Our Year in Music coverage continues with our top articles of 2014.
2014 has been a great year and we are excited about the promise of 2015, not just for Jivewired, but for the indie sector of the music industry, and especially for the expected resurgence in music video as a mainstream television medium.
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful and musically enriched New Year. I thank you for listening to Jivewired Radio and for supporting indie music, and I hope you will continue to listen throughout the new year.
Top Ten Most Read Jivewired Articles Of 2014
Honorable Mention:The Monday Mix -- Nobody Can Hear You If You Are Screaming Into A Tornado
Publish Date: 12/19/13 (included because of the number of viewer reads in 2014)
Article Views: 6,009
Article Quote: This has been an odd year. Though we've seen a continued thirst for indies, it feels as if the mainstream wrested control of music as a whole. One need look only at services like Spotify, Google Play, Pandora and iTunes Radio to see what caused the loss in traction. Though it is true that these platforms do allow indie bands to expand their reach, most of them have buried indie performers behind walls and walls of mainstream promotion and commercial advertising.
Some Good Advice: Five ways to leverage your social media campaigns.
- Publish blog friendly content: Consider repurposing your brand content by making it less formal and more conversational in tone.
- Demonstrate your unique personality: Engage your followers by letting them get to know you, your band members and the culture that makes your brand what it is.
- Communicate product launches without the hard sell: New music, merch or an upcoming show? Engage your followers with the process and your excitement in releasing something new instead of focusing only on the close. The sale will take care of itself.
- Recognize your industry and your peers: Take the time to note what others are doing by re-posting relevant links or mentioning something or somebody that offers relevancy and significance.
- Stop being a bot, start being a human: There is nothing more disinteresting or less engaging than posting a repetitive link simultaneously to all of your social media platforms. Be divergent in your content. Show your human side. Engage your audience instead of commanding them.
Featured Video: Delusional Waste by SPC ECO
10.The Monday Mix - Managing Financial Distress As An Indie Musician
Publish Date: 12/08/14
Article Views: 1,410
Article Quote: The fact is, "indie musician" is a tough racket. As a livelihood, music eats at our two most important commodities: time and money. Managing your career and all of its components can eat up years of your life, and there's a paradox of sorts: from a career objective, it seems as things move far too slowly, but from your financial management objective, things move far too quickly. Gear and transportation expenses, studio space and recording time, heck, even an uncontrollable amount of incidentals eat away at your savings and often lead to insurmountable debt.
Some Good Advice: Here's the deal. The millenials are an incredibly privileged generation. For most members of this predominately marketed-to demographic, just surfing the net is too much to ask of those individuals, which is why services like Spotify, Pandora and Songza cater perfectly to their whims. The discovery process has become an aggregated, spoon feeding process. Millenials are absorbing curated song lists but in most cases no single band is defining the experience or the space.
Your spare time should be spent getting your music out to indie music blogs, streaming radio stations and popular music review sites. There aren't many independent radio stations left and many non-com college radio stations are converting to big music media distribution. Popularize yourself a bit by forcing yourself on the millenials.
Featured Video: Sirens by Hydrogen Child
9.Featured Artist - We Were Astronauts
Publish Date: 09/02/2014
Article Views: 2,101
Article Quote: Indie Pop and Rock act We Were Astronauts might just be the next great band you will want to discover. Certainly well known and received in the Boston area in which the band resides, We Were Astronauts is one of those bands that finds new followers and new hard core fans instantly while on tour. It wouldn't be a stretch therefore to label them "indie music's next big thing."
Featured Video: Doree
8.The Monday Mix -- Where Do We Discover New Music?
Publish Date: 10/19/14
Article Views: 2,220
Article Quote: Consumers have portable viewing options now, and with portable viewing options comes opportunity for content that can be digested in smaller portions, i.e., music videos. Further, high quality video cameras are cheaper and more readily available, as is editing and post-editing software, helping to cut down the cost of producing a studio-quality music video substantially. And it can all be monetized quickly for profit. Commercial streaming television that is not tethered to traditional delivery formats and is free of massive budget constraints allow indie music video and music-themed video content to access those revenue and exposure opportunities usually reserved for the bigger players. It's almost a perfect storm.
Some Good Advice: Creating a singular connection at an intimate level with each new fan, before others have the chance to indulge in your genius, is a fantastic start. Enhancing that connection via interactive platforms and social media that promote word of mouth referrals is the logical second step. Advancing the ideology that fans can remain fully vested in your journey from local band to critically acclaimed indie star is the next, and most important step. Finally, leveraging monetized platforms that offer national exposure will accommodate faithful and new fans alike.
Featured Video: Shining Like A Diamond by The Outer Vibe
7. The Seven (October 2014)
Publish Date: 10/02/14
Article Views: 3,905
Featured Artists: Megan Slankard, The Quick & Easy Boys, Ingrid Michaelson, Hip Kitty, SPC ECO, Bring Your Raygun, Cyra Morgan
Article Quote: [Megan Slankard offers] Edgy and spirited alternative rock with clean, contemporary surfaces and poetic structures driven by Megan's beautiful vocals and her exceptional ability to capture each inflection and tonal alteration.
