A twist on free music for email

Just go and read this post because it fits with the one earlier about using iTunes playlists to promote your music. Sort of.

It simply made me think that you don't need to always trade an email address for a free track.

I am a big fan of giving away a lot more than one track anyway, but the little twist here is that you club together with a load of bands and give away a mixtape or live recordings featuring all of you.

Great - it gives your music context and you can all promote for each other.

And give the mixtape away for free when you can - not even for an email - and test out how it does!

One way an artist can enhance the free download is to provide context and package it with free downloads from other popular artists that are related in style or aesthetic. We do this with free roster-wide Family mixtapes and playlists. One of the most satisfying aspects of what we do is seeing people come into our store through one particular artist they’re a fan of, and then come back a few weeks later to pick up an album by another artist they learned about through the free mixtape that came with their previous order.

Read the piece here.

The action is somewhere between the album and the hit single

I loved that line from this great article in the LA Times.

The problem is, we still haven't devised a language to describe the increasingly vibrant area between the two poles of the studio album and the hit single. It's existed since the dawn of the modern-day music industry, this territory of remixes and B-sides and EPs and homemade tapes. And in 2011, this realm is increasingly where the action is.

The article ranges across the very large area that is the modern music business and how artists are taking advantage of the new tools and opportunities to do innovative things with their careers.

It's well worth a read and hopefully it will give you an idea of a new and different way to bring your music to your fans.

Read the article here.