Decline in hit albums - good news for Indie artists.

2006 was the worst year for hit albums in 23 years.
According to the RIAA's database,only 285 albums went gold, platinum or multiplatinum (that's 500,000, 1,000,000 and 1-10 million units sold respectively).
At the same time, legal digital downloads, digital music players and an interest in music in general is higher than it's ever been.
So what's happening?
A paradigm shift! (a way of thinking and collection of beliefs and values that is changing).
Instead of music only being available through record stores in CD through a record labels, new technology and the Web has opened up a wider market and the money earnt by a few big labels is now spreading out to a wider group of artists.
So while the mainstream music label arena is beginning to feel the pinch, for the independent artist the news is far from gloom and doom - in fact it's looking good for us.
People are directing their attention to blogs, podcasts and streaming videos posted on sites such as MySpace, YouTube and new contesters such as Helloworld which has introduced live webcasting (meaning you can perform live on the net - just like live TV).
Instead of music being a selection of big hits (and flops) it has now become a case of smaller hits and discovered niches.
The attention (and the money) is spreading out to more musicians.
This is THE time for indie musicians with new technology giving us the tools we need to get our music out there.
The rest is up to us.

Excellent free applications and plugins from Analog x

Browsing the other day I discovered this site and some excellent free software.

I particularly liked the "AnalogX Scratch" and have been playing around with this with some cool results.

Below are some examples of what is available from the site.

Why should DJ's have all the fun scratching records? It just isn't fair, and when people across the globe are being ridiculed and laughed at by their peers just because they don't have some 1200's and a bunch of records; then it's time for the ULTIMATE equalizer -> AnalogX Scratch! If you can move the mouse, then you can scratch like the best DJ's in the world! Really! Ok, not really, you still need to practice a whole bunch, but at least you don't need to buy any LP's or turntables! No records getting scratched, no needles needing to be replaced, or belts breaking (assuming you're not on a 1200) at the most inopportune times! With AnalogX Scratch, you can load up two wave files (one to help you keep rhythm, the other to actually scratch), and start scratching away... Best of all, when you've come up with something you really like, you can output it to a 16bit, 44.1k WAV file! This is GREAT for creating custom scratches for songs, whether you transfer it over to your Emax or load it up in Acid! And just so you aren't starting from scratch (no pun intended), two WAV files are included in the install so you can get a feel for what it's all about!
http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/audio/scratch.htm

Have you ever wanted to know exactly what BPM (Tempo) a song was at? Well, there's a better way then guessing, and TapTempo is the tool to do it. Simply run TapTempo, play the song, and press the spacebar on every beat; after a few seconds, you'll see the tempo (along with other info) displayed!http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/audio/taptempo.htm

Rhyme is, if you couldn't guess by the name, a rhyming program - or better yet, a rhyming dictionary program. Type in any word (it knows more than 100,000!), tell it how many syllables to match (or phonemes), and click 'Rhyme'; it's that simple. Words appear in the dialog below, and simply use the one that works for whatever you're doing. It can rhyme words forward, backwards, and with matching syllable counts.http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/audio/rhyme.htm

Get your music exposure in the Japanese market.

Looking to expand into the Japanese market with your music?
fishthemusic.com has started a whole-new promotional service called "Artists' Explosion in Japan" for you. It plays your music on our web-radio "music-islands.com." It's already had more than 15,000 unique users/a month, and 1,500 visitors/a day, with over 500,000 page-views (Nov, 2006). Playing your music on the website makes it easy for you to be heard not only by Japanese music fans, but also by the Japanese music biz scene. Submission Fee is only 3,000 JPY ($26 US).
I browsed through the site and thought it may have some possibilities (you would have to possibly consider finding a retail outlet for your music where fans can purchase your recordings once they have heard them on the station).

You Go Girl! The musicians resource site just for the ladies.

Gogirlsmusic.com is the oldest and largest community of indie women musicians.
Their mission is to promote, support and empower their members. Theorganization started in 1996 with a vision of connecting femalemusicians from around the world. Ten years later,GoGirlsMusic.com has become a welcome destination for women inmusic through networking and events, producing the annual GoGirlsMusicFest and Invasion of the GoGirls @ SXSW.

Online Consumers Are Re-Energizing the Music Industry.Survey Links Online Music to Music Listening, Exploration, Discussion and Concert-Going Habits

WASHINGTON -- Digital music consumers listen to more music, enjoy more new music, talk more about music and attend more concerts, according to a survey released by the Digital Media Association (DiMA).

A very interesting and encouraging article.

Read the full story Here

New Directory for indie musicians (and it's free).

Indie Musicians know the value of their music and the need to have their new music in front of new music lovers worldwide who are looking for new independent music. With limited budget given to promotions, indie musicians have to make a choice on where to spend their time and money for promotions.

The website, http://www.IndieMusicDirectory.com has made this an easy decision for indie musicians as listing is absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to submit.

In order to maintain a user friendly, spam-free, non-duplicated, valid, error-free, and comprehensive indie music directory, the site is edited a team of people who are passionate about music. This way any new music lovers will have an indie music directory as a quality new music source which will present them with valid indie musicians’ details and indie musicians will have a user friendly website to submit their music site details

New music lovers can submit reviews / ratings too.

This way, the indie music fans can provide their feedback for an Indie Musician’s or indie band’s website or music for other fans to read. This provides a feedback opportunity for fans towards their newly discovered indie bands / artists

IndieMusicDirectory.com will be promoted via key music media outlets and websites as the portal to visit for new music.