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The Digital Blonde New Album

https://www.facebook.com/TheDigital...131309910232211

quote:

Well it�s a matter of weeks before the new digital blonde album NEON Comes out ,a lot of people are sounding confused about what this album is. I�ll explain, I fell in love with synthesizers at about the age of 10 and that still carry�s on , not plugins that pretend to be synthesisers but the real things. My first experiences hearing these machines where artist like vangelis jarre laserdance koto the mobiles and more or less anything where the synths stood out. My big love was synthwave and new beat from Belgium .. I dident have many freinds at school because I never really went out I was the sado that stayed at home playing with keyboards and drum machines. I don�t earn any money at all from all the tracks I�ve produced over the years. I�m actually a council worker that tarmacs roads on a minimal wage. My witches album was a lot of hard work and people even calling it the best album of 2018 but still got me me no further in my musical career and dident even earn me enough to buy a synth. So I�ve gone a bit selfish with neon and wrote stuff that takes me back to when music times were good and the word synthesiser actually meant something I�m fed up with trying to keep up with heartless transparent shit that is the music called trance now. Even the big djs that are so called true to the scene are playing places like asot and Tomorrowland and all these pop concert places ( its bollox ) So neon will be the ultimate stand and statement for me but the ultimate marmite album for you blonde fans You will love it or hate it 80s It is dark blonde with an 80s synthwave edge. Because I love real synths and I love real electronic music. And I will stay a council tarmacker forever if I have to. But will never start making the crap that�s killed the scene dead or play at a huge fake disco that is a so called trance party. The digital blonde

I like it when Ricky speaks out like that, not taking any shit & not listening to what others might think he should do as an artist.
A bit shocking to find he doesn't earn a penny from what he's been releasing over the years, but perhaps that's my lack of knowledge of the business. It doesn't cost much these days to make digital releases available at the usual online outlets but it earns your artists fuck all even when it's J00F Rec.?

Nice to see NEON will still be released on J00F as it says J00F on the cover image on Ricky's FB. I am curious.

No point of putting others down to better yourself. With all due respect, everyone knows if you wish to make money out of this business you have to re-invent yourself and play live as much as you can; you have to hustle and be a pig to grind. It sucks that producing underground music doesnt yield money but at the same time its nice because you stick around because you love it.

I'd say it's actually easier than ever to make a living out of EXTREMLY niche music these days (since the scene is so fragmented and there is an audience for everything through the internet) but you HAVE to gig.

The Digital Blonde does gig, but his sound is so firmly in the J00F niche that he's not going to fit on many line ups. He doesn't really fit in either the psy scene or modern trance. From what I've heard, he's not one for the music industry game of networking and self-promoting either.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony I'd say it's actually easier than ever to make a living out of EXTREMLY niche music these days (since the scene is so fragmented and there is an audience for everything through the internet) but you HAVE to gig.

Isn't that kind os a self defeating argument? Gigging is the toughest part of the industry /job (and all it entails; securing the gig, dealing with managers, agents and promoters, travel, promoting the gigs etc) so if that's the only way to make money from niche music, then it's kinda the hardest.

Just making niche music earns you exact $fuckall these days, whereas you could last make a few hundred a release back in the old days of vinyl or maybe a few hundred/couple of thousand per remix up front.

Its a brilliant epic fkn rant.

I hope the album is good & more importantly different to standard Digi Blonde.

It's kinda crazy that this guy makes objectively GOOD and unique Trance\Electronic music, yet it's somehow not good enough for him to be successful because people prefer Trance that is objectively BAD\Boring.

I see the attention\success that boring Trance producers get and it's really mind boggling.

Look at this party he played, fucking depressing...like performing at a bar mitzva party


Morons show their wisdom in the comments:

quote:

Originally posted by Viber It's kinda crazy that this guy makes objectively GOOD and unique Trance\Electronic music, yet it's somehow not good enough for him to be successful because people prefer Trance that is objectively BAD\Boring. I see the attention\success that boring Trance producers get and it's really mind boggling. Look at this party he played, fucking depressing...like performing at a bar mitzva party Morons show their wisdom in the comments:

The current crowd wants to hear aggressive bad and noisy stuff. My friends from High School seem to love Above & Beyond because they said it is harder lol and more energetic. People can be so rude on the internet. I think people were expecting to hear that euphoric trance sound from the likes of space brothers, liquid and 4 strings etc etc which is not the DB sound.

