; albums that got more than 250 blog mentions saw sales increases of 6x the average.

Here is the full report:

Download CEDER-07-06.pdf

Obviously I'm not the only who picked up on this report if I believe the number of emails I received recently from artist and labels asking me  to cover their latest releases. But since it was asked nicely and some of them are actually rather good here are my favourites:

1. www.myspace.com/ohcuster - in the style of many late 90s Britpop acts. Not very original in my views but makes for a nice listen anyway, particularly "Post" which seems to have gathered the most buzz on MySpace.
2. www.myspace.com/springfactory - another Sweden based band. Musically more to my taste with some pretty snappy ideas, even though I don't particularly like the voice of the singer.
3. www.myspace.com/thefashionDK - definitely my favourite pick of the day with an excellent remix which will find its way in the next issue of ZEROCAST. Very professional sound and sleek page (which is not a surprise since they are signed with Sony/BMG).
4. www.myspace.com/brokenrecorsedinburgh - they list Arcade Fire as one of their influences which is pretty obvious when you listen to several of their tracks. Some good ideas but they never managed to really touch you in the same way as AF. I'd say keep an eye on them for later.
5. Eugene Francis Jr - "Poor me" (for which I received the link) is a nice song, well produced/executed. This one will go straight to my mp3 player. More tracks at www.legionpresents.com/music.
6. Dowliners Sekt - did not get a chance to listen to it yet but they are making theire new release "The Saltire wave" available for free at www.downliners-sekt.com
7. www.myspace.com/kjetilgrande - pretty straightforward R&B although the voice of the singer is quite unexpected.

That's it. Now i'll get busy emailing all these people asking for the favour back. We'll see if I get any luck !

technorati tags: New York University Does Chatter Matter blog buzz billboard.bizz
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14/03/2008: NEW DIGITAL ZERO-STORE USING PAYPAL

Welcome to the brand new ZeroStore, where you can purchase all the music from Baron Zero as CD and in the future as high quality digital download (320 kpbs) using Paypal [this is the beta version so do not hesitate to get back to me in case of bugs. Thanks]

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11/03/2008: MANAGING AUDIENCES LIKE TRIBES

A very insightful talk from SETH GODIN, the author of 'Permission marketing', 'Small is the new big' and 'All marketers are liars' amongst others. Here is the transcript of a recent talk on the future of the music industry which Seth has posted on his website:

Download musicbusinesslive.pdf

Seth makes an excellent point about the need to identify to which specific tribes people belong and use music to reinforce this feeling of belonging to a specific group. This is not entirely new of course, music has always been a key element for young people to define their personality and find out who to hang with.

This dynamic was also successfully used by many brands such as Lynx/Axe (for which I did some work in Europe). But was in new is that technology is now making it much easier for people to connect with each others, building tribes and for artists to connect with these.

I can only invite you to check Seth's blog here.

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06/03/2008: HAVING THE COURAGE OF YOUR OPINIONS

I have to hand it down to Bjork: although I have not always been entirely convinced by some of her work, she has the courage of her opinions and does not give up on them for anyone, including the Chinese government. In a recent concert in Shangai, she has dedicated her song "Declare independance" to Tibet as she has done in the past in other places for Kosovo, etc ...

She also put this ip on her website here: "i have been asked by many for a statement after dedicating my song  "declare independence"  to both kosovo and tibet ( amongst others ) on different  occasions.

i would like to put importance on that i am not a politician, i am first and last a musician and as such i feel my duty to try to express the whole range of human emotions. the urge for declaring independence is just one of them but an important one that we all feel at some times in our lives. this song was written more with the personal in mind but the fact that it has translated to its  broadest meaning, the struggle of a suppressed nation, gives me much pleasure . 

i would like to wish all individuals and nations good luck in their battle for independence.

justice !


warmth , björk.

Respect

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01/03/2008: ZEROCAST #13

A lucky #13 for our latest issue of Zerocast ? Your ears will probably agree once they had a chance to listen to new killer remixes form Radiohead, Feist, Dave Gahan or Bloc Party as well as Yelle and Justice for a bit of French electro-flair.

1. RADIOHEAD Reckoner (LoveTongueAttack Bmore Remix) download buy
2. FEIST My moon, my man (Arabesque remix) download buy
3. DAVE GAHAN Deeper And Deeper (Sebastien Leger Remix) download buy
4. BATTLES Tonto (Four Tet Remix) download buy
5. JUSTICE Phantom Pt II (Soulwax Nite Version) downnload buy
6. INTERPOL Mammoth (Erol Alkan remix) download buy
7. KAISER CHIEFS The angry mob (Buffalo Bill Remix) download buy
8. BLOC PARTY Flux (JFK Remix) download buy
9. YELLE Ce Jeu (Cool Kids Can’t Die remix) download buy
10. TV ON THE RADIO Staring At The Sun (Bryan Hyde Remix) download buy
11. TOKYO POLICE CLUB Your english (Shy Child remix) download buy
12. THE RAVEONETTES Dead Sound (Digital Leather Remix) download buy

All the tracks featured in this blog are the sole property of their owner(s). If you like what you hear, please support  the artists by buying their original work or going to see their concert. If you would like your songs removed from this site, email me directly and I will take them off as soon as possible.

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