muz4now on Mastodon
A neon sign says "OPEN"

Sometimes Being Unsigned Means DIY – #IndieMusician

Things change. And — especially when you’re unsigned — clarity is a good thing.

Unsigned Musician

Musician Discovered - hands on a musical keyboard

Over the years, many of the platforms that claim to be on the side of unsigned musicians have fallen away. This leaves people like me filling the void left by those failed services.

But wait a minute: what’s this “unsigned” thing? Well, I used to prefer “independent musician“. However, there’s something misleading about that phrase.

Being a musician not signed to a record label does not mean having to do-it-myself. I still reach out to friends, collaborators, and many more who make this a “do it together” approach. In other words, unsigned does not mean independent.

Say “Bye-Bye”

Social Networking

Some people reading this will remember how MySpace said that it was going to be the haven for indie musicians at one time. But we all know that this is a great example of a platform that failed to deliver. And eventually failed on every level.

Similarly, other social networks have become more challenging for unsigned musicians and bands with little or no budget for paid advertising. These platforms lured us in with big promises, but nearly all of them fail to deliver for the unsigned musician. Other socials have simply become too much of a troll zone. The last thing a musician without a staff needs is one more thing to eat up time. We want to use our time for creating and recording.

Whip This

A screen capture says "Songwhip Sunset - Songwhip services will cease from July 22, 2024". Just one more loss for unsigned musicians.

One recent platform failure is SongWhip. This web application was the easy way to make a page that included all streaming platforms for a particular release. Though many labels used this platform, I think it was especially popular with unsigned acts.

As of July 22, 2024, SongWhip is no more. A few of the pages seem to be working, but new content can no longer be created. As far as I’ve been able to find, there was no explanation by the platform or journalists for the failure.

Platforms Unsigned

Social Network icons

My old approach was to find a different service to take over for the failed one. When MySpace died, I switched to Twitter. When Twitter became a cesspool, I befriended folk on Mastodon and Bluesky.

However, other sites like BandCamp and SongWhip are not strictly social. They are functional. In addition to several other functions, BandCamp allows for streaming plays embedded in almost any sort of website. In the case of SongWhip, it was a sharing tool that easily captured the various streaming radios when you input a song name.

I tried a few other song sharing platforms. There are some that are quite helpful and others that required lots of technical setup. But too many of them add their own branding to the share. For example, Hyperfollow emblazons “DistroKid” over the album/single cover image. And who’s to say if some of these other platforms will survive any better than SongWhip?

DIY

So, in this case, I decided to literally do-it-myself. I’m adding my releases to individual pages that have a look somewhat similar to SongWhip, but over which I have more control.

You may follow the growing number of albums, suites (EPs), and singles that I’ve built so far on a page here. I will be adding more there as time permits. As of today, I have over 112 releases and about 100 of those are available on dozens of streaming platforms.

Thanks for reading and especially for listening!

2 thoughts on “Sometimes Being Unsigned Means DIY – #IndieMusician”

Leave Your Response

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.