How Sony BMG Turned Musicians into Bloggers

By: Lior | in: General, Music, Technology |

Sony BMG UK introduced a blogging initiative in an effort to dispose of unsolicited physical material being sent to their labels. In partnership with social network destination, Vox.com, the second largest music company in the world is set to jump on the massive blogging trend and encourage fledgling artists to submit their material digitally in a free and open networking environment.

Chairman of Sony BMG UK, Ged Doherty, assures the musical public that online interaction between artists and A&R will be the order of the day and will diminish the likelihood of great acts being missed as a result of postal administration.
For those of you who know how hard it is to get your foot in the door of any label, let alone a major, this could be wonderful way to learn about label staff and get them to hear you. Due to the nature of this system, staff will be able to decipher between the good and the bad through public feedback and in an inter-personal environment. I can only imagine that every artist will want to be a part of this and the limited A&R staff will have their work cut out for them.

Ged Doherty for Sony BMG:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LreqFrCws3U

Is there an ulterior motive here? Well, perhaps this opportunity of being heard by the industry leaders is more of a hook to market existing acts on the label as opposed to discovering new ones. As the blog network (www.rcademos.co.uk, www.columbiademos.co.uk and www.gedblog.vox.com) is open to all, and the subscribing artists are unsigned, Ged and his team may not necessarily be the ones signing and, in turn, profiting from their discoveries. Either that or they will need to act very quickly - not a trait generally associated with large corporations.
For any online music platform, getting a major label on board is big beans. Most musicians have websites, MySpace profiles, EPKs etc. in the hope that an A&R person will notice. Many online destinations promise to bridge the gap between artists and labels. Now, the initiative is coming from the labels themselves and exclusively to Vox - wow!
If the other major labels do not sensationalise their own online profiles and A&R prospects, and Ged and his staff discover and develop a star through this, we may find ourselves with the most popular music blog of the decade… but I doubt it. There is a certain lack of charisma about the whole thing. See for yourself:

Mike Smith for Columbia Records:
[youtube]qiUK3SEfYbA&NR=1[/youtube]

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Posted on April 15, 2007

Comments

7 Responses to “How Sony BMG Turned Musicians into Bloggers”

Rustycat on April 15th, 2007 1:11 am

I’m really looking forward to see if it works. It’s a pretty smart marketing trick Sony are pulling here. We’ll see if the artists bite…

Kendall on April 15th, 2007 5:50 am

Great article Lior! This is definitely worth the time for young artists.

Charbarred on April 15th, 2007 7:59 am

It seems like it’s quite a success. Apparently Columbia got 500 submissions in 3-4 days.

DThompson on April 15th, 2007 5:12 pm

Yes, there does seem to be a certain “unenthused” quality to the two vids. I suspect that this is the large gray face of big business entering what is essentially an artistic world. Still, I can’t see how this will fail to benefit unsigned artists. The only one who loses is the post office!

geekgasmic.com on April 15th, 2007 10:13 pm

How Sony BMG Turned Musicians into Bloggers

Sony BMG UK introduced a blogging initiative in an effort to dispose of unsolicited physical material being sent to their labels. In partnership with social network destination, Vox.com, the second largest music company in the world is set to jump on t…

noreene bostick on April 16th, 2007 10:05 am

I’m looking forward to submitting lots of my original works. I’ve purchased all the tools to be able to create my music dvd’s, do live shows with projector/screens, create videos for ipods as well as for the internet. Instructions was given to me years ago to invest in these tools, not only for myself but also for many, many others. The cost of videos is very expensive compared to the cost of paying musicians to rehearse, perform, etc.. This lead me to invest in myself and my future. This has really paid off. I’m now able to submit as many times my videos and am looking forward to helping others with their music endeavors. Music afterall is the universal language. Coming into contact with this site is trully amazing and I have met wonderful people because of Music.

Lior on April 17th, 2007 6:48 am

Thanks for all of your comments.

I think this initiative represents the starting line of many more with a greater commitment from the executives themselves. Pehaps we can expect to see an entire online A&R division set-up as part of the process and not just a blog run by top-level management who don’t really have the time to deal with it? We shall see..