Featured Video: A Token Of The Wreckage by Megan Slankard
6.The Monday Mix -- The Emergence Of Indie Music Into The Mainstream And The Perceived Death Of The Indie Genre
Publish Date: 11/17/14
Article Views: 4,147
Article Quote: Is indie rock dead? Is rock itself dead? Too often dead is exchanged synonymously for irrelevance, and relevance tends to lie in the eye of the beholder. If you're bored with something then you're infinitely likely to proclaim its non-nonresuscitable death.
Mindies have certainly diluted the concept and genre of indie music. Like Damian Abraham said above [paraphrasing again], if you combine mainstream and indies why call it anything but mainstream?
We can acknowledge that indie music has splintered to a point where the term has lost much of its meaning or value, but indie music certainly isn't dead, and for the most part, has strongly resisted the urge to sell out. Just because a band sells a lot of records does not mean we should sever our affinities for the indie bands we love. Selling out isn't selling music, it is, rather, adapting to a mainstream culture. In that respect, I say indie music is assuredly not dead, and that the major labels just want us to think that it is.
Featured Video: Zahmbies by Bear Ceuse
5. Album Review: Go To Hell by Star Anna
Publish Date: 01/14/14
Article Views: 4,291
Article Quote: Deep in contemplation of the unabashed human condition, the narrative on the appropriately titled Go To Hell is often longing and sometimes bitter, expressing beauty through heartache and strength through resiliency. That being said, by avoiding flat out dissidence and obstinate emotional bias, Star Anna represents herself as tough-as-nails confident and unequivocally determined. Nowhere is that more evident than on the title track, an emotionally charged Nina Simone cover that oozes vivacity.
By amping up the intensity, Star Anna also shows a more nuanced side as well. Electric Lights is a sophisticated, earthy number that is one of the album's highlights. There's a desperate loneliness to this song that is enhanced by a rootsy arrangement. Let Me Be, co-written by Shane Tutmarc, is a blues/rock burner that's equally brash and brooding, a combination that works quite well. Her ability to effortlessly swing from searing vulnerability to succinct self-awareness is resolute and courageous.
Star Anna Quote:“It was written after the first recording session in Portland, where we recorded three songs that were meant to be demos. They were the inspiration for the rest of the album,” she recalls. “It was co-written by a friend in Nashville who did not know the back story of the song and was just going off the first verse and chorus. He managed to capture the idea perfectly. The line, ‘I’m a new man looking sideways in the dark’ feels most significant to me, as it describes being stripped down to nothing. You have the freedom to become whatever you want because there is nothing left. It’s a heartbreaking place to be, but it opens up your world to rebuild.”
Featured Video: For Anyone
4.Featured Artist - Laura Marie
Publish Date: 09/06/14
Article Views: 5,240
Article Quote: I love when good music and positive messages collide together. This video is a perfect example. And that's what's so great about Laura Marie. If you listen to her music or see her perform in a live setting, you find yourself rooting for her and wishing for amazing success in her music career. The talent is there, and it is incredible by the way, but she is such a genuinely nice person that you find yourself immediately drawn to her performances. She commands attention, but in such a subtle way that you are simply enchanted, both by the music and her warm personality.
Featured Video: Love You Like Me
3.Featured Artist - Tae Phoenix
Publish Date: 09/10/14
Article Views: 5,245
Article Quote: A wonderful combination of pop, jazz, blues and roots music encapsulates her musical repertoire. Tae is easy to listen to and even easier to enjoy. There is an intimacy to her work that is not overly personal or awkwardly invasive. She can be simultaneously sweet and sexy, and those who attend a Tae Phoenix show are inescapably charmed.
The very essence of Tae's stage presence lies in her ability to fully express herself in a rich and personal way that transcends the work of her peers. The subtle difference between singing to her audience rather than at them removes the possibility of any pretentiousness and separates Tae from similar artists. Each performance is easily as much communication as it is entertainment, and when Tae is bouncing along a sinuous combination of jazz and pop sensibilities in emotive, vocal passion she is brilliantly masterful.
Featured Video: Down & Dirty Way
2.Featured Artist - Cyra Morgan
Publish Date: 09/01/14
Article Views: 5,341
Article Quote: When you think about the perfect artist to help us all transition from summer into autumn, certainly that conversation starts and ends with Cyra Morgan . Her brand of intimate acoustic folk is a perfect compliment for your favorite worn sweatshirt, a warm glass of tea and a campfire gathering with close friends or a romantic evening with a significant other. And when you talk about intimate acoustic folk, If We Stay is a perfect representation of that beautiful genre.
Featured Video: If We Stay
1.Concert Review - Vintage Trouble at The Park West [Chicago, IL]
Publish Date: 10/08/14
Article Views: 7,952
Article Quote: Vintage Trouble presented their show in three acts with a two-song encore, sandwiching an acoustic set between two immensely energetic bookends. The opening set was everything I was told it would be and more: a band with a huge sound that was equal parts southern soul and vintage rock and roll with all the raucous fervor and firepower of the legendary early '60s Atlantic Records catalog. Vintage Trouble offers charisma and swagger. As well they should, they are an incredibly talented band, but there is also a genuine honesty to their performance. The band is as dedicated to their fans as their fans are to Vintage Trouble. The highlights of the first set were Still & Always Will and the audience participation number Pelvis Pusher.
Featured Video: Run Outta You (Live In London)