The New Tyler Hilton EP and Why It Should Sell

One Tree Hill fans will remember Warner/Reprise artist Tyler Hilton in his recurring role as the villainous Chris Keller. Those of you who without an affinity for the soapy CW teen drama may remember him as Elvis in the 2005 film Walk The Line. Though throughout his 10-year career as a recording artist Hilton has not quite been able to match his success on the screen with success on the charts, he's been on my radar since I first heard 3 brilliant and memorable acoustic/pop tracks from his 2004 album The Tracks of Tyler Hilton (When It Comes, The Letter Song, and Pink and Black). I believe that When It Comes is still in my Ipod's Top 25.

A few days ago I saw a Facebook Ad announcing a new release of Hilton's-- likely targeted to me because I'd listed him years ago as a favorite artist. Since he'd already earned my trust I was more than willing to give his new music a chance, but the first thought that popped into my head was "I am not paying $8 for 5 songs that I haven't heard and may or may not like." The second thought? "I don't have time to listen to 12 new tracks that I haven't heard and may or may not like." To my surprise and delight, the 5-song EP was available on Itunes for only $2.99. I downloaded it without hesitation.

Kudos to Warner/Reprise for appropriate pricing and marketing on this release.

Will EPs eventually replace full-length albums as the default method for releasing new music? This marketer and music fan hopes so. Think about it; unless we're talking about a full-length new album from an artist that one is very passionate about (I can only think of 5-10 of these off the top of my head), why should I allot hours of my time to dedicate the 3-5 listens to 12 songs that it normally takes to reach a level of familiariarity and enjoyment with each? Also, why should I spend $9.99 on unknown music when I could just as easily use this money to purchase 10 songs that I love?

If labels and artists want digital downloads to compete with the Groovesharks of the world as a means of music discovery, a fairly priced EP is definitely a step in the right direction.

Top 25 Music Discovery Sites

I did a bit of research for my own purposes and thought I'd share the results.

I'd been reading a blog post entitled 'The Top 5 Music Discovery Sites' and was surprised to see at least 1 that I was unfamiliar with. The article linked to a similar article on Mashable that cataloged the top 50 services. I noticed, however, that both articles seemed to be a bit outdated-- at least in online terms. I thought I'd check on the Alexa traffic ranking (U.S.) of each site listed and see how they stacked up against one another. The top 10 results turned up at least 2 sites that I'd never heard of and I was unfamiliar with most of the listings after that.

Here are the results:

The Top 25 Music Discovery Sites with Alexa Rank

1. Pandora (77)
2. Ilike (607)
3. Grooveshark (911)
4. Blip.fm (1946)
5. Mog (2298)
6. Purvolume (4487)
7. Hypster (9462)
8. Haystack (9586)
9. Magnatune (29,702)
10. Finetune (61,084)
11. Ijigg (65,884)
12. Musicovery (67,262)
13. ProjectOpus (87,077)
14. Audiolunchbox (103,941)
15. Epitonic (127,899)
16. Babulous (168,678)
17. Flyfi (229,655)
18. MusicNation (245,618)
19. Twones (273,138)
20. Bandbuzz (643,332)
21. Soundpedia (706,069)
22. upto11.net (910,787)
23. OneLlama (1,221,092)
24. Musicmesh (1,284,224)
25. Audiobaba (1,524,016)

Submitting Music to Pandora

This should be an excellent experiment.

I personally go back and forth on whether or not the music discovery service Pandora actually accomplishes its' goal of introducing users to great new music. In case you're not familiar, Pandora has music analysts working with the Music Genome Project listen to tracks (they have over a half million in their directly) to qualify musical details such as tempo, instrumentation and vocal style. Users identify songs or artists that they love in order to create 'radio stations' that combine the music you already know with lesser known music of similar style, with the assumption that you will like some or all of the new music.

But does it work? Yes and no.

It really depends on exactly what music is to you. My theory is that if your musical tastes are closely tied to a particular genre or genres-- for example, if you're a metal head-- Pandora could work for you. If music is more about a mood or an experience, this may be for you. If you still purchase full albums and listen to them from beginning to end, it may be for you.

Pandora may not be for you (or your fans) if your musical tastes are more closely tied to an individual story or situation; the 'soundtrack to your life' model, as I like to call it. If you associate the music and lyrics of your favorite songs with a certain time and place in your life. If you know every word of the song and you're positive that the artist is singing about you and your ex-boyfriend, you fall into this category. If you just purchased 5 new songs on Itunes but could care less about the associated artist or full album. Since Pandora doesn't analyze lyrics, you're out of luck.

Music listening is a complex, aesthetic interaction with a piece of art and it's hard for me to believe that even an advanced and thoughtful system will accurately predict the music that I will love. In fairness, however, I have been listening to 'Fall Out Boy Radio' on Pandora for the past hour and given just about every song in queue a thumbs up. I guess I can see both sides of it.

I am working with an independent artist and will be submitting her album to Pandora shortly. I would encourage all independent artists to do the same, but check to make sure they don't have your music in their catalog already. They require you to send a CD and your CD must be for sale on Amazon, as this is where they pull the artwork. You can read full instructions on submitting your music here. Not all music is accepted, but if it is you should see it live in 6-10 weeks. Wish me luck!