The idea behind BandMix is pretty simple – like all good ideas. It’s classified ads for musicians – but on steroids. Need a new drummer? Put up an ad and all the drummers in your area will see it. Maybe you are a drummer and you want to find a band. BandMix will help you make that happen.

But the steroids part comes from the email alerts you get periodically when new musicians in your local area join BandMix. I mean, even if you’re not looking for new band members or a new band to play in, don’t you want to know all the new musicians in your area – even if only for the networking advantages? Of course you do – especially if you’re serious about advancing your career.

It’s free to join BandMix and in my opinion, it’s just one of the things you need to do to really be in the game. It’s just one of those sites musicians need to be on – kind of like Facebook.

Lastly, but not least – BandMix is run by cool guys. I met with them a few weeks ago after having gotten in touch to learn more about the company. I was especially intrigued because the site grew organically over time and never really just “burst” onto the scene. Bust they have hundreds of thousands of members. It turns out the founders, David and Robert were just smart diligent entrepreneurs with a real love of music and musicians.

Anyway, Music Xray is entering into a partnership with BandMix because the partnership makes sense and because the value they provide musicians is real, efficient and necessary. BandMix is an example of how the music industry is harnessing new technology and the fact we are all now interconnected to benefit musicians and the entire ecosystem.

Open an account at BandMix and you’ll see what I mean.

It makes almost all the music in the world available to you on-demand, 24×7. That’s just going to beat any cloud service that requires you to pay for the cloud plus pay for the music you’re going to store in it. And yes, the paradigm of owning all the music you play is familiar to the public but when access is perceived as good as ownership minus the storage and organization headaches, I can’t see how anyone is going to prefer to own more digital files than they must. Storing and organizing your documents is hassle enough for most people. A solution that helps you avoid that kind of pain will be welcome relief for most.

Apple and Amazon are formidable opponents. Spotify isn’t going to win easily and several solutions will co-exist for some time to come – but eventually, I imagine Apple and Amazon will have to become more like Spotify to remain competitive rather than outperform Spotify with their current propositions.

I’ve been a premium Spotify user for almost 18 months and a free user when I’m in Europe (1/3 of the year) a lot longer than that. I practically quit buying music as soon as I became a premium user, which enabled me to use Spotify unlimitedly in the US. I even opened a second account and gave it to my dad for his birthday last year. He quit buying music after that too and hasn’t turned back.

When access emulates ownership in the way Spotify pulls it off, there’s just no need to own music anymore. Sure, Spotify has gaps in their catalog but I’m betting market forces will require content owners to resign themselves to Spotify’s ways rather than have their content increasingly omitted from play lists or worse – forgotten – by an audience that becomes accustomed to Spotify’s access model.

And yes, I know there are other access models here in the US that have been around for the better part of a decade such as Rhapsody and more recently MOG and Rdio. But they don’t have a freemium model that lets people get a taste. That’s where Spotify can drive adoption and get people used to the access model and foster brand loyalty at the same time – thus beating their access competitors as well.

It will be interesting to watch.

Regardless, other players will do what it takes to compete more effectively against Spotify. MOG, for example, is close to launching their own freemium model and there are parts of their interface and a few features that give Spotify a decent run for their money. And Apple is not one to be in any game and not be the leader. In my estimation though, it’s just a matter of time before they will have to change their model to ultimately win against the currently superior access model and the more compelling user experience.

If you haven’t been following the evolution of the traditional music business, there’s a lot to catch up on but let me give you the quick overview:

To begin with, Warner Music Group is for sale. Both BMG (which sold its recorded music assets to Sony a couple years ago) and Sony are in the running to acquire Warner but rumor has it that Yucaipa Companies (a holding company focused on private equity investments) is in the lead and is aligned with Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and Facebook. EMI is also on the block after falling into the hands of Citigroup when EMI’s financial backers defaulted on their obligations to the financial giant. Meanwhile, former Universal Music head Doug Morris has moved over to lead Sony Music while all of the aforementioned companies fight over their share of an ever-shrinking market for recorded music sales.

