Who says nobody gets discovered on MySpace? As 14 unsigned bands recently discovered, scouts do occasionally troll the site to find new acts, since having a MySpace page is near-mandatory for bands of all shapes and sizes. Julia Adamson, a former multi-instrumentalist and vocalist for the legendary band The Fall who runs Invisible Girl Records, recently released the A Place In Space compilation featuring artists from around the world, all of whom Adamson discovered on MySpace explorations – sort of like finding 14 needles in a ten-million-band haystack.
"There are hobbyists on there who obviously love writing music and, as with Flickr, a few of the dedicated hobbyists actually come up with more original and better finished work than the professionals," Adamson told Pune Mirror. "There are also artists in other countries who you wouldn't have discovered without the site."
The album's official site has bios, MP3 previews, MySpace links and iTunes links for each band she selected, from countries around the world – France, India, Japan, Portugal, Uruguay and other countries. I've been previewing the album, and it's great (I'm no fan of world music for world music's sake, either). These are excellent tracks by artists who will now garner some much-needed publicity after being chosen by Adamson, a veteran with scores of top-notch tracks of her own under her belt. The whole thing is available on iTunes or as MP3s. And of course, the album itself has its own MySpace page where you can preview six songs.
There's a lesson in here somewhere for labels. I've heard more than one person say they think the record label of the future will be a tiny operation that discovers artists, the way today's A&R departments do, and then packages bands for a larger audience, which is essentially doing a lot of what managers do today (organize tours, find opportunities, maintain relationships, etc.), for a percentage of revenue. In return for the artist gets to focus more on making music.
Maybe labels could work with hundreds or thousands of these tiny operations, providing small, interest-free advances for tours and albums when needed and creating a framework to cluster similar-sounding artists, making discovery easier for consumers.
Regardless of what the record label of the future looks like, this compilation goes to show that there's gold in them hills, so to speak. Think you have what it takes to spot talent on MySpace and other social networks? By following Adamson's lead, you might be able to turn your ears into a record label. (Another option is to join Slicethepie or Sellaband, where you can invest in bands directly.)
See Also:
- Sellaband, Running Strong, Takes on Major Label A&R
- Sony Announces Stereo 'Walkman' Mic with Features of Yesteryear
- Slicethepie Goes Beyond American Idol, Might Save Labels
- Video: Got Two Cassette Decks and No Microphone
- Slicethepie Vows To Fund More New Bands Than Three of Four Major Labels
- Listening Post's Top 10 Hottest Music Sites
(via Julia Adamson's e-mail, Pune Mirror)
