INDUSTRY It's the Vinyl Countdown

Here's why including a vinyl (limited) edition, as the Joy Division group did a few years back, alongside the digipak makes sense...

Sales of vinyl could hit 2m in 2015, and have now been given their own chart by the official top 40 company.

Expensive remastered vinyl packages continue to abound, especially from longer established acts. Adam Ant (huge in the early/mid 80s), for example, is currently taking one past album at a time and reissuing in vinyl as a set with plentiful unreleased material and plush packaging as part of the deal. How does £40 for a Dirk Wears White Sox package sound to you (£60 if signed)? [update, 2016: limited stock/offer, here's the main store link]

WEBSITE Sly Antics Leeds, UK Indie band

IN THIS POST: Analysis of an obscure UK Indie band's website (for comparison with the major acts The Doors and Lady Gaga already blogged on), discussion of how relevant or not band websites are given the role of social media today, and points on why you might want to go for a local/student band rather than international stars... I also reviewed their debut video, making this more of a look at an all-round promo package. The band have tweeted me since I did this post; you can check out Sly Antics' updated website here!

WHY PICK A SMALL-TIME LOCAL (or even student) ACT?
You might be tempted to produce a promo package for a (currently!) small-time, local act rather than for a major existing/heritage artist. The closest I've seen to this thus far has been a group who entered the recording studio with their own metalcore band, Sunburnt in December, to produce the broadcast-quality audio required. Two of the group were Media students. This meant they had their cast sorted and a keen, engaged cast at that! They had to be ... they set up for performance footage in a snow-covered Yorkshire moors setting in what remains one of my favourite students videos (even if there were opportunities to improve it...). This video also came to mind given the main website image Sly Antics use (they also use it for other social media logos)

NB: the video contains FLASHING LIGHTS and scenes of horror

The advantages of local or student bands are evident:

Lego vid: Joy Division

This would be no easy path or shortcut to a music vid of your own, but may be of interest - and in any case, is another example of how UGC (user-generated content, or fan-made videos) acts as viral marketing for archive material; the fact that this isn't an official vid actually makes it more legitimate to mahy, as its not directly tied into record company profit-making. Many people will watch it and be introduced to Joy Division for the first time - part of your secondary audience for a vid made for a back catalogue track will likewise be new fans.


This next example is something of a curiosity: a 5-year old death metal vocalist, as publicised by Terrorizer magazine:

DIGIPAK: vinyl-style cds

Some of you asked about the vinyl-style cd used by the Joy Division group last year; I've been in touch with Jonny Hughes (recipient of the 2011 Media prize btw) and he tells me...

Hi Dave,

We bought the vinyl CDs from here. The label for the disc was done by making a template in Photoshop and printing it out on some general labelling paper.

The music videos are looking good so far this year - particularly like the Nine Inch Nails sample footage and two of the performance videos.

Anyway thanks again (and also for the Media prize)

Jonny Hughes

Company blogs

A really simple job but one which showcases your use of new media technologies, and also links to how you've gone about attracting an audience: setting up a separate blog for your production company.

Here's the JoyDiv blog from last year (also linked through their QR Code): http://newtransmissionrecords.blogspot.com/

Note the branding! This can be largely a place where you copy in podcasts + behind-the-scenes vodcasts, but also build up to release. A good place for a poll too!

QR Codes

We looked at how the JoyDiv group used these last year: when scanned using a smartphone, the browser is directed to the link programmed within the QRCode, in this case their production company blog.
Here's Callum's post on this (and the accompanying vid, embedded below; there can be a place for humour on your blog, and this is a good example of appropriate use of that)

Joy Division's Control via S.Africa

Interesting vid; cheaply made, the vid relies on getting the most from the monochrome/B+W look, with a strange concept approach fitting the detuned dance track. The track itself is Joy Division filtered through Depeche Mode, which may partially explain the loudhailer (a common leitmotif in DMode vids and covers, both shot by Corbijn, whose influence on this vid is stark and strong), though described here as 'darkwave township house', adding a specifically S.African touch to two widely known genres within this hybrid. I'd read it as a play on race, with the white suit and whitening flour (black liquid is also applied) key signifiers, but could be entirely wrong!
The track, and vid, are featured on the website for the achingly hip mag Dazed and Confused.