Anyway, I noticed that JOOF got a lot more crowd numbers in this set below which is a shame that known producers get far more attention. It seems to be harder to breakthrough for guys who have had to adapt to the changes.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Isn't that kind os a self defeating argument? Gigging is the toughest part of the industry /job (and all it entails; securing the gig, dealing with managers, agents and promoters, travel, promoting the gigs etc) so if that's the only way to make money from niche music, then it's kinda the hardest. Just making niche music earns you exact $fuckall these days, whereas you could last make a few hundred a release back in the old days of vinyl or maybe a few hundred/couple of thousand per remix up front.

Maybe "easy" was the wrong word but what I wanted to say is that way more people than ever before earn a fulltime living off niche music now. You have people touring fulltime now that made seriously weird and obscure records back in the day that nobody paid attention to. There is a Syrian wedding singer (Omar Souleyman) that is toruing major european dance music festivals now.

The problem with trance of course is that it's fairly insular, a lot of festival that try to appeal with credible bookings aren't going to have a trance stage.

Also this set is very good. Especially, the track at 27 mins



racklist:
01. 21street - Endless Space
02. Airwave - A Touch Of Grace (Deep And Dark Mix) [BONZAI PROG ]
03. The Digital Blonde - Noc2one (Midnight Mix) [JOOF ]
04. ID - ID
05. The Digital Blonde - Rainsong
06. Alex Di Stefano - Kidnap Your Soul [JOOF ]
07. LowKey & Kardinal - Bells Angels [ANALYTIC TRAIL ]
08. John 00 Fleming - Tik Tok (Part 1) [JOOF ]
09. Jam & Spoon - Follow Me (Relaunch Remix Main Version)
10. Gordey Tsukanov - Minotaur [SATURATE AUDIO ]
11. The Digital Blonde - Hymm

quote:

Originally posted by Viber It's kinda crazy that this guy makes objectively GOOD and unique Trance\Electronic music, yet it's somehow not good enough for him to be successful because people prefer Trance that is objectively BAD\Boring. I see the attention\success that boring Trance producers get and it's really mind boggling. Look at this party he played, fucking depressing...like performing at a bar mitzva party Morons show their wisdom in the comments:

When you put profits ahead of quality.Too many dumbfucks on this planet.

quote:

Originally posted by Zak McKracken good underground artists shouldnt be on social media, they only screw it up. social media is a talent of its own and not for the introverted as decent musicians typically are.

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Originally posted by Omnisphere Too many dumbfucks

By all means. But it's typical of that kind of mutants on social media causing a distorted picture because those with that typical need to be negative (while presumably being too feeble-minded to be aware of it themselves) tend to be the most vocal - such as the gobshite repeatedly offending RS. If you want to do social media it may be good to have someone do it who knows how that diabolic world works, but you can't stop those fucking zombies from behaving like that as long as they have posting rights.

J00F appears to have announced new 00.db on the Twitter yesterday.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Just making niche music earns you exact $fuckall these days, whereas you could last make a few hundred a release back in the old days of vinyl or maybe a few hundred/couple of thousand per remix up front.

I came across this (admittedly 12-year old) post by chance where Eelke Kleijn wrote that

quote:

Originally posted by Six4Eight [22 March 2006] [...] the money that is made of digital releases is very welcome, as vinyl just tends to break even these days. I noticed some comments about MP3 sales being no match for the money that should be made of vinyl, but as far as my experience stretches that is not true. Sites like Beatport sell more than a thousand copies of popular tracks, which is definitely a welcome income on top of vinyl sales / compilation profits. Not entirely sure how that translates to digital trance sales but proper house / progressive tracks definitely make the label a good amount of money through digital distribution. [...]

Has the world of digital niche music sales changed so much over the years that even what he describes is a world long gone?

There is definitely some money in there, even someone like me who sold like zero tracks made a few hundred when I started. Probably not a living wage, but very-welcome indeed especially to offset studio cost. Not even sure how many tracks I sold on joofs imprint, probably not very much, I dont really care though.

Right now there are so many more people making amazing quality music compared to when Eelke posted that, there is quite a lot of competition, any footing helps tremendously in the sea: most of the genres are slowly coming together a lot of the time.

