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I just had an argument with Danny Darko..lol
Nah, actually it was very civil,however it was based on a post on his facebook page.
Danny had a remix contest in which I followed very closely. Astonishingly enough, within the first week of being opened I started noticing astronomical numbers of listens on certain entrants. Some exceeded the 5 digit marks,granted..I noticed that alot of those had no likes or comments and this really made me think about the legitimacy of those entries.
Through a period of 1 month those numbers on 15 of the submits increased into over 100k. Comments were dated middle of the month on about a 1/3 of those and the remaining barely any at all.

Danny today stated that the contest is in its final phase of selecting the top 150 (which bordered on 10k supposedly,yes there was alot but there must have been another way to post your remix which was not advertised,but what I saw was dramatically less) and although the contest was over, you could still use media blogs to promote.
This got me really curious.

Now, my debate with him was this. Another person posted the exact same thing I was thinking stating that this contest was all about promoting and not the music.
I tended to agree,especially since I had been monitoring the submits very closely. This seemed more like a promotion stemming from label blogs in which I admit I know really nothing at all.

However, I did some research and found that the top blogs for electronic music have nearly the same system with some minor differences in others.
You pay 10-100$ for a guaranteed selection to be featured on their site. Some even refund your money if it does not get featured. However,most claim they have the inside edge to labels,etc. When imho there really is no such thing. Or...am I wrong?
At the same time, even if this is the current state of the industry,and it is legit in what you pay for, still the question that was asked is not answered. What about the music?
Is this what it is coming to? Blogs?

First off, never, ever, ever, believe page views or listens. It's all bollocks.

A friend of mine up until recently worked as social media director and producer for a decent size internet TV and Media company. We would talk about their numbers and revenue.

Having worked for quite a while in that field, I told her it didn't make sense. She asked which bit. I told her all of it. There was no way they were getting the impressions, page likes or youtubes view that they were basing their content value on.

Over time, she realized that in a company of about 80, there were 4 people who worked that no one knew what their role was. If you asked senior management you got vague answers like - they handle the infrastructure coding or they're "in IT".

She got more and more suspicious and although she always knew the business was an exit strategy play (i.e. found it, build up awareness and content then have some big media company come in and buy it for 8 or 9 figures) she started to worry about job security.

One night, her and a few work colleagues were out getting lashed and they bump in to one of the very senior directors, get him lashed and he accidentally mumbles something about the "IT" guys and page rankings.

Well, several drinks and a lot of flirting later, he spills it that all of the figures are utter bullshit, that the IT team just build bots and really advanced ways to jack up page views, likes, listens and youtube plays by a factor of 10 without getting caught.

Needless to say she and a few others started making exit plans but it turns out this sort of thing is absolutely rife both in music, TV and online portal. The figures are compelately meaningless.

Do you really think a guy you doesn't even have 25k followers on facebook, and doesn't have more than 10k followers on his instagram or twitter can really get a remix competition going with certain entries having over 100,000 plays.

Nope.

I would belive that that many people might submit a remix (900 odd people) as he first stated everyone is a producer these days and Any muppet with garageband or FL can churn out a remix in a few minutes, but get that many legit plays? and then annouce over 10,000 people submitted remixes? Bullshit. I doubt Armin would get that many submissions if he offered to sign your summer belter with an advance to Vagina Beach.

Not on your life.

I even know one DJ that set up a room of networked computers all with a script to refesh every 30 seconds so he would get 60 likes a minutes, and then left it all going for a week. Voila! 6+ million plays.

Now at the same time, some blogs have a lot of draw but not the numbers that you're talking about and certainly not for a EDM remix competition.

So sure, it might be about promoting, because he's obviously fiddling the figures himself and his main focus is on big numbers, so he can tell everyone "out of 10,000 submissions for MY remix, this one got over 100,000 plays and 20,000 comments! Everyone likes it so you will too!".

I can second that. A lot of the numbers are for marketing purposes, i.e. getting to a target number for higher payouts on commercial campaigns. Youtube goes to great lenghts to validate legitimacy of impressions but still doesn't do all too well.

So then...the answer is Yes, this is the state of the industry
At the end of the day however, the answer is still unanswered.
What about the music.
I mean, I am stumped. If listener counts are meaningless than where is the foundation for basing a winner[s]?

quote:

Originally posted by SystematicX1 So then...the answer is Yes, this is the state of the industry At the end of the day however, the answer is still unanswered. What about the music. I mean, I am stumped. If listener counts are meaningless than where is the foundation for basing a winner[s]?

Contests need to be judged. A winner shouldn't be determined by how many plays or votes they get. That's just straight retarded because the best song doesn't end up winning, the best exploiter does.

