[smopo24]

Originally Posted by GearJunkie

mike's comments about labels being around but being on the internet, i'll agree with, because they need it for promotions. distribution on the internet is super easy. itunes, purevolume, you name it. it's not like you're gonna go to itunes and they'll be OUT of the album you wanna buy.

Labels are looking for a good MySpace presence though when they're signing a band. What it says to labels is "this band knows how to sell themselves, they know how to promote, and we're not going to have to work as hard on promotion and whatnot if they're already doing it." 90% of the time if i'm watching Letterman or Conan or god forbid, Leno, and I see a band I like, 9 times out of 10 I can go to "www.myspace.com/whateverthebandsnameis" and hear the song I just heard a second ago. Every band is on it. Bands that are recently signed usually have some intern setting up a MySpace account for the band before ink is dry on the contract, assuming the band doesn't already have a well working account already.

Bands that become a "featured artist" on a weekly basis on myspace get an average of 45000 plays A DAY. THAT is your gung-ho promotion, that is your print-ads in rollingstone. Who needs them when you get stuff like that. These 14-15-16 year old kids that troll myspace all day long and keep up on their bulletins are the ones that LIVE for stuff like this. Putting a bulletin up saying "we're gonna be on Letterman tonight" brings in big numbers, and with 3rd party companies making myspace "letter sending programs" can automatically find the people close to the city you're playing next, and send out an automated email saying "hey, i saw you live in pittsburg. tomorrow night we're playing x-bar and go on at 8 pm. hope to see you there." The promotion costs go down, the band can pull in their KEY MARKET and do exactly what they want to do.

MySpace is a huge thing for labels to look at, and I just wish it was able to treat the artists as well as they could be.

I couldn't agree more. MySpace is now the best promotion a band can have for nothing. It has been (besides YouTube) a huge part of new music being discovered in the last several years. Radio and TV are still king, but a lot of kids are actively searching on MySpace for their new favorite band.