What’s more, the major labels have not been doing a good job breaking new artists. A recent IFPI report showed that total sales by debut artists in the global top 50 album chart in 2010 were only 25% of the level they achieved in 2003.

Needless to say, artists and their managers have been trying to regain their revenue via other avenues such as touring and merchandise sales (T-shirts & trinkets). However, high ticket prices, ticket sales gimmicks and sub par shows are jading fans who seem to be flocking to fewer and fewer shows. Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter reported a whopping 10% drop in ticket sales in 2010.

All this is happening at the same time that more music is being created by musicians and heard by fans than ever before. The dichotomy of thriving demand for evermore-abundant art while the traditional music business is failing has perplexed many industry watchers. But as with every disrupted business, the opportunities for entrepreneurs abound and what we’re seeing in the music business is an exciting emergence of the structures that will define the industry for at least the coming decade.

So, that brings you up to speed with where things stand. Now to address the question I asked at the top: How will fans experience music in the digital age?

A recent report by Edison Research found that in the 12 to 24 age group, music radio listenership fell by nearly half in the past decade, from two hours to 43 minutes per day and radio fell from the number 1 means of consuming media to number 3 behind Internet and TV. On the other hand, music consumption via the Internet is on the rise with personalized streaming radio company Pandora leading the way and competitors like CBS’ Last.fm and Jango making great strides too. Pandora has even partnered with some car companies to have their system streamed to drivers, taking an even bigger bite out of traditional, terrestrial radio.

One of the more recent trends are online music lockers. Think of them as personal hard drives that are out there on the Internet where you can store your music collection and stream it to a connected device like a smartphone, a car or home stereo system or your computer any time you want. There is some legal controversy around these types of systems but everyone expects these types of solutions to move forward and become fairly ubiquitous – not just for storing your music rather for storing ALL your files. Good-bye hard drives, altogether. But will they be the way music is consumed?

The problem with the online music locker solutions is that they still require consumers to own digital files of music which either have to be ripped from CDs, purchased online or pirated and you won’t be able to have unrestricted listens to anything you don’t own. That seems so last century given that almost anything anyone would ever want to hear can already be easily found online – even if only at Youtube. Therefore, I’d place my bets on all-access on-demand music streaming services.

“What?” you ask.

On-demand streaming services already exist in the US but they have gotten less attention than they deserve. Companies like Rhapsody and Mog offer consumers a monthly subscription model in the $5 to $10 per month neighborhood and they allow you to stream music to any Internet connected device on demand. Not like Pandora, where you get a selection of music that is generally targeted to your taste but otherwise not within your control. These services let you chose what you want to hear, when you want to hear it and they have almost every song ever recorded available with only a few exceptions. The company that, by far, is generating the most buzz is Europe’s Spotify, which is preparing for a US launch. In Europe, they’ve already reached 1 million paying subscribers. A couple great things about their service is that it is completely integrated with Facebook which makes sharing your music and playlists both easy and legal and you can store up to 3,000 tracks for offline listening and swap them out for different tracks any time you want. Services like these make it completely unnecessary to own music at all. Why would you if you can have access to an unlimited library of everything that’s ever been recorded?

In Europe, Spotify offers a completely free version that is supported by advertisements. In the US, it is unclear what their free service will be like because the labels are putting extra restrictions on Spotify in the US. Music companies are concerned that the revenue they will derive from streaming services like Rhapsody, Mog and Spotify won’t replace the revenue they generated from the sales of albums – and they’re absolutely right.

Gone are the days when consumers had to buy 11 songs they didn’t want so they could hear the one song they did and gone are the days when the major music companies controlled distribution. Those days aren’t coming back and that means the supply-side of the music business (labels, promoters, managers and artists themselves) have to change and adapt. All of this is great for the consumer but it represents some serious changes for the music industry and those changes, how they are shaking out and what they mean for the artists and business people that make the music industry run are what I will cover in parts II and III in the coming days.

Subscribe to the blog to be alerted when those posts are available.

Description
Position: Chief Marketing Officer
Location: San Francisco

About Layers
Layers is a European technology start-up company based in Barcelona focused on launching an outstanding web platform globally that will introduce a new dimension to the existing web..

