Music Online: Good or Bad for the Business?
Hue and Cry's Greg Kane (interviewed by Caitlin McAllister)
With online music downloads dominating the sale of CDs, it would seem that all we really want to do nowadays is download songs, download albums, download films. Heck, I’m sure if downloading our weekly grocery shopping was an option we’d never leave our house again.–>
So can bands and artists in the business today kiss goodbye to the dream of ever making any real money from their music? Or is taking the D.I.Y approach, and promoting their material the way forward to save our musicians?
Greg Kane, of Scottish pop band Hue and Cry, has done just that. With his online community, the Hue and Cry Music Club, thriving after eighteen months, he talks about years of watching music slowly move online, and waiting for the right time to involve Hue and Cry in the internet phenomenon.
“There was no internet when Hue and Cry started out, so we didn’t have that means of distribution” Greg recalls. “At the time, the only way for music to get substantial exposure was via the radio, so getting your song on radio was really important. If you couldn’t hear a song there, you had to try and find the album in a record shop. Nowadays, people get most of their music from the internet, and have access to any band or artist at any time.” Hue and Cry’s song ‘The Only Thing (More Powerful than the Boss)’ included lyrics such as “The only thing more powerful than the boss is a computer religion going down right here”. “That was in 1989” Greg remembers, “And back then we were aware of the internet, even if most music fans were not. It took a good fifteen years for everything to catch up. We couldn’t have started the Hue and Cry Music Club ten years ago, because fans of the band wouldn’t have been involved with the internet at all back then.”
Although Greg and his brother Pat Kane had been knowledgeable of the internet for some time, it wasn’t until two years ago when their hit ‘Labour of Love’ was receiving thousands of YouTube hits that they decided it was time to make the most of the internet’s power over today’s music industry.
“It’s almost like a little online village. It started with us having full control of the Music Club, however what ended up happening was fans began uploading their own content to the site. At gigs we would encourage them to film and share their videos and recordings with the Music Club. By the fans contributing to the content, it took some of the pressure from us and there is now a huge community and a lot of activity on the site. The fans contribute about half of the content now, which is exactly what you want in an online community like this.”
Not only is the Hue and Cry Music Club updated on a daily basis with live web chats happening every night, but every piece of content on the site is absolutely free for everyone. “We recently offered fans the chance to come and watch a Hue and Cry sound check before one of our Christmas gigs. In the end we sold 350 tickets for the sound check alone, which is pretty amazing. We find people are happy to pay for extras like this when they get so much free content on the site.”
When Hue and Cry were first starting out in the eighties, the internet was not available to encourage the publicity of bands and artists material. However, younger bands starting out now are urged to take control of their own careers and keep up to speed with online music.
“People think it’s ruining the music industry, but it’s not. Young bands should encourage their fans to share their music via the internet, and capitalize on the amount of downloading that is happening nowadays.”
Years ago, in many people’s estimation the record companies ruled the bands and ruled the business. Greg now leans towards the idea that the bands are gaining further control of their future, if indeed they remain intuitive with the sources available to them through the internet.
“Record companies act like a bank, and once bands figure out another way to get investment, all they really need is a PR company. Sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Ning etc, allow bands and artists to promote themselves.”
Controlling your own music online has massive advantages, for example not having to fall into a specific genre, style of music or image. Bands today can wear their wacky hairdos in their MySpace pictures if they like, or call themselves a punk reggae Trio if that’s where their creativity takes them, without a record company telling them they won’t make any money from it.
“I was only nineteen when I had the experience of a record company trying to pigeon-hole Hue and Cry to one specific genre. We released many styles including jazz albums, but it was a while before people stopped calling them pop songs. Back then we had to aim to appeal to more people all the time, but now we don’t have to worry about what genre we have to promote our music as. We have a funk record coming out soon, and it is still possible that people will class the record as ‘pop’, however the Hue and Cry Music Club allows us to appeal to our current fans, and we don’t need to specify one genre for them to appreciate it.”
Being a producer, recording engineer, musician, and managing a successful online community with almost four thousand members might be a little stressful for most people, however the Hue and Cry Music Club just keeps getting better. “We’re very proud to be a part of the Music Club, and it feels good to have created something where people can share their own experiences of Hue and Cry, and meet new people through their love of music.”
Caitlin McAllister