But the industry will never do it that way, because they want all these toolbags out there spamming links and forcing this crap down peoples throats to gain more viewership. Unfortunately, along with the spammers, you get the script miners and desperate folks paying $$$ for views/votes. There are even vote exchanges where you can go to and exchange your vote for another person's vote in whatever contest each person is in.

It's quite sad what electronic music has devolved into. I personally just tune it all out and do my own thing, make my own music, be my own critic, and could care less about ever "making it big" or even getting a lick of exposure. It's all a selfish hobby for me. But I feel sorry for those of you who are after exposure and making it big because you're no longer gauged by the quality of music you make; but rather your ability to generate a "social" following (whether it be real or hacked)

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Originally posted by DjStephenWiley Contests need to be judged. A winner shouldn't be determined by how many plays or votes they get. That's just straight retarded because the best song doesn't end up winning, the best exploiter does. But the industry will never do it that way, because they want all these toolbags out there spamming links and forcing this crap down peoples throats to gain more viewership. Unfortunately, along with the spammers, you get the script miners and desperate folks paying $$$ for views/votes. There are even vote exchanges where you can go to and exchange your vote for another person's vote in whatever contest each person is in. It's quite sad what electronic music has devolved into. I personally just tune it all out and do my own thing, make my own music, be my own critic, and could care less about ever "making it big" or even getting a lick of exposure. It's all a selfish hobby for me. But I feel sorry for those of you who are after exposure and making it big because you're no longer gauged by the quality of music you make; but rather your ability to generate a "social" following (whether it be real or hacked)

That is exactly how I feel. I mean, it is freakin sad to see this shit.
I am so glad I am not part of this circus shitstorm and have always wondered about the "producers" who have gained social popularity. At some point in your career your going to have to take orders from someone in order to get to a point where you dont have to take orders again and call your own shots.
I cannot even imagine the new talent coming out in today's market and what they have to deal with.
Blogs..my ass

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller I can second that. A lot of the numbers are for marketing purposes, i.e. getting to a target number for higher payouts on commercial campaigns. Youtube goes to great lenghts to validate legitimacy of impressions but still doesn't do all too well.

True - this is why they had a secret team of devs whose sole job it was to circumnavigate the best practices and not get caught.

quote:

Originally posted by Wiley Contests need to be judged. A winner shouldn't be determined by how many plays or votes they get. That's just straight retarded because the best song doesn't end up winning, the best exploiter does. But the industry will never do it that way, because they want all these toolbags out there spamming links and forcing this crap down peoples throats to gain more viewership. Unfortunately, along with the spammers, you get the script miners and desperate folks paying $$$ for views/votes. There are even vote exchanges where you can go to and exchange your vote for another person's vote in whatever contest each person is in. It's quite sad what electronic music has devolved into. I personally just tune it all out and do my own thing, make my own music, be my own critic, and could care less about ever "making it big" or even getting a lick of exposure. It's all a selfish hobby for me. But I feel sorry for those of you who are after exposure and making it big because you're no longer gauged by the quality of music you make; but rather your ability to generate a "social" following (whether it be real or hacked)

Great post. Contest need to be judged, not just the sum of completely arbitrary vote numbers which can be so easily faked.

Things need to be curated - it's an incredibly shallow and naive way of working if you're just going to select what will get the most votes.

In this specific instance, with Danny Darko, he's both faking the impressions he's getting and then making a selection based on fake impression numbers, so honestly this "competition" has nothing to do with participation or picking a winner, it's really about hyping himself up - "look how many people entered the contest to remix MY track, and look how many likes they got". This is all just self serving hype to get him noticed or maybe get him a better deal with a label. You should also realize his resume states "actor & DJ". He's just doing whatever he can to get noticed and frankly I doubt he gives a shit which one makes him famous or money but guarantee you it's not about the craft of either profession.

And herein the problem lies. I'll post it in another thread, but there's a great article called classics never die, about older DJ's vs young and what the scene and job is to both. I certainly don't agree with all if it but they make some valid points and pertinent to this discussion one is that there are incredible amounts of money to be made from doing very little if you're lucky/so inclined.

I've always felt you can't keep a good man down. Same with music or talent. Unless you really fuck it up, are a dick or self destructive, then quality always rises to the top, and when it does, by it's nature of ascension, it often stays there longer.

Good music gets discovered and I think the way we need to think about it now is that we have so many ways to promote it, the opportunity has never been bigger. Of course, if you just sit on that 6 minutes of eargasm inducing magic, it will never go anywhere, but sharing it to the world has never been easier.

The problem is that media in general right now is geared towards pushing dross because it's cool, or fits a trend or fronted by someone that can fistpump without having any self consciousness of how daft they look.

Great story, Rann. At first I wasn't sure whether it was going to be actual devs or just some guys they had hired to click up the likes and views all day long, lol.

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Originally posted by Zak McKracken maybe i should make a blogg about nothing

The Seinfeld of blogs.

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