How Big Can You Think?
Layers is seeking an experienced executive to serve as our company’s Chief Product Officer.
The job’s responsibilities’ will include interfacing with PR companies, marketing staff, US company investors and US clients, defining the marketing and monetization strategy for the US market, and leading its execution.

Our Layers CMO will be based in San Francisco and will report directly to the Layers’ CEO. Additionally this person will work closely with the Layers COO, CPO, CTO and a corporate technical and product team based in Barcelona.

Layers.com offers the most comprehensive content discovering, sharing and enriching experiences for web, mobile, for end users and web masters.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
Your principal duties will involve sales and negotiating sophisticated agreements with key technological publishing platforms, web property owners, web browsers companies, app stores and key investors in social media advertisement. You will be expected to develop and cultivate professional working relationships with key executives at these companies. You will also interface with US based Layers investors. You will lead the growth of Layers usage in the US Business and Consumers markets. You will be responsible for the results in different types of monetization schemes of the company services. You will participate in and manage certain legislative initiatives and rate proceedings that impact the business. You will be part of the Layers senior staff meetings where the company strategy and direction is presented and reviewed.

SKILLS/QUALIFICATIONS
·Seven to ten years of experience at a web/internet company or equivalent organization. Significant experience in structuring, negotiating and drafting complex commercial agreements, such as licensing, Internet-related and complex technology/technology services agreements.

·Proven track record of identifying, negotiating and closing deals.

·Excellent organizational skills, in particular the ability to prioritize and build effective working relationships.

·Ability to handle multiple assignments with effective resolution of conflicting priorities.

·High degree of intellectual capability and ability to think strategically.

·First class communications skills, both written and verbal, and ability to build relationships and collaborate with a variety of personalities and styles, including experience dealing with senior management and clients.

·Strong ability to work well independently, coupled with strong interpersonal skills, resourcefulness and an ability to participate in a highly collaborative team environment.

·Deep understanding of web companies environments, and the Internet business.

·Highly valued – a strong sense of commitment, flexibility and teamwork, without disregarding a capable
fun personality and a sense of humor.

·The job requires traveling.

Music Xray will award $300 (plus your earnings) to the user who drives the most traffic to Music Xray in March through the use of their affiliate code. So, get started! But you can make money with your affiliate code even if you don’t want to compete. Keep reading.

If you add your affiliate code to the end of any Music Xray URL, anyone who clicks on it will be tracked as having reached Music Xray through you. Even if they leave the site without signing up and then come back a month later, they will still be tagged as someone you referred. You get paid 15% of our margin for every transaction the person you referred conducts on Music Xray – FOREVER. Not just the first transaction but rather every transaction for as long as they have an account on the site.

Your earnings are reflected in your account balance which you’ll see on your dashboard when logged in.

If you don’t want to bother customizing an email and tacking your affiliate ID on the end of URLs, you can just click one of the buttons within your account to invite artists, fans or industry professionals and an email is automatically sent to them with your affiliate ID already included. BUT, if you want to do it, it works like this (see below for ideas on how to most effectively use affiliate ID’s):

Grab any URL from the site that you think someone might be interested in. For example, let’s say you know someone who might have a perfect song for Trace Adkins. At the time of this writing, Torrez Music Group is conducting a search for such a song and the drop box is found at this URL: http://www.musicxray.com/profiles/626. HOWEVER, if you want to get credit for sending someone to that URL, you should tack your affiliate code onto the end of it and instead send them a URL that looks like this:

http://www.musicxray.com/profiles/626?afid=55f8e620e868012c5dc81231390a1e12

Be sure to use your own affiliate code and not mine or I’ll get the credit instead of you. Also, notice that between the end of the URL and your affiliate code you have to put “?afid=”. That’s just telling our system that the numbers that follow are the affiliate code and not something else. You can see how that’s explained on your settings page and in the image above.

Also, note that you do not have to send people long ugly URLs. You can simply embed that long URL into a link like in the following example:

…..

Hey Bill, I saw that Trace Adkins is seeking music and I thought you might want to send him one of your songs. Click here.

…..

You will notice that the link I embedded in the words “click here” includes my affiliate code.

Here are some other ideas for how you can make this work for you.

Send your contacts to the special offer page

If you’d just like to get people started on Music Xray you can simply send them to the special offer page located here: http://www.musicxray.com/new-artist-account (just be sure to tack your affiliate code on the end of that URL and you’re good to go. You’ll notice that we have a no-brainer deal for anyone considering starting with Music Xray. All new accounts get:

1. Free Uploading and/or importing of all their original music.
2. Free matching of their songs to real industry opportunities.
3. A free focus group on their music (we will pay up to 25 respondents for feedback on their music).
4. A free $8 credit to get them started (enough for two submissions to major labels).
5. Guaranteed feedback on every submission.
6. Guaranteed response time or their money back.

Start your own newsletter

Feel free to start your own weekly (monthly, daily, whatever) music opportunity newsletter and send it to musicians you know, post to your MySpace or Facebook accounts and whatnot.

Post opportunities on your blog, band site, Facebook, tweet them or post them in the comments section of sites you visit (when relevant)

If you have a site with decent traffic and you’d like us to curate a special rss feed of opportunities with your affiliate link already embedded, we can do so. Just contact us at support@musicxray.com and we’ll get you started.

Have Music Xray send a fancy schmancy email to your contacts

If you have more than 500 contacts you’d like to tell about Music Xray, we can create a special and very professional email for you with a selection of some of the most attractive opportunities together with a special offer for those just creating new accounts now. That email might look something like this (but it would have your affiliate code embedded into all the links).

Get started using your affiliate codes now!

When businesses spend money to develop new products and services they spend even more marketing and selling them. They make sure their customers get a taste. They spend money on advertising, they give away free samples, they spend money on trade shows, business trips, negotiations… In short, they spare no expense when it comes to getting the deals that generate the revenue and eventual profit.

Musicians can no longer expect to create a great product and to then be discovered by happenstance (not to say that was a very good system in the past either). They especially cannot expect industry professionals to give their time away for free to listen to and evaluate their music when there are so many unsigned artists out there requesting their time and attention.

If you think you should not have to expend time, money and resources getting your music heard by the gatekeepers of opportunity you will simply be out-competed by artists who “get it”. It’s that simple.

Don’t shoot the messenger. And actually, if you think about it, this new reality is an improvement over the “happenstance” way of getting discovered.

With Music Xray we’ve created a platform that enables industry professionals to guarantee they will listen to everything that’s submitted to them and we’re enabling them to provide feedback on every submission. Sure, you pay a few bucks. That helps insure that every artist doesn’t submit every song they own to every opportunity. You can see how that would happen and how that wouldn’t work for anyone, right? I don’t believe anyone can reach as many industry professionals as we make available with the guarantees we provide for as little time and money as it costs on Music Xray.

We’re providing one of the key pieces of infrastructure that the new music industry will be built upon and we’re doing it in a way that benefits the musicians by leveling the playing field and insuring that more music is considered for more opportunities.

Don’t be out-competed by others. This is the new reality and the sooner you make it work in your favor the more of a head start you will have!

While there is no one formulaic way to success, we’re starting to see an increasing number of success stories emerge on Music Xray and I’d like to share the stories of two artists and how they each got it done differently.

When you’ve got something good – submit, submit submit!!

Mary Sarah is a talented teenager from Texas. She began submitting on Music Xray about 7 months ago. She submitted to some of the top producers who were offering detailed feedback, song critiques and career coaching. Each of these people were impressed with what they heard. Some of them passed the music on to people they knew. All of them wrote stellar critiques and as always, the industry professionals on the site rated the music for Music Xray’s back-end statistics (keep reading. You’ll see why that’s important).

Then, once she knew that the music she had recorded was standing up to tough scrutiny, she began submitting her songs to all sorts of opportunities: label deals, management deals, sync license deals, exposure opportunities on blogs and more.