Zozy Blue and Camero 44:00

https://soundcloud.com/john00flemin...oves-183-lyktum

quote:

Originally posted by Midlothian I came across this (admittedly 12-year old) post by chance where Eelke Kleijn wrote that Has the world of digital niche music sales changed so much over the years that even what he describes is a world long gone?

I hate to say it but yes, his post is pretty much redundant 12 years later. At that point, digital sales were actually making money. Since then streaming took over, as did big room EDM which hasn't really helped sales in the grand scheme of things.

Another case in point, he predicted that Vinyl sales will soon die due to rising oil prices and running out of fossil fuels, but that hasn't happened and vinyl sales are at record breaking highs, even outstripping digital sales.

His view then wasn't wrong for the current time, but it's changed so much since then, as have revenue streams. Shit, 12 years ago, Beatport was probably peaking, we didn't yet have the US EDM boom or Calvin Harris making $200k a hour in Vegas yet and Pandora had only just launched, with spotify not coming for several years later.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Shit, 12 years ago, Beatport was probably peaking

Do you have any factual data to back that up? Streaming aside pretty sure beatport has been growing over these years. Electronic music has been getting far more popular in the last 5 years than 12 years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by MSZ Do you have any factual data to back that up? Streaming aside pretty sure beatport has been growing over these years. Electronic music has been getting far more popular in the last 5 years than 12 years ago.

You can't just say "streaming aside". Nobody except DJs and hardcore music nerds buys downloads anymore. I know a lot of people that kinda casually listen to electronic music (techno/house, not even EDM stuff). NONE of them buy downloads. Some of them buy some vinyl here and there but digitally, it's all Youtube, Soundcloud, Spotify. And hardcore music nerds tend to buy on Bandcamp now since they are more indie and music-nerd friendly, artists can set prices, lossless tends to be cheaper and the artists gets a bigger cut. And DJs get sent everything for free as promos now since promo networks have exploded in the last 5 years or so. So who the fuck is left buying on Beatport?

But you know what, they totally deserve it. The site rework was total nonsense, on the new version it's impossible to find anything anymore. And they still cling to bullshit lossless and exclusivity fees and take huge cuts like it's 2006. The "I'm going to charge a huge premium for 'high quality' files and then take a huge cut" model has been outdated for years. I'm fairly certain that Bandcamp is the only download site that's growing right now and that's because they realized that people that download music in 2018 want an immediate connection to the artist and not corporate bullshit. Bandcamp has also smartly integrated social and streaming features into their service without it feeling corporate and tacked on. They do really nice coverage of indie music and they give fans the spotlight with the collections thing. I've found some really nice music just browsing someone's collection that purchased another release and evidently has good taste. There's also an entire sphere of musicians on Bandcamp now (mostly ambient, indie, shoegaze stuff etc.) that would have never put their music on Beatport or other traditional download sites with all the distributor bullshit that you need to get on there.

Actually, Beatport's revenue is booming at the moment, last year almost doubling: https://djmag.com/content/techno-re...t-selling-genre

As I see it, the site's core market has always been digital DJs, and the vast majority of them don't use Bandcamp to buy individual tunes. No one I know does that. Dance music right now is at a level of popularity not seen since the Millennium, and so there are more bedroom DJs than ever.

As for casual fans, I'd say they were always more likely to listen to mixes or compilations than buy individual files from specialist websites. It felt to me like Beatport's streaming model was an attempt to monetise casual EDM listeners rather than recapture disappearing revenue.

Beatport have recently acquired what was pulselocker and its on their roadmap to introduce a streaming service for DJs using pulselocker tech q1 next year with access to their entire catalog.

Id expect that will probably coincide with (and be built into) the next release of Traktor, which NIs recent cash injection seems to have brought back to life.

Im quite exicted about it tbh.

Seems like people are living in bubbles, again until I see some numbers all im reading is heresay. I think you guys underestimate how many djs there actually are since the initial boom of edms styled genres(they probably moved on to techno, some variation of house cheese or not, liquid dnb whatever) with the combination of laptop/controller tech enabling said people.

Also albums are still pretty decent in penetration of semi-casual listeners, I can tell you a person or two who made a few grand in the last couple years but im not breaching privacy. Again its not a living no doubt, but its not no money.

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