New Musical Order – Your Window on the Free Music Revolution

“Music will be free”. That’s was the buzz-phrase at UnConvention the other week. Apparently no-one will ever buy music again; it will all be made available free of charge over the ‘net.

It’s a view that is starting to hold a lot of sway within the music industry. And the labels are worried. If music is free, how will they make their money? More importantly if you ask me, how are musicians going to feed themselves?

As founder/owner of Musoswire, an online store for independent bands and musicians, I make it my business to ask myself these questions on a daily basis. In a world of free music, how do we survive? And how can we help our artists survive?

To give you some background, Musoswire was formed in 2001 as a way to enable bands and musicians from the UK to sell their CDs to a global audience. At the time, I was working as a ProTools engineer so I was in contact with lots of musicians, producers, etc. They kept telling me they wanted someone to “sort it all out and get it online”. So I started the business primarily with that aim – get music online and selling, and handle all the fulfilment for them. Do all the boring bits, basically!

Fast forward to 2009, and the rules of the ever-changing music industry have now shifted dramatically. Physical sales are down, digital sales are up. Overall… sales are down. Massively.

In my view, people DO still buy recorded music – if it’s well recorded, well packaged, and honest. But there is certainly a case for free music as a promotional tool for both independent and mainstream musicians.

I’m talking about giving music away to hook fans. Fans buy stuff. Gig tickets, t-shirts, books, keyrings and yes… CDs. Bands need to empower themselves, and trust that their music will speak for itself. If they do that, and they build a following, they will sell music. It’s what Martin Atkins calls the “1,000 fans” principle.

Great! The only trouble with free music is: there a hell of a lot of it.

That’s why, in August 2008, we launched New Musical Order – a brand new blog dedicated to finding and promoting the best free and, more importantly, legal, downloads online.

Since launch we’ve attracted well over 500 Twitter and RSS followers, and promoted upwards of 80 bands, both independent and mainstream.

We’ve promoted everything from Radiohead and Coldplay to The Pax Cecilia, Escape Act and Miranda Sound, and we’ve recently launched a weekly series looking at the best podcasts on the net.

Our aim is to continue to promote great music, with both Musoswire and New Musical Order, to help our artists with their needs, and to provide the best free music links, giving great bands and musicians an outlet for their free downloads.

Thanks for reading!

No related posts.