Finally, she was spotted by Nan Cassidy on Music Xray, an artist developer based in Nashville together with Sharon Dennis of Dennis Management. When they heard Mary Sarah they knew there was something there. Right on Music Xray, they were able to see Mary Sarah’s stats via statistics from Next Big Sound. They could see that Mary Sarah’s Twitter, Myspace and Facebook followings were growing. Lastly, they were able to look at Music Xray’s back end statistics and that’s when they knew.

One of Mary Sarah’s songs had been submitted to industry professionals on the site 38 times and it had received an average of a 4 star (out of five) rating on every measured attribute (composition, arrangement, performance, production & hit potential).

That is the power of collective A&R!! Thirty-eight industry professionals had heard and LOVED Mary Sarah’s music but none of them had opted to (or been able to) offer her a deal. But they had taken the time to listen and rate her music because Music Xray had made that possible and due to that, Nan and Sharon were able to feel even more confident that their instincts were spot on. Nan and Sharon signed Mary Sarah to a management deal and now she’s on her way in Nashville. Subsequently, Maray Sarah won a $50,000 promotional marketing campaign from Musicati based on yet another submission.

Target opportunities like a sniper.

Grand$un is a hip hop artist from the New York area who has written and produced a couple yet-to-be hit songs. They are really good. He doesn’t have a big budget to invest so he watches Music Xray’s opportunities closely and instead of taking the shotgun approach that Mary Sarah did, he sits back and makes sure each opportunity is as close a match as possible for his songs. He submits only when he reads of an appropriate opportunity or if his songs are matched to an opportunity via Music Xray’s song to opportunity matching system (S2O).

He has secured a few opportunities but nothing that blew the doors off the hinges for him. But then, it happened and he was signed to a one-album deal at Orpheus/Fontana (Universal). You just never know when it’s going to happen. Grand$sun added, “I couldn’t have done it without Music Xray”.

In both cases, both artists were given a lot of validation by professionals on the site who told them they had what it takes to make it. That’s why, if you’re not getting deals on Music Xray, you should be getting as much professional feedback as possible. It could lead directly to a deal but at the very least you will learn how close to a deal you are, your song will accumulate data within Music Xray’s statistics back end that other professionals can see (as in the case of Mary Sarah) and you will learn what you need to do to make it happen.

Sure, it’s only a few cents at first but the more you participate the more you get paid for subsequent listens. Yeah, OK no one’s going to get rich listening to songs but you probably devote at least a little bit of time discovering new music so why not get paid for it?

Click here to sign up. Oh, and we’ll even give you a pay raise when you invite other music fans.

Starting a few days ago however, we launched a feature whereby industry professionals don’t simply click a button to acknowledge they received and listened to the song, rather they now either “Select”, “Place on Hold” or “Not Select” a song for an opportunity, in which case they provide a reason or reasons for their decision not to select a song or artist.

I know this seems like the natural or normal thing to do in the day and age of web 2.0 but let’s not kid ourselves. Many emerging artists are too young to remember the days when labels, publishers and the like would not even accept unsolicited material. In my day, you’d send your demo tape or CD to a label and most likely you’d never know if it even arrived, let alone get any acknowledgement that your music had been listened to.

Getting guaranteed feedback from top A&R executives, program directors, music supervisors and more is a watershed for musicians and song owners and I am proud that Music Xray is again the first to make something like this a reality.

You pay $300 and Kyra Larock will organize a 30 minute face to face meeting for you with an A&R representative from any of the following labels: Jive (Sony), Capitol (EMI) or Universal or Bad Boy. I mean, seriously, if you’re serious about your career and you think you have what it takes, why wouldn’t you leap at this opportunity?

For most artists, the biggest challenge is getting in the door and here’s Kyra offering a limited number of guaranteed slots – not just a guaranteed listen by one of these executives – BUT A FULL BLOWN 30 MINUTE MEETING!!

If you’ve spent any more than that on your recording but aren’t willing to spend that on getting in front of the right people, I have to question your understanding of how the new music business works. You have to invest in yourself just like any other business invests in selling their goods and services and if you can make a meeting like this happen for any less money (not to mention how long it will take you to meet the right people and arrange the meeting), I’d like to know where.

Click here to view this opportunity on Music Xray.

Kyra Larock