How do people find new music?

We conducted an experiment with Solar-Isis, one of our bands, to set up profiles on Last.fm, Ourstage and Soundcloud, to find out if any new activity was generated on a passive profile over the course of a full calendar month, beginning the week before the Christmas holidays. The short answer is nothing! Which we sort of expected.

So if you think any of these sites are going to allow a passive artist to upload their music and wait for loads of plays. Think again! There is no option but to work these profiles fully before you gain anything from them. But watch out for hidden costs!

To get involved with last.fm you have to download their ‘scrobbler’ and start listening to music. It gets you involved, but now you are wasting time listening to other music instead of promoting your own. The common concensus in their reviews (www.Alexa.com) was that after it sold out to CBS, it has not been as effective for musicians unless they buy in and pay for plays.

Lower down the internet traffic rankings is Ourstage which hosts a variety of contests for musicians. However, there are some sour comments about discrimination and some bands being unfairly blocked from the site, but in the main the feedback is positive and the site is free. We didn’t discover an unwanted upsell after we established our profile. But unless you are working the site the chance of anything happening here is still very slim.

Soundcloud charge a premium rate for artists, which is really a waste of time unless you are looking to collaborate with other musicians and refine your sounds. You will meet a lot of other musicians, which appears to be the major opportunity on this site and as for it being another outlet for your music to be discovered by the general public, forget it.

As most online musicians know, if you don’t work a profile then nothing will happen. But to be honest, we are working with Reverbnation and Facebook and have no time to work additional profiles. On Myspace, we are receiving so many messages that profiles have been deleted and the frustratingly slow speed when trying to use it, just make it impossible to be utilised as an effective promotional medium.

So our conclusion is that Facebook is the best option at the moment to virally promote your music with the co-operation of a genuine fanbase. It’s free to use and its traffic rank has been in the top 5 globally for the past few years!

This concludes the first stage of Gateway Music’s investigations into ‘How do people